7/20/99

FOI Alert No. 5

Re: Office of Information Practices proposed rules for appeals After reviewing and re-reviewing the proposed rules, I have come to the conclusion that they should be dramatically revised. The proposal sets up a far more bureaucratic and complex structure than is needed. Basically, the draft rules create a court appellate system. They do so while avoiding calling for a contested case hearing. A person might as well hire an attorney to go to Circuit Court because these proposed rules would make the person doalmost the same things. Why can't it be a simple system: person files an appeal with reasons why it should be open, agency files its response, the OIP sits down and goes over the document and arguments and decides what should be public or not? The proposed system is cumbersome, time-consumingand not worth pursuing. It will further backlog the OIP. It will force people to continue to bypass the OIP.Stirling Morita Freedom of Information Committee Chairman Hawaii chapter, Society of Professional Journalists

6/21/99

FOI Alert #4

The Office of Information Practices has prepared a draft set 
of rules to handle appeals of agency decisions on release
of information.

The office is seeking comment on them from June 30 to 
July 30.

A copy of the draft and an impact statement are at the OIP Web
page: http://www.state.hi.us/oip

If you would like a copy of the draft rules, contact me at 
smorita@aloha.com and I will mail or fax the rules to you.

6/4/99

FOI Alert #3

I'm sure many of you are aware of the problems resulting
from the lack of identities of those injured in the Sacred
Falls rockslide. Differing totals at hospitals in competing
media, calls from friends looking for injured and trying to 
find out how they are.

The Oahu Civil Defense Agency withheld the information
because of privacy.

I finally found out what the agency was talking about.

Toby Clairmont of Civil Defense says the names of the
injured came from the hospitals, not the police or firefighters.
The agency has an agreement with the Healthcare 
Association of Hawaii that it can receive the identities of
the injured but cannot disclose them to third parties. He 
says hospitals are not allowed to identify their patients
under the federal Health Care Financing Act.

So what the agency did was set up an arrangement with
the Red Cross, which people would contact. The hospital
then would deal directly with the family members who
called in.

Clairmont says that if the names had come from police, 
fire or other government agencies, Civil Defense would
have released the information.

The bottom line is the information came from private
agencies, not public ones.

This same thing could happen in the next nonairline 
disaster. We'll get copies of the agreement and the
federal legislation.

5/15/99

FOI Alert #2 was a correction to start date of the medial privacy bill in FOI Alert #1. That date is July 1, 2000.

5/14/99

FOI Alert #1

Greetings:

This is the first of reports on Freedom of Information
issues in Hawaii from the Hawaii Chapter, Society of 
Professional Journalists.

If you do not wish to receive this report, please let me
know at smorita@aloha.com

If you know of anyone who should or would like to receive 
it, also please let me know.

MEDICAL PRIVACY BILL

We have a major problem facing us after June 30, 2000. 
That's when a bill recently passed by the Legislature goes
into effect.

In essence, the bill bars hospitals and other health-care
agencies from releasing the medical conditions of 
patients. It does so by requiring the facilities to get the 
approval of patients or their representatives before
releasing the information. As you well know, this in
almost all cases will not be given.

This would result in the news media being unable to 
determine or report the seriousness of accidents or crimes. 
The public would be unaware of how serious crime is in their 
neighborhoods or how bad the roads or speeding conditions
are.

The chapter testified about this during a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing on the Senate bill and written testimony
in the Judiciary/Health and Human Services hearing on the
House counterpart measure. Judiciary Co-Chairman Avery 
Chumbley said the committee would take care of the problem.
The committee never did.

When the matter went to conference committee, I faxed 
each conferee our objections. Rep. Nestor Garcia, a 
former television newsman, called back and said he would
try to buy time for the chapter to come up with language for
an exemption.

Peggy Jenkins Leong, the Star-Bulletin's attorney, drafted 
an exemption, and we faxed it to Garcia. Leong, as requested
by Garcia, contacted Moya Gray, Office of Information Practices
director, who headed a task force on medical privacy. Leong
told me that Gray said she was just codifying existing practice,
and Leong replied that it is not the current practice. Gray did
not raise any objections after that, according to Leong.

We found out later from Garcia that the Senate would not
accept the amendment. He was upset with Gray's insistence
that the bill does not change current practices.

The chapter will be asking Gov. Cayetano to veto the bill. 
You may want to do the same.

We face a great uphill battle if we wait until next year - given
the resistance by the Office of Information Practices.

OFFICE OF INFORMATION PRACTICES RULES

The chapter predicted that the newly enacted rules for the 
release of public records could hamstring news operations.
The way the rules are written an agency could withhold 
regularly releasable records for up to 10 days, the SPJ 
chapter has told OIP.

Well, it has happened twice at the Star-Bulletin.

If it has happened to your outlet, I would urge you to report
it to Moya Gray. She has said she didn't think it would be a
problem, but would monitor it.

If you want to let me know, that would be great too. I'll keep
tabs on this end.

That's about it for now,

Cheers,

Stirling Morita
FOI Committee Chairman
Hawaii chapter, SPJ

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