Open government is good government or, at the very least, it is better government.
In order for government to be of, by and for the people, it must always be out in front of the people.
Government at all levels â local, state and federal â belongs to the governed not to the governing.
As has often been said, we are the government and the government is us.
All the business transacted by government and all the money collected and spent by government belongs to the public.
However, public oversight is only possible when government is open, transparent and accessible.
Nefarious deeds happen in the dark, behind closed doors.
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Atlanta Magazine
Yes, it’s legal to record a phone call in Georgia without telling the other person
Donald Trump’s hour-long chat with Brad Raffensperger highlighted a detail in Georgia’s law
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger used Georgia’s “single-party consent” law to record his phone call with President Donald Trump.
Photograph by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images
One of the latest hairpin turns in the rollercoaster ride that is Georgia’s dual Senate runoff race took place this past weekend when the outgoing president of the United States spent an hour on the phone with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, regurgitating conspiracy theories and exhorting the state’s top election official to “find” enough votes to overturn the November election. That call now has been heard around the world, following the recording’s release to the
More often than not, it is the fine print in the work of lawmakers that threatens government transparency the most.Â
Assaults on the publicâs right to know are generally not found in bill captions or in what representatives and senators call their respective bills.Â
No one sponsors a piece of legislation and calls it Stripping Away the Publicâs Right to Know.Â
In fact, the greatest dangers are often found not in the main body of a bill, but in the amendment attached to it, the fine print.Â
It is common for amendments to be tacked on to bills at the last minute, coming out of nowhere. The vast majority of amendments are relatively benign. Others, unfortunately, are not.Â