R4R Freedom of Information Act and Discord

[St George]

1. What law, government policy, or action (taken by a government official) do you request that the Court review?

The lack of declassification of private government records from the TNP Executive Discord that reach one year of age by multiple successive governments.

2. What portions of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Legal Code, or other legal document do you believe has been violated by the above? How so?

Section 7.5 of the Legal Code: Freedom of Information Act, specifically clause 34:

Spoiler: 7.5

Section 7.5: Freedom of Information Act

31. For the purposes of this section "the government" refers to the Delegate and the Executive Officers, including the departments which they oversee.

32. For the purposes of this section, classified information is that which fits any of the below definitions:

• Real life information about any NationStates player from which there is a risk of inferring that player's real life identity and which has not willingly been disclosed to the public, including, but not limited to, an individual's name, IP address, physical address or location, phone number, place of employment or education, appearance, social media accounts, and other knowledge about a player, unless the player in question provides explicit consent for this information not to be considered private.
  
  
• Real life information about any NationStates player for which there exists a reasonable real life expectation of privacy or discretion, including, but not limited to, health status, both mental and physical; financial status; personal tragedies; changes in personal status such as marriage, divorce, pregnancy, birth, or death; and other similar information, unless the player in question provides explicit consent for this information not to be considered private.
  
  
• Information that, upon being made public, would jeopardize any ongoing military or intelligence operations; or jeopardize the security of units and agents participating in them, or be harmful to the diplomatic interests, military interests, or security of The North Pacific.
  

33. Notwithstanding any process for publication, any information which meets the criteria to be classified will not be released.

34. Private government records which reach one year of age will be relocated to the appropriate Declassified Archive visible to residents.

35. At any time a resident may request the release of any private record from the Government through the Delegate and the designated officers of the Executive.

36. The Delegate and the designated officers of the Executive will retrieve information requested from the different departments of the government.

37. Residents who do not receive this information for any reason not specifically designated in appropriate laws or regulations may file a request for the information to the court, where the Delegate and the designated officers of the Executive may present evidence that addresses any claim that release of the information meets one or more of the acceptable acceptable criteria for classification.

38. Information appropriately not disclosed will be accepted as classified by a majority vote of the Court sitting as a three-member panel.

Private government records in the legal code is not defined solely as private government records held on the forum, an area to which declassification has previously been applied to only. I believe that due to this, declassification of private government records from the TNP Executive Discord server should have occurred and multiple TNP governments has failed in this area.

3. Are there any prior rulings of the Court that support your request for review? Which ones, and how?

None I am aware of.

4. Please establish your standing by detailing how you, personally, have been adversely affected. If you are requesting a review of a governmental action, you must include how any rights or freedoms of yours have been violated. If you are submitting this request in your capacity as the Attorney General or their designee, please note that here instead.

As a citizen, the lack of disclosure has prevented proper oversight of government actions by the wider citizenry and regional assembly.

5. Do you have any further information you wish to submit to the Court with your request?

There remains a practical obstacle to releasing old cabinet records from the Executive discord server, in that incoming governments have their own executive council channels created and the previous ones are, I assume, either deleted or archived. It is thus difficult for a government to declassify these channels at the required one year point.

 

[Eluvatar]

This request for review is accepted. The period for submitting briefs is now open.

 

[Oracle]

As Speaker, I would support the declassification of information from the Executive Server, or for any government server (Executive, AG, Speaker etc.). I feel after a certain amount of time information should be available to the residents of the region as intended by the law. From my understanding, the law does not stipulate where it applies much as MadJack states. The process of collecting the logs has been stated to be one of the most difficult aspects of the process, either due to the deletion of the channel or archived where no-one can access.

It was brought up in discussion within the #citizens-chat on TNPGen that a bot could capture all of the logs and export them to a markdown file. Obviously, this would need to be done once that channel has been archived on the server or done at prior to the one year mark to allow for time to review the logs for classified material to be redacted. This would bring up the issue as to who would control the bot, who would have access to the archived channel to run the logging command and who would review the logs, as well as the process this would have to follow.

Ultimately the law is ambiguous as to where it applies. I firmly believe that it is crafted in that manner to apply to all mediums in which the Government of TNP operates, whether that is via the forum, Discord, Telegram, or even IRC and the FOIA should apply to any and all mediums used by the Government.

 

[St George]

There doesn't seem to be that much interest in submitting briefs on this topic. Would the court prefer I withdraw my request or is it happy to go forwards?

 

[Eluvatar]

This is going forward.

 

[Eluvatar]

Ruling of the Court of The North Pacific
In regards to the judicial inquiry filed by St George on the Freedom of Information Act and Off-forum Content
Opinion drafted by Eluvatar and SillyString, joined by Owenstacey​

The Court took into consideration the inquiry filed here by St George.

The Court took into consideration the legal brief filed here by Artemis.

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Bill of Rights of The North Pacific:

9. Each Nation in The North Pacific is guaranteed the organization and operation of the governmental authorities of the region on fundamental principles of democracy, accountability, and transparency. No action by the governmental authorities of the region shall deny to any Nation of The North Pacific, due process of law, including prior notice and the opportunity to be heard, nor deny to any Nation of The North Pacific the equal and fair treatment and protection of the provisions of the Constitution. No governmental authority shall have power to adopt or impose an ex post facto law or a bill of attainder as to any act for purposes of criminal proceedings.

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Legal Code of The North Pacific:

Section 7.5: Freedom of Information Act

31. For the purposes of this section "the government" refers to the Delegate and the Executive Officers, including the departments which they oversee.
32. For the purposes of this section, classified information is that which fits any of the below definitions:

• Real life information about any NationStates player from which there is a risk of inferring that player's real life identity and which has not willingly been disclosed to the public, including, but not limited to, an individual's name, IP address, physical address or location, phone number, place of employment or education, appearance, social media accounts, and other knowledge about a player, unless the player in question provides explicit consent for this information not to be considered private.
• Real life information about any NationStates player for which there exists a reasonable real life expectation of privacy or discretion, including, but not limited to, health status, both mental and physical; financial status; personal tragedies; changes in personal status such as marriage, divorce, pregnancy, birth, or death; and other similar information, unless the player in question provides explicit consent for this information not to be considered private.
• Information that, upon being made public, would jeopardize any ongoing military or intelligence operations; or jeopardize the security of units and agents participating in them, or be harmful to the diplomatic interests, military interests, or security of The North Pacific.

33. Notwithstanding any process for publication, any information which meets the criteria to be classified will not be released.
34. Private government records which reach one year of age will be relocated to the appropriate Declassified Archive visible to residents.
35. At any time a resident may request the release of any private record from the Government through the Delegate and the designated officers of the Executive.
36. The Delegate and the designated officers of the Executive will retrieve information requested from the different departments of the government.
37. Residents who do not receive this information for any reason not specifically designated in appropriate laws or regulations may file a request for the information to the court, where the Delegate and the designated officers of the Executive may present evidence that addresses any claim that release of the information meets one or more of the acceptable acceptable criteria for classification.
38. Information appropriately not disclosed will be accepted as classified by a majority vote of the Court sitting as a three-member panel.

The Court took into consideration its ruling on the meaning of "private citizen" with respect to the Freedom of Information Act

It is the status of the author and not the topic which determines whether a post is subject to FOIA. So long as the author is speaking in their capacity as an executive official, the law applies.

The Court expands on the above by issuing the following additional rulings:

First, the Court states that all posts made within areas of the forum which normally grant posting privileges only to members of the executive - excluding administrators and moderators from consideration - are inherently made in the author's capacity as an executive official. Such posts cannot be considered non-governmental. Posts which are made in areas of the forum more accessible to the public may be ruled non-governmental if such a determination is merited by their content and context.

The Court opines the following:

On Standing in this Inquiry

The Court has determined that St George does have the standing to bring this request for review. The Freedom of Information Act implements the fundamental principle of transparency as laid out in the bill of rights, and mandates proactive disclosure of non-private information by the executive branch so that the public can scrutinize its doings. By failing to release information as required, the executive prevents the public from performing this critical oversight. Any resident thus has a possible claim that their right to democracy, accountability, and transparency has been violated when they believe a broad failure to release has occurred.

On the Scope of the Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act states that “private government records” are subject to release upon reaching a certain age, or upon request from a resident. It does not limit its scope to only content located on the official forum of The North Pacific. The term “private record” is not explicitly defined, but it is implicitly contrasted with declassified archives that are “visible to residents”.

In its prior rulings on the Freedom of Information Act and the ownership of content, the Court made consistent references to “posts” in “areas of the forum”, rather than more generic references to any type of content. At the time the rulings were issued, Discord was not in use by the region, and the vast majority of government business was conducted on the official forum. It was also regular practice by government officials at that time to post transcripts of any official IRC chats that occurred into the relevant areas of the forum to maintain a formal record of proceedings. Additionally, the requests for review that led to these rulings were made in reference to specific topics and posts on the official forum - they were not requests to determine, more broadly, the media to which FOIA applied.

The Court therefore rules that the Freedom of Information Act applies to any platform on which TNP government business is conducted.

On the Ownership of Content

In light of the above decision, the Court has examined its prior rulings on this subject to determine if they still apply, or if any further clarifications are necessary. In its rulings on content ownership and the meaning of “private citizen”, the court stated:

As an additional finding, on the matter of ownership, the Court holds that the author of a post owns its content, and posts made while acting in one's capacity as a government official are owned, more broadly, by the respective branch of government within which that capacity falls.

So long as the author is speaking in their capacity as an executive official, the law applies.

First, the Court states that all posts made within areas of the forum which normally grant posting privileges only to members of the executive - excluding administrators and moderators from consideration - are inherently made in the author's capacity as an executive official. Such posts cannot be considered non-governmental. Posts which are made in areas of the forum more accessible to the public may be ruled non-governmental if such a determination is merited by their content and context.

The Court therefore issues the following clarifications to the above rulings:

1. The author of any message, not just of a forum post, owns its content, and any messages written while acting in one’s capacity as a government official are owned by the respective branch of government within which that capacity falls.
2. All messages made within spaces that normally only grant access privileges to members of the executive - excluding administrators and moderators from consideration - are inherently written in the author’s capacity as an executive official. Such messages cannot be considered non-governmental. Messages written in spaces that are more accessible to the public may be ruled non-governmental if such a determination is merited by their content and context.
3. For the purposes of FOIA, as specified in clause 31, posts made by members of the executive staff within executive spaces are considered to be owned by the executive department they are part of, and therefore by the executive as a whole.

 

[Dinoium]

I would like to thank the Court for releasing this ruling and making this decision.