FoI Reform Act

Following the decision of the Court this past March that Discord is included in 'private government records', Discord logs from a year ago in government channels should have been posted in the Declassified Archive by now. As of yet, that hasn't happened. This act intends to make it a necessity that this information is released and is done so in short order. Certainly, private residents do have the option to request it themselves, but the actual initiative to do so has not been taken yet and should not have to be taken; the government should release it without the need for prior prompting.

Can you be specific as to how the Speaker's office has been politicized?

Gorundu:

Can you be specific as to how the Speaker's office has been politicized?

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Of course. The office previously was something that acted more like a bureaucratic position where candidates only mentioned their experience and no ideas to really change the office. Now it has become politicized, because of an influx of new ideas about how the office should function has created competition amongst candidates. Besides that, due to recent controversies in the office over performance, it ought to be the right of the citizens to see what's actually going on in the office.

I'm pretty neutral on this. I have no problem declassifying older data as part of FOIA requests. However, this bill would add another layer of red tape for administrations to jump through. Dealing with specific FOIA requests is already difficult enough.

El Fiji Grande:

I'm pretty neutral on this. I have no problem declassifying older data as part of FOIA requests. However, this bill would add another layer of red tape for administrations to jump through. Dealing with specific FOIA requests is already difficult enough.

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And considering that, as far as I'm aware, the government's preferred option for declassifying the discord records isn't yet in place, I'd be very hesitant to support this until it is.

abc:

The second part of this bill is to address a change in government; that the Speaker's Office has become politicized

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You lost me there, ABC. We know this is your revenge on losing the Speaker election. Please, just stop. This office is not politicized. No one except you thinks that.

If anything, you’re politicized. It’s obvious that the reason why you’re all of a sudden you have been asking for Speaker Ethics is because you know there’s pieces of evidence that you can try and use to damage one of the office’s former or current employees.

Hell, if Wonderess proposed something like this since he is a big ethics lover, I might be inclined to support. He has always been preaching about ethics and transparency the moment he joined this region. You all of a sudden supported Speaker Ethics a little after you rejoined his region after you left the region of all of a sudden and resigned as Speaker, causing a vacancy problem right near the forum move. And right around then was the election where you were losing to your own Deputy Wonderess.

I support governmental transparency but your intentions are evil and most likely exist to damage someone’s reputation for your own leverage. If you want to rebuild your reputation, this isn’t the way. You’re probably best working back in Home Affairs where you were a Minister and 4x Deputy Minister in. That’s all I can say.

While I will remain reserved on the reasoning behind this bill I do have some suggestions for this bill.

A. Move the FOIA out from the Executive Chapter of the Legal code, since you wish to include the Speaker’s Office. The Speaker is not a part of the Executive Branch of the Government, so if we are wanting to include the Speaker’s office under the purview of the FOIA then the FOIA needs to be moved out of the Executive Chapter.

B. Or remove the Speaker’s office from the proposed bill and include a FOIA section under the Regional Assembly chapter.

abc:

due to recent controversies in the office over performance

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I can think of only two: Wonderess (who's just a controversial person in general, so it's not entirely fair to say his was all about the Speakership), and you. What a surprise.

If anything you're the one politicizing the Speaker's Office with your continued bullshit. You keep bringing this up again in order to try to gain relevancy like a fucking attention hog and it needs to stop. Now. If you want a better reputation, this ain't it chief. Get that through your head. I agree with Dino:

Dinoium:

I support governmental transparency but your intentions are evil and most likely exist to damage someone’s reputation for your own leverage. If you want to rebuild your reputation, this isn’t the way.

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In conclusion, this bill is a joke and so are you; thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Oh god, @Syrixia and @Dinoium, somehow thinking I'm literally evil just because of their personal biases against me. Give me a break. This is a bill and you're free to propose changes if you see them necessary.

I'll be completely honest with you; I am not sure if including the Speaker's Office should or should not happen. Seeing from all the feedback I've gotten thus far though, it appears it's not worth amending clause 32.

Thank you @Artemis for your feedback. May I ask what you think about the first part of the Bill as I'm considering removing the second part?

abc:

Oh god, @Syrixia and @Dinoium, somehow thinking I'm literally evil[...]

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Okay, let me reword myself. I never called you evil. I called your bill’s intentions evil. If you really want, I can just reword it as bad. When I say the intentions are evil, I mean that they are obviously bad intentions.

As for the rest of the bill, I share the concern about discord transparency. Some governmental discussions might had been said in group chats and either all of the group chat members left are no long apart of TNP or are inactive. Don't you think this is a bit hard for the Administration to get the information? It’s not like the Forums where information can be viewed by all Admins.

Dinoium:

Okay, let me reword myself. I never called you evil. I called your bill’s intentions evil. If you really want, I can just reword it as bad. When I say the intentions are evil, I mean that they are obviously bad intentions.

As for the rest of the bill, I share the concern about discord transparency. Some governmental discussions might had been said in group chats and either all of the group chat members left are no long apart of TNP or are inactive. Don't you think this is a bit hard for the Administration to get the information? It’s not like the Forums where information can be viewed by all Admins.

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Something being hard to retrieve does not justify its non-disclosure, as long as at least someone in government still has access to it. As for actual Discord channels; logs of those chats can easily be retrieved by a bot and there is no reason those can't immediately be disclosed after 1 year. The 30 day period after 1 year is intended to help with stuff like group chats which are harder to retrieve.

abc:

Something being hard to retrieve does not justify its non-disclosure, as long as at least someone in government still has access to it. As for actual Discord channels; logs of those chats can easily be retrieved by a bot and there is no reason those can't immediately be disclosed after 1 year. The 30 day period after 1 year is intended to help with stuff like group chats which are harder to retrieve.

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You got a bot that can do that?

Yalkan:

You got a bot that can do that?

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Yup and I've been informed by someone who manages or has knowledge of the bot, Sil, that it's entirely possible with this one as well.

Would it be possible to have an annotated version of this bill in the OP?

Syrixia:

In conclusion, this bill is a joke and so are you; thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

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I'm no fan of ABC, yet I don't believe this comment is appropriate for The Regional Assembly. Specifically, calling another citizen "a joke". You can express disapproval with a bill or a citizen without resorting to this language.

Be better.

If this bot isn't able to currently, I know of a cog that can be added to it which will enable such things; here is a demonstration of my own bot (which has it installed) retrieving a channel log:



@Praetor Yes, I'll include that for you.

My Red v3 bot has Darcania's logsfrom cog. It just needs invited to the executive server.

What sort of private logs are we even talking about?

@Yalkan official government conversations; eg. the cabinet discord channel

Section 7.5 already specifies what that is and the Court Ruling goes into more detail about it.

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.

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I like the idea of expanding it to other areas of the government (Speaker, court, etc).

But I have some concerns about FOIA generally that it just drives conversations to other avenues where the lines are more grey than black or white.

I’m not really sure what would be a better alternative but perhaps some more widespread reform would be in order.

Im with McM on this. FOI needs to be overhauled. The main issue with FOI on discord would be stuff on foreign affairs which are more sensitive.

I would like to see FOI to be broad on certain areas of government with a 1 year release on information whilst maintaining a request feature on more sensitive discussions