Hawaii Open Records Agency Ahead of the Curve on Social Media
02/01/2012
WASHINGTON — Hawaii is "definitely ahead" of other states in its efforts to develop open records policies for social media usage, according to the Virginia-based government watchdog nonprofit Sunshine Review.
But advocates for open government would also like to see Hawaii take its approach to social media and public records farther than the state Office of Information Practices (OIP) is proposing — and farther than some lawmakers may be willing to go.
State Sen. Will Espero, who is active on sites like Facebook and Twitter, says he and his colleagues will have to be "very careful" in legislating officials' social media usage. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee will hear Senate Bill 2859, which is aimed at updating Hawaii's 23-year-old public records law to incorporate new technologies. The OIP-introduced measure's companion in the House is House Bill 2597.
"Overall very little has been done to set policy at a state level," said Joshua Meyer-Gutbrod, director of Sunshine Review's WikiFOIA project. "There's ambiguity as to what local agencies or state agencies are allowed to do. People need to sit down and clarify it... If they're tackling social media (in Hawaii), they're definitely ahead of other states."
