Open government

Representing the Reno Gazette-Journal, attorney Scott Glogovac asked the Nevada Supreme Court on Monday to order the release of nearly 100 of Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons' e-mails from 2008 which Carson City District Judge Todd Russell earlier ruled were private in nature and not subject to public records laws.

"We urge the court to rule that if there is an e-mail on a state-issued account, that e-mail is presumptively public and the burden of proof is on the government to establish that it is not public," he said.

Mr. Glogovac also challenged Judge Russell's ruling denying the newspaper's request for an itemized list of the e-mail records so it could independently assess whether the correspondence fell under the state's public records law.

"The government is not unilaterally empowered to determine whether an e-mail is public or private ... to say that it is not a public document and that the public -- including the Reno Gazette-Journal -- has no right to know about it, even its existence," he told the justices.

That, in effect, would make the government the "unilateral and final gatekeeper as to what is produced to the public," the newspaper's attorney argued.

Gov. Gibbons earlier apologized and repaid the state for sending hundreds of text messages on his state-owned cell phone to a woman he characterizes as a friend.

The court should rule for the Gazette-Journal. The newspaper is right on principle, and that principle is important -- the dangers of a precedent in which a judge tries to throw a big black tarpaulin over a whole raft of documents generated on state time and state-owned equipment, holding "government knows best" which public documents the public needs to see, are obvious. The dangers here to transparent governance and public confidence need no exaggeration.