CHEYENNE, Wyo. (CN) - Lawmakers are rewriting a privacy amendment to the Wyoming Constitution to address concerns that the state might release information about private citizens - or use state employees' "privacy protections" to hide government abuse.
Lawmakers were back at the drawing board in Casper last week after the Legislature rejected a bill that failed to address the delicate balance.
The amendment as written states that individual privacy is "essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest." It would provide "individuals" constitutional protections against disclosure of personal information.
But what happens in investigations of government abuse? Government employees, after all, are individuals. And what sort of information about individuals should the government be prohibited from releasing?
That's the million-dollar question, Wyoming Press Association executive director Jim Angell told Courthouse News.
The state already has laws to protect individuals' personal information.
"There are no specifics," Angell said of the legislation. "The language is gloriously huge."
He said taking the privacy issue to the constitutional level without addressing the right-to-know issue raises the stakes.
"By giving it constitutional amendment status, you elevate it above the rights of the public to see public information," Angell told The Billings Gazette. "That creates an unbalanced situation."
Proponents of tougher reins on the state claim that lack of constitutional privacy protections means the state could release personal information about private citizens if there is no explicit law saying it cannot do so.
Wyoming's Task Force on Digital Information was slated to discuss whether the Legislature should address the amendment again during the 2016 legislative session. Government watchdogs say it must be modified to include transparency provisions - i.e., disclosure of government action - to give it balance.
Angell, a former Associated Press reporter, testified to the task force to support adding a right-to-know provision to the amendment, as did Montana's Equality State Policy Center executive director Bri Jones.
Jones said she did not believe the state government intentionally drafted language that would allow it to hide behind an individual privacy amendment, but that citizens' right to know deserves the same "higher level of scrutiny" as their right to privacy.
"My initial thought is that they (legislators) didn't immediately think of the specific privacy elements and free speech elements that have raised concerns," she said.
"I think they brought this from a Libertarian standpoint, with the NSA spying.
"I believe it's part of a larger national conversation, whether we think privacy is something we specifically want to grant through the Constitution. With that said, I stand up for the right-to-know clause. The bill does leave room for abuse."
Jones said the latest case law on the issue played out in neighboring Montana about six months ago, in City of Billings v. Billings Gazette Communications.
Angell knows the case well, having worked with former Casper Star-Tribune editor and current Billings Gazette editor Darrell Ehrlick.
"There was a recent investigation by the Billings Gazette in Montana about the Billings landfill," Angell said. "They investigated the misuse of public property and wanted information on the internal investigation, but the city not only said 'no,' because it 'violates the privacy rights of public employees,' they also filed a lawsuit against the newspaper to prevent them from getting the documents.