More efforts to keep secrets in Madison

Not so fast. That is the message being delivered by Wisconsin’s Public Records Board is giving to the state Department of Corrections. The DOC requested permission to delete some videos it makes of its employees on the job. For the first time ever, the department requested permission to delete those videos after just one day. The board has put the brakes on that proposal, over concerns about the rapid destruction of the videos. The videos are recordings of Corrections Department employees either while on the job, or in training sessions. It is not clear why the agency wants to destroy those videos so rapidly, or even at all. Some on the board wisely argued for a rewriting of the proposed rules over concerns that the destruction of the videos could make the employee’s performance reviews more difficult. But the bigger concern is why this agency, already under a federal review by the FBI over allegations of prisoner abuse at the state’s boy’s prison, is so eager to destroy what would otherwise be a matter of public record. As the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council points out, it is troubling when an agency covets the ability to destroy records. Because once those records are destroyed, you no longer know if there is a good reason for them not to see the light of day.