Last month, at a bar table, a friend said that, talking to an official from a national agency, she mentioned that she knew us. The answer? “I can’t take them anymore.” On another occasion, a server wrote to us that “all the citizen information services hate you. Your name is listed — you already know who is who.”
Curious, right? For public managers who have forgotten the basic purpose of their existence, an active civil society organization that uses the constitutional right to access public information and demand transparency is “unbearable”. It is as if the citizen were a stumbling block in the path of public service, not the foundation of its existence.
If in the private sector what drives advances and improvements is competition (and regulation), in the government it is annoying citizens! “Agencies often call me annoying, but that’s because I refuse to give up. The end result is that I almost always end up winning the war”, he says in an interview with the Jason Leopold column. The Bloomberg Business investigative reporter was “affectionately” dubbed the “FOIA terrorist,” the .
Fostering competition between government bodies and entities also works. “When some states refused to release records, we highlighted that other states were transparent about the same data. This public comparison puts pressure on less transparent states to release their information,” said Michael Morisy, founder of MuckRock, the leading American organization dedicated to to FOIA, .
This is why rankings such as those of the (Comptroller General of the Union), Atricon, Transparency International, among others, are great drivers of improvements. States and entities that achieve good grades and seals get more support and political support, in addition to resources, to maintain their position. Those at the bottom are pushed by embarrassment.
In our workshops, which are in all regions of the country, we always say that it is necessary to have at least one “LAI assistant” in each of the 5,570 Brazilian municipalities. This is because the existence of the law means almost nothing: as the popular saying goes, “this law didn’t catch on”. If there isn’t someone asking and demanding, the government simply won’t move. In the same way that it is necessary to fine drivers who fail to comply with traffic rules, it is necessary to “fill the patience” of authorities and civil servants so that the principles of transparency and publicity are complied with.
“In places where citizens believe they are in charge and that the government serves them, compliance with transparency laws is greater. Conversely, in cultures where they feel it is impolite or risky to question authority, secrecy thrives. In the end Ultimately, it all depends on citizenship,” said David Cuillier, counsel to the United States National Archives and Records Administration’s Freedom of Information Act Committee, as well.
The good news is that we have seen an improvement in the attitude of managers. But not because of government X or Y, but because of the increasingly thriving ecosystem of organized civil society. “Exercising the right to access information reminds us who is in charge. When we participate and understand that the government works for us, we remember that it is the people who are in charge!”, stated Morisy.
It should be a source of pride to be considered “boring” by those who are paid by the people and are uncomfortable doing the work expected of their positions. As a Christmas present for the public authorities, we guarantee that in 2025 we will be even more annoying and will train even more citizens to spread the annoyance throughout the country.
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