The staunchest support of a citizen’s right to transparency from its government is RSA 91-A – the so-called “Right-to-Know” law. This year, the legislation underwent several amendments, some to take effect on the first of the year.

The Right-to-Know law protects citizens’ right to examine documents produced by public bodies by request – it outlines deadlines for how quickly those bodies must produce the requested material, and outlines the procedures for posting meetings and making minutes. It also outlines what documents are protected from public scrutiny.

This year, there were five bills passed by both the state House and Senate that change those rules – mostly to increase public transparency.

House Bill 1418 requires that public bodies’ non-public minutes meet the same minimum standard for content as their public minutes. These standards include the names of the members of the board, people appearing before the board, and a brief description of the subject matter, along with any decisions made. 

HB 1419 is similar, in that it requires that public bodies record all actions during non-public meetings to ensure that the vote of each member is recorded. That means noting which members of the board votes “aye” or “nay.”

“Those sound reasonable to me,” said new state Rep. John Lewicke (R-Mason). “It sounds like these requirements should have been in place already.”

State Rep. Jon Manley (D-Bennington) agreed, saying that at a minimum, keeping minutes of non-public meetings is good for the purpose of record keeping, although he added that making names public could be problematic depending upon the subject matter being discussed.

HB 606 states that there shall be no fee charged for the inspection – where there is no copying – of records. This applies to all governmental records, whether they be paper or electronic or in any other form. It is still legal for the body to charge for obtaining a copy of the documents, but if such a fee is established, there can be no additional costs or fees charged, meaning the body cannot charge the person making the Right-to-Know request for the time an employee spent searching for or compiling the documents, for example. 

Manley said he had reservations regarding this law. For the most part, he said, it was reasonable not to charge a citizen looking for information, but it can, on occasion, be onerous for the towns.

“There are some people that want to go in and look at a couple of records, and that’s reasonable,” said Manley. “But if someone wants to look at all the records for the past 10 years, that’s above and beyond.”

HB 1395 allows for the archival of records in PDF format.

These bills all essentially work to increase public access to documents and what’s in them.

One bill passed this year, however, adds an exemption to the Right-to-Know law:

HB 285 adds a new exemption for non-public meetings for “consideration of legal advice provided by legal counsel, either in writing or orally.”

“I think that just makes sense,” said state Rep. Frank Sterling (R-Jaffrey). “Attorney-client conversations are privileged.”

Lewicke said “It would seem a good way to throw a blanket of secrecy over things. The subject matter should be what governs whether it’s a non-public matter or not.”

The Right-to-Know law already protects consideration or negotiation of pending litigation.

Also, previously passed in June, a law regulating the use of body cameras worn by police also outlays the access the public has to the footage taken by those cameras. This law includes another exemption to the Right-to-Know law, exempting police footage except in certain circumstances. The public has the right to footage that includes restraint or use of force by a law enforcement officer, the discharge of a firearm, and felony-level arrests. However, the law caveats that in any of these cases, that the footage or portions of the footage may still be exempt from Right-to-Know requests if the footage “constitutes an invasion of privacy.”

Sterling said he was troubled by that caveat, saying that in those cases – use of force particularly – it is often crucial to have the full picture to determine whether a use of force was necessary.

“I think it’s a major problem of a lot of body camera footage that we do get, is that you don’t see the whole picture. I find that portion somewhat disingenuous,” said Sterling.

He said it would likely take some time and probably some challenges in court before it became clear what the standards are for an “invasion of privacy.”

“That exemption doesn’t make much sense to me, because it puts an extra layer on it where someone – a town, or police – could claim its a violation of privacy in the exact cases where you’d want the record public to determine whether a use of force was warranted.”

Manley said it would likely be difficult to keep footage from any of those cases out of the hands of the public, and generally it would be in the public’s best interest to verify what really happened, but felt that, “People’s privacy rights should be paramount.”The new laws take effect Jan. 1.