I like laws to be practical and at least give people the chance to be compliant. I mean I like to not break laws at least on purpose  

The reality is that over the past year (probably longer and ongoing before my return) no cabinet has been in compliance with the existing Sunshine law.  Then one substantial thing I've noticed since coming back is that the forum usage seems not even half of what it was during IRC times. Obviously we're adapting to Discord and forums (regardless of the steep decline) remain the best way to archive and hold a repository of our history. 

In fact, the ease with which a owner of a server can delete a Discord sometimes keeps me up at night. Still, having tried to copy an entire conversation from Discord to a Google Doc and how horrible that was (also about 20+ pages) makes it more practical to prune and either focus on summarizing.

Therefore, I'm suggesting some changes that make this a practical and realistic law:
 

(02-09-2018, 05:46 AM)Roavin Wrote:

Quote:

Sunshine Act
An act to periodically publish threads in private government forums

1. Documentation

(1) Discussion within a government institution that leads to a motion or a decision by that institution into taking significant action or inaction is to be considered criticaldiscussion.

(2) All substantive Critical private discussions of government institutions must be documented on the regional forums for the purpose of persistence and posterity.

(3) Substantive  Critical discussions occurring via real-time communication methods should be reasonably summarized or have key parts quoted as deemed practical by the institution. may be quoted verbatim or reasonably summarized on the forums, as deemed most reasonable by that institution. If the communication via such a method cannot be saved, meeting minutes must be taken of that discussion.

2. Publishing of Discussions

(1) The substantive critical discussions of an institution shall, in due time, be released for public archival accessible to all members of the South Pacific.

(2) The release of discussions shall occur at the following times:
a. For a Cabinet term, discussions from the Cabinet and all ministries shall be released no later than 6 months after the completion of that term.
b. For a High Court case, they shall be released as soon as reasonably possible after the period for appeal has passed without an appeal being filed, or if an appeal was filed, after the final ruling has been announced.

(3) Discussions may be withheld from release if they are ongoing or directly related to another ongoing discussion, or if the public release of information contained therein threatens the security of the region or an ally. In addition, discussions that are deemed to be harmful if leaked or may cause future risks to the security of the region, allies, or friends should be withheld from release. 

(4) A discussion may be released in a redacted form by copying the discussion and censoring information not intended for public consumption. The normative copy of the discussion thread must then remain in the private forum.

(5) If reasonably possible, the institution should strive to release discussions containing classified information in redacted form, rather than withholding them. Any personally identifiable information must always be redacted upon release.

3. Audits of Discussions

(1) The assembly may appoint an individual to audit the discussions of an institution to evaluate compliance with the provisions contained herein, either with a simple majority and approval of that institution, or a three-fifths supermajority. The Council on Regional Security or the Legislator Committee may veto the appointment of such an individual for reasons of regional security. An individual appointed thusly will be granted access to all relevant forums and other considerably used communication platforms for no longer than 2 weeks.

(1) The CRS may appoint an individual to audit the discussions of the institution to evaluate compliance with the provisions contained herein. If the individual is not a member of the CRS they must be approved by the assembly, either with a simple majority and approval of that institution, or a three fifths supermajority.  An individual appointed thusly will be granted access to all relevant forums and other considerably used communication platforms for no longer than two weeks.

(2) The High Court, as part of a case, may compel an institution to grant the Court insight into related discussions.

I welcome your feedback and thoughts, especially on how to make this better. If we discuss and debate laws and come to compromises (instead of the recent trend towards lemming like approval of the majority of them and then often having to back to revise them) then maybe this will last longer and actually be followed!

<3