Is disclosing private discussions necessary because of government transparency? If not, I fail to see the porpoise.

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Is disclosing private discussions necessary because of government transparency? If not, I fail to see the porpoise.

Indeed, for transparency. The porpoise is right there:

Spoiler

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Is disclosing private discussions necessary because of government transparency? If not, I fail to see the porpoise.

Indeed, for transparency. The porpoise is right there:

Spoiler

Thanks for recognizing my pun xD

Midwesterner. Political nerd. Chipotle enthusiast. 
Minister of Culture of the South Pacific // Former Prime Minister

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After reading through, the only thing Id suggest is what Kris has already suggested It keeps it simple. And, as we all know, simpler is bester.

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So the change requested by Kris:

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.

becomes

b. For a High Court case, they shall be released no later than 6 months after the ruling or, if appealed, the ruling on the appeal, has been announced.

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I motion to vote as full replacement for the Sunshine Act the draft from the OP with the previously mentioned change to 2.2.b (reproduced in full at the end of this post).

@Nakari - given that the specific draft below is not a change but rather just the full "rendering" of a previous draft and a change applied to that draft, do you consider that the final debate time countdown is expired (since the change was 4 days ago), or that it starts now regardless?

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 deliberate action or inaction is to be considered substantive discussion.

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

(3) Substantive discussions occurring via real-time communication methods 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 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 no later than 6 months after the ruling or, if appealed, the ruling on the appeal, 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.

(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.

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

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@Nakari - given that the specific draft below is not a change but rather just the full "rendering" of a previous draft and a change applied to that draft, do you consider that the final debate time countdown is expired (since the change was 4 days ago), or that it starts now regardless?

The intention of debate time on a draft is that everyone has a chance to see what's been changed and comment on it. The change had already been presented for comment for the mandatory period, and nothing new has been presented here, so it doesn't justify restarting the debate time clock.

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I see several potential issues with this so to clarify:

"(1) Discussion within a government institution that leads to a motion or a decision by that institution into taking deliberate action or inaction is to be considered substantive discussion."

and:

"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."

Does this mean Discord discussions as well? I mean each ministry has Discords with substantial conversations. Does this cover that and if so in what form? For example, FA discussions sometimes a year long over treaties or relations - is that covered? Those will be interesting to document forum side. 

Who is responsible after 6 months to release the conversations? For example, does the current cabinet choose or ask former cabinet members for approval?

Should there be a clause that items of conversation especially those of a personal nature (vacations, etc) that often occur on Discord within more substantive discussions should be removed de facto? 

We have been all over the place with actually following the Sunshine laws so simple but clear would help here. As well as maybe an example as this hasn't been done in practice for a while.

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

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Right, I understand and saw that but what does it include - does it mean every discussion on the RA server related to a particular project (that's a decision - to host an event or to produce an article)?

I mean, in theory this is interesting, in practice (regardless of how long Roavin's been talking about it) it's never been done in full even in the IRC era. Therefore, I think we'll need some guidelines and some clarity especially with calls to enforcement or potentially down the line legal action. 

Substantive can also just mean something that gets to the Assembly or it can mean treaty negotiations (even if they fizzled out), event organization (which could include Google docs), etc. 

I would also like to see a clause added that removes personal information or details from Discord conversations because the nature of that medium makes it so that we do tend to talk a lot more about personal things (thinking specifically to the TRR discussions and some personal stuff Yuno mentioned, for example).

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