Elon Musk, speaking in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, said that public information requests should become obsolete. He suggested that all public information should be automatically accessible to the public unless it poses a genuine national security threat.
"There should be no need for FOIA requests. All government data should be default public for maximum transparency," said Musk. "I think that the strong bias with respect to government information should be to make it available to the public. Unless there's a genuine risk to the country, all information in the government should be made public."
In Texas, the Public Information Act (PIA) governs public access to government records. According to the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, "PIA generally requires a governmental body to release information in response to a request for information. However, if a governmental body determines the information is excepted from disclosure under the PIA, then both the request and the information at issue must be reviewed by the Open Records Division" of the Office of the Attorney General.
An advocate for reforming the public information process expressed concerns about the current state of Texas public information requests. He said that exceptions, procedural challenges, and costs make it incredibly difficult to access public information that the government does not want the public to see.
"Over the years, all these opinions have essentially rendered the law useless because they're giving all of these reasons why the government doesn't have to release public information," said Charles Blain, President of Urban Reform Institute.
Each legislative session in Texas, there are multiple bills filed and some passed that are intended to improve the process for Texans.
Others think that technology may be the best solution to improve government transparency and the public information process.
In an October 2023 op-ed in Lone Star Standard, Brad Swail argued that, "public information belongs to us, the public. So why do we have to ask permission to see it, trust that everything is delivered, and why do we have to pay for it?"
Swail concluded, similar to Musk, that "a searchable database of all public information eligible documents, that is open to the public and free, may be the end goal we should pursue."
