The idea behind this proposal is good. The bill that would implement the proposal is flawed.

Senate Bill 700, introduced last May, is sponsored by a number of leading Republican and Democratic senators. Given such sponsors, the bill likely will be considered this session.

This legislation would establish a Bureau of Privacy Protection under the direction of the Attorney General. This bureau would be charged with protecting privacy under state law and responding to consumer complaints regarding privacy protection.

Among other duties, the bureau would inform citizens of ways to protect their privacy and promote nonbinding arbitration or mediation of privacy-related disputes.

Such programs make sense.

But the bill would go further, authorizing the Attorney General to oversee development of privacy policies within each state agency. These policies would limit dissemination by these agencies of personal information.

The legislation states that "personal data shall not be disclosed, made available or otherwise used for purposes other than those specified (in the law), except with the express written consent of the subject of the data" and "personal data collected must be relevant to the purpose for which it is collected."

On first glance, such rules might seem harmless. On first glance, citizens might think it reasonable that government agencies be prohibited from releasing "personal data" that they collect.

But, on further thought, citizens should recognize that the integrity of government depends on the openness of their records to all citizens.

• Voting records -- a list of names and addresses -- must be available so that anyone can check them to see that no bogus names have been added to the rolls

• Tax records must be open so that citizens can know who is paying their taxes and who is not.

• Government contracts must be open so that citizens know who is getting business from government and what they are being paid.

• Government payrolls must be open so that citizens know how much they are paying officials to do their jobs

The list goes on and on.

To be clear: Senate Bill 700 does have value to the extent that it targets identity theft and identity fraud as pernicious crimes.

But the measure, as written, goes far beyond prosecution of identity theft. Inadvertantly, we believe, it would open the door to massive government secrecy, the sort of secrecy that one would expect in a 1950s Communist state, not American democracy.

Undoubtedly, this is not the intent of those who drafted the bill, but it is what the words on paper state at present.

We applaud the effort of lawmakers to crack down on criminals who steal credit cards, Social Security numbers and other forms of identification. But we urge that they do so in the same way that they crack down on criminals who use guns.

Just as we prosecute only those who use guns for illegal purposes, we should prosecute only those who misuse public information for criminal purposes.

We should not shut down democratic institutions and convert ourselves into a secret society simply because a few white-collar criminals have found a way to exploit our openness.

Instead, we should root out those criminals and punish them severely.

We urge the authors of Senate Bill 700 to continue their work, sharpening the focus of the proposed law on identity-theft criminals and removing from the bill any provisions that would tamper with the present, legitimate public uses of information.

To include the authors' photos:

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Ernie Schreiber

Jack Brubaker 

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Ernie Schreiber

Jack Brubaker