New Orleans       One of the hallmarks of democratic government around the world is whether or not they have created transparent tools to allow their people to review the data and information used and produced to make decisions and spend money.  These laws open record or freedom of information laws exist throughout the US and its states and in many other jurisdictions, even more recently in India.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the ink is hardly dry on some of this legislation and legislators have hardly stopped patting themselves on the backs for its passage than governmental executives, businesses, and lobbyists of all descriptions are trying to hide what they are doing.  These laws typically shield things like national security policies and diplomacy impacting foreign relations.  They are also supposed to protect citizen’s privacy, although that is also under attack, as we have seen as Trump’s immigration assaults are trying to access IRS and Social Security information on Americans.

On the other side of the ledger from open records in government has been the explosion of non-disclosure agreements on NDAs in the private sector.  This practice used to be the exclusive province of corporate life meant to protect businesses from head-hunting to obtain corporate secrets, especially in the United States.  Trump as a former developer and serial entrepreneur of businesses, both successful and not so, has more recently threatened to issue an executive order to all federal employees forcing them to sign an NDA, so that he can prevent any news coming out of the federal government that is not favorable to his interest and that of his program.  It’s probably a nonstarter for a bushel full of reasons, but I mention it simply to illustrate the lengths that some government officials will go to hide the facts and truth from the public.  This is assumed to always be the case in non-democratic and autocratic governments of course, which is why the spread of NDAs has in other administrations been curtailed even in the private sector when proven that a NDA is a coercive policy of worker control, rather than privileged information with a proprietary purpose.

All of this came to mind when I read an article in the New Orleans papers about the way the state’s governor Jeff Landry, a mini-Trump, and his economic development team had attempted to conceal billions of dollars in incentives to Hyundai, the South Korean conglomerate, to locate and build a steel plant in the state.  By using NDAs, the Louisiana government tried to hide breaks in sales and property taxes, direct state payments from taxpayer revenues, and even a $300 million electric bill from Entergy, which invariably also comes from consumers’ payments.  As the Times-Picayune reported, “…state officials sought to assure the company that their emails around the negotiations would not become public through freedom of information requests, thanks to the NDAs signed by Louisiana Economic Development, Gov. Landry’s lead agency of business deals.”  Their intentions could not be clearer than by that admission.

NDAs have spread like a virus to include local officials, city council people, and state legislators, who are then barred from even sharing the information with their constituents.  They have become common in the negotiations with big tech companies trying to site data centers around the country.  As one legislator reported, he couldn’t learn the information on a development without signing an NDA, and if he signed the NDA, he couldn’t share the information.  There has been speculation in Louisiana that NDAs are being used as a stalking horse to bring Elon Musk’s SpaceX operation into the state.

The rationale of governments, like that of dictators, is paternalistic.  They are requiring secrecy “for our own good.”  The simple response to all such palaver is that if the deal is that good, why is the government afraid of allowing the public to know the full story?  If the benefits are as promised, why hide them?  As one of ACORN’s early leaders always said, “Wade, do you know what a rationale is?  It’s a lie in the skin of a reason.”