Public can't trust government to keep track of itself

We're from the government, and we're here to help you. You can trust us. Oh, and you can trust us to let you know what we're doing, as well.

That's the underlying message to a passel of bills introduced in the Nebraska Legislature under the guise of saving money and increasing convenience for elected officials, but which, if passed will do more to separate the people from their government.

Among them:

LB 141 would make accident reports no longer public record, leaving the system more open to corruption and prone to favoring those with money and influence.

LB 266 would change provisions relating to closed sessions -- public business needs to be conducted in public.

LB 363 includes wording to eliminate public notices of the Tax Equalization and Review Commission and placing them on the Secretary of State's web site.

LB 444 provides that every public body shall post all of its notices on the Web as well as publishing public notices, but could be amended to use only the Internet.

Already heard is LB 117, which would eliminate the publishing of constitutional amendments and initiative and referendum measures in newspapers, and putting them only on the Internet -- which is clearly unconstitutional.

That latter bill would save taxpayers approximately 9 cents per voter.

Yes, the Internet is becoming more and more ubiquitous, but recent surveys in states such as Iowa and South Dakota show that about half of those surveyed said they never looked at a government website.

Local officials complain that the cost of publishing legals is prohibitive, but in most cases, the percentage of the total budget is 0.0006 percent -- hardly measurable.

Every copy of a newspaper published in Nebraska is read by two or three people. More than eight out of 10 adults read a Nebraska paper, but the U.S. Census estimates that Internet connectivity is about 55 percent -- more people will read a newspaper on Super Bowl Sunday than will watch the game.

Notices posted to some Internet site cannot match the permanency and reliability of the printed word. Once a public notice is in print, it cannot be altered, hacked or manipulated. Public notices in newspapers provide bona fide record that is backed up by an affidavit of publication sworn and notarized by the newspaper publisher. Online public notices cannot satisfy that same level of confidence.

A public notice printed in the newspaper can become a legal record, a document that government officials rely on for satisfying legal questions and challenges. Newspapers provide an important third-party verification in the public notice process.

Yes, more and more of our communication is purely electronic in nature -- readers across the country and around the world can read the Gazette the day it is published.

But when it comes to a long-lasting, legal document, nothing can replace hard-copy, ink on paper.