![](\"https:\/\/motherjones.com\/files\/images\/ccastock320.jpg\")
<\/a>\n<\/a>\n\nCitizens entitled to open government<\/a>,\n\nAll governmental entities supported by tax dollars are subject to\nthe laws. Private companies are not.\n<\/blockquote>\nAs the VDT knows better than anybody else around here,\n\ngetting informaiton out of Valdosta State Prison\nor the Georgia Department of Correcions (GDOC) is very hard.<\/a>\nThe VDT has been trying to find out what’s going on at Valdosta\nState Prison for years now, and getting the runaround\nand hitting stone walls.\n\nFlorida has a law that says private prison operators have to comply\nwith\n\n\npublic records laws because they perform an inherently governmental\nfunction.\nSince we’ve already got\n\n
<\/a>\n\nSeveral CCA private prisons in Georgia,<\/a> plus\n\nCCA runs ICE detention at the North Georgia Detention Center.<\/a>\nSo to the\n\nwelcome rays of sunshine in HP 397<\/a>\nthe legislature should add a legal requirement for private prison\noperators to obey sunshine laws.\n
\nAnd let’s not continue making the same bad mistake of privatizing prisons.\nLet’s reject the private prison our Industiral Authority wants\nCCA to build in Lowndes County, Georgia.\n
\nAs the VDT points out:\n
\nTaxpayers have the right to know how their money is being spent by\nofficials elected to represent them. When officials are reluctant to\ncomply with requests, it raises legitimate concerns.\n<\/blockquote>\nThis prison is being pushed by an Industrial Authority that won’t\npublish its minutes, that has said as little as possible about\n“Project Excel” (the prison), and that changed its most recent\nboard meeting date at the last minute.\nLet’s end the private prison secrecy.\nLet’s stop this sweetheart deal\nthat would mostly profit\n\nCCA’s $3 million\/year CEO<\/a>\nand\n\nCCA’s stockholders<\/a>\nat the expense of all of us in this community:\nhigher risk of escape, better businesses driven away, and our taxes\nwasted locking people up when they could be spent on rehabilitation\nand education.\n\n\n
<\/a>\nYou can help\n\nDrive Away CCA<\/a>:\njoin us 5PM tomorrow, Tuesday March 6th<\/sup><\/small> 2012\nat the prison site to drive the point home to the Industrial Authority\noffices.\nEven if you’re reading this after then, you can sign the\n\npetition,<\/a> write a letter, or help in other ways.\n
\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The VDT reminds us of an important distinction in yesterday’s editorial, Citizens entitled to open government, All governmental entities supported by tax dollars are subject to the laws. Private companies are not. As the VDT knows better than anybody else around here, getting informaiton out of Valdosta State Prison or the Georgia Department of Correcions […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,1113,40,14,15,70,71,8,19,72,21,22,3,133,178],"tags":[8817,2393,8751,8701,8730,7,1883,730,699,75,1297,2201,6,8742,8749],"class_list":["post-1042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cca","category-community","category-economy","category-education","category-ethics","category-gdoc","category-georgia","category-history","category-incarceration","category-planning","category-politics","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-vlcia","tag-cca","tag-drive-away-cca","tag-florida","tag-georgia","tag-incarceration","tag-lowndes-county","tag-open-government","tag-open-records","tag-petition","tag-prison","tag-private-prison","tag-sunshine-laws","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-gO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}