The original assignment of a legislative task force was to protect Utahns from identity theft by figuring out ways to keep their Social Security numbers, home addresses and phone numbers out of government records. But objections from local officials and lobbyists for credit agencies and Realtors put a stop to keeping Social Security numbers private.

Instead, the task force has shifted its focus to restricting access to public documents that for 13 years has been protected by the Government Records Access and Management Act, or GRAMA.

That should be troubling to all Utahns who believe that their elected and appointed representatives work for them and should be conducting the public's business in bright daylight, not in the shadows, where accountability can be deflected and obscured.

Legislators were rightly concerned that some unreasonable requests for information are made by people whose purpose is to stymie government operations. But well-meaning efforts to limit harassment do not justify giving clerks authority to refuse any request they deem "harassing or otherwise unreasonably increasing the workload or causing unwarranted expense," as the task force proposes.

Taxes pay the expense of maintaining public documents and taxpayers have a right to see them, allowing reasonable time for government employees to comply. Under this ominous proposal, an appeal would have to be heard by the State Records Committee before proceeding to a court, effectively limiting reasonable and timely access to documents and making the release of more of them contingent on a judicial ruling.

The task force also wants to block access to correspondence between elected officials and citizens, unless the writer or recipient agreed to make them public. This provision would codify secrecy and frustrate public oversight.

Without openness, there is no accountability. GRAMA protects both.