My concern is not whether the information is disclosable; it clearly is. My concern is the limitation on to WHOM it may be disclosed. What this means is that you and I (and any special interest groups we support) can no longer request data about where commercial fish were caught. That WDFW may request those data is good in principle, but it also requires them to do just that to get any of those data, and chances are, they won't be asking for it with any regularity.

My opinion is that if transparency in government is the goal, there should be no mechanisms in place to prevent citizens from requesting any non-confidential data. This puts in place just such a mechanism. I personally believe the Puget Sound Treaty Tribes are taking this as a next step toward keeping non-tribal citizens away from the bargaining table. The more information we have to collect, after the fact, that has been filtered through a government agency, the less we will know about what is really going on.

If none of this is new, I think the existing laws suck, and I'm just really late to the roast.