There is a dark aspect of obtaining public records that nobody wants to talk about, but yet it is a silent menace eating away at the healthy vibrant open government laws that enables citizens to obtain information about their government.

The staunchest transparency advocates know that this one issue could be the demise of a strong open records law and yet many still tiptoe around it, nervous to tackle it head on for fear of harming the law or fears that they will weaken the law.