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Right, to business, then.

Title
1.  This act may be cited as the Declassification Amendment Act

Amendments
1.  Section 2 of the Declassification of Private Storting Discussion Procedure Act currently reads:
"All discussions are to be classified until 30 minutes before the end of the Session. During that time the Speaker of the Underhusen and the Chairman of the Overhusen shall release all classified documents."

It shall be amended to read:
"The Speaker and Chairman have discretion over which discussions will be declassified.  The Speaker can choose to declassify any documents created by a Skrifa, and the Chairman can choose to declassify any documents created by the Monarch or a Peer.  If there are documents that will remain classified, the Speaker or Chairman must outline their reasoning in the document."

2.  Section 3 shall be added to the Declassification of Private Storting Discussion Procedure Act, and it shall read:
"Discussions that are to be declassified must be displayed in a public space accessible to all Citizens of Wintreath at the conclusion of the nomination period for Underhusen candidates.  If a discussion was created by a Skrifa, it will be declassified by the outgoing Speaker.  If a discussion was created by the Monarch or a Peer, it will be declassified by the Chairman.  The Speaker or Chairman must give a count of the number of documents that remain classified when posting declassified documents."

3.  Section 4 shall be added to the Declassification of Private Storting Discussion Procedure Act, and it shall read:
"Any powers given to the Speaker or Chairman by this act will also be given to the Speaker Pro Tempore and Acting Chairman if they are empowered by their respective Procedural Rules.

Something simple to get us started.  I noticed a few...deficiencies when perusing the private forums.  I hope this clears up any ambiguity around the private forum. 

EDIT:  Formatting.

Ah, I love it when we get right to business...it makes me all tingly inside.

I actually quite like this change, though.  While it changes the set "after 30 minutes" period, it gives it a more realistic approach, at least from my perspective. 

My problem with that is how it doesn't say what happens to things that are still actively being discussed.

Perhaps we should add in one more section to make it mandatory for Skrifa and Peers to indicate their official stance on a particular topic after each week, and also for the Speaker and Chairman to then indicate whether a topic is dead or concluded, or whether something still has to be decided.

Good idea. I'll add that in later today.

I am conflicted on this bill. On one hand I am somewhat glad that we are fixing it, on the other hand I do have concerns such as those echoed by Toucan/CoS. Also while we should be held accountable I feel that we should consider there are sensitive topics we need to account for.

I'll add a clause that allows for classification to be continued, as i recognize the need for that. 

Perhaps we can give the Speaker and Chairman discretion over what to declassify, but they must disclose the number of documents still classified?

I can get on board with that, because there are always going to be those topics that are a bit more sensitive to discuss.

I'm not exactly on board with the reasoning that CoS had regarding getting elected again.  If we're hiding that material from the public, what's going to happen when it comes into light too late in the game and people question that?

On the one hand, people KNOW we're going to have private discussions that may include revocation talks (to use his example) towards a member.  It may hurt us a little bit if it gets declassified in the same time period, yes...but for some reason withholding it for too long comes off as generally dishonest since we're allowing transparency, but we're saying "Well, we don't want to hurt our chance of getting re-elected, so let's hold off on this one for now."

I agree with holding some topics back due to sensitivity, but I don't agree with the reasoning.  If I cared immensely that I might say something that would cause people to not want to see me in office again, I wouldn't have ran for office a 2nd time after the Revocation mess during my last term.  Things got weird near the end of that term because of it, but obviously the people aren't too taken back by it since they voted me back in a second time...and I think declassifying a revocation for instance would be essentially the same capacity.  Whereas declassifying it, say, two terms later after it was discussed might raise some heavy eyebrows as to why exactly we felt the need to hide it for so long.

The extension of classification would only be until the original date, at least that's how I imagine it. So it would be declassified at the latest ability.

Another issue is that this might be illegal due to the line: "and posted in a space reserved for Wintrean government announcements", which mandates administrative action. A better phrasing might be something like:
"and released to a public area of Wintreath." or "and released to the public of Wintreath." we could probably exclude it though.

I'm hesitant to exclude anything, since that could later be exploited in a loophole.

True, however we are in a tricky area because we need to make sure we don't break the fundamental laws, thus rendering the law invalid, especially as one as important as this.

This is also true.  It's really a difficult spot.

I added that phrase to specify the Frosthold Castle forum, but I didn't want to mention it by name, as it may change in the future. As long as the law specifies the posts be made public, that should be sufficient.

Agreed with Point Breeze. No need to make it incredibly complicated.

I would even venture that saying "declassified" is enough, since I don't know of any information that can actually be declassified out of the public eye. That's sort of the point of declassification.

Further once it's declassified anyone can reveal it without punishment.

New draft posted.