When it comes to transparency in government, things always get a bit murky, and when it comes to police accountability, that thin blue line always tends to be blurred. Whenever a police action becomes questionable, there is always a struggle to get the full details. More often than not, in the midst of such an investigation, police reports tend to conflict with video evidence that surfaces later. Some areas of the country are better than others when it comes to such things, but Iowa is not one of them.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, we get a D-plus on the matter. The center cites a 2015 case involving the fatal police shooting of 34-year-old mother Autumn Steele in Burlington during a domestic-dispute response. The officer responsible for the shooting was ultimately cleared of criminal charges.

According to the Des Moines Register, “The fact that state authorities sought to obstruct the disclosure explains, in part, why Iowa received an overall grade of D+.” The grade assigned in 2015, seemingly arbitrary, is actually telling of a problem that Iowans face in concerns to government transparency and police culture.

A recent interpretation of Iowa’s open-records law grants government agencies, such as local police forces, the ability to withhold any or all documents created or collected during an investigation. Essentially, this interpretation states that it is perfectly legal for state agencies to deny public access to just about any document or record involving law enforcement.

This in interpretation is not only overreaching and excessive, but it is also liable to be abused by government departments and inevitably perpetuate police corruption.

In fact, it seems as though it’s happening. According to the Register, “40 of 59 public record requests made to the [Iowa Department of Public Safety] in the first six months of 2016 — most made by people other than journalists — had been completely or partially rejected, mostly for the investigative report reason.”

In the midst of a national dialogue demanding police accountability through visibility of unchecked and unwarranted police brutality, the interpretation is not only in bad taste but seemingly evidence of outright police bias in more departments than just those that carry a badge and gun.

The Daily Iowan Editorial Board believes that denying the public access to records that pertain to the policing of that very public is to deny them the power of knowledge. The basic relationship shared between the people and the police is hinged entirely on a social contract, this social contract being a consent of the people to be policed. There is no consent in ignorance.

The triumph of accountability relies entirely on the existence of transparency. Revoking the latter from the public is to threaten the sanctity of government institution’s competence to hold itself accountable and the public’s trust in that very institution.