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Arkansas' Freedom of Information Act is considered by some to be the state's most important law of the last 50 years.

It opens nearly all meetings of government at all levels to the public, provides a glimpse of government's inner workings through access to documents and can be used effectively by anyone.

"As someone who's observed Arkansas for over 50 years, and who's been involved with FOIA since it was signed into law by Gov. Rockefeller in 1967, it's the most important piece of legislation probably in at least 50 years," said Robert Fisher, an ombudsman for the Arkansas attorney general who handles FOIA requests and questions.

"I don't know of anything that's brought more accountability to local government and brought more people to local government and impacted their lives more," said Fisher.

Fisher said he handles hundreds of FOIA questions annually, often from local governments. Many deal with executive sessions -- meetings closed to the public -- of city councils and county quorum courts, as well as boards, commissions, state agencies and personnel records of police and other city and county departments.

Often called "The peoples' law," the act opens all state, county and city records to public inspection and copy, with relatively few exceptions. Among those records excepted are state income tax; medical; adoption; grand jury minutes; undisclosed active law enforcement investigations; documents ordered sealed by courts; undercover officer identities; Arkansas Economic Development Commission records related to a business' planning; and home addresses of nonelected state employees.

But the FOIA law does allow most everything else, including public employee evaluations or job performance records. Those records may include preliminary notes and other materials available upon final administrative resolution, suspension or termination proceeding where the records form a basis for termination or suspension. It allows public access to local and state government contracts, minutes of meetings, and police reports, among other things.

"This is in part how we merit the public trust and confidence in government. Open meetings and records and press coverage is vital to society," said state Sen. John Brown. "There is a measure of accountability when the public goes to the polls, but informed voters are vital. ... The FOIA law contributes in a vital way to open dialogue."

Records custodians and requesters can seek opinions from the state attorney general whether certain records are public, according to the FOIA, and a records custodian can charge the actual costs of copying, including reproduction, supplies, equipment and maintenance. That doesn't include personnel time associated with copying the records.

Dennis Schick, executive director of the Arkansas Press Association, said the FOIA law sometimes is viewed as just for journalists. There are typically more public than media requests under FOIA, he said.

"Some legislators think of it as a media law, but we point out that it's not," said Schick. "It's not a lawyers' law, or a legislators' law. It's a people's law.

"It's accountability for the way public money is spent and what elected officials do and don't do. Part of the concept is that the people have a right to see the 'process.' There are some legislators who want to meet in private and then announce a decision."

Schick said some government officials may not like FOIA requests and the citizenry going through records.

"But, that's what people do in an open society," said Schick. "People in Afghanistan can't believe how open our government is, and we can't believe how closed theirs is."

Mac Norton, a private attorney who handles FOIA lawsuits with the Little Rock-based law firm of Wright Lindsey & Jennings, acknowledged many citizens don't have a direct use for the FOI law.

"But it's important even if most citizens don't have a reason to use it personally, because of its effects from use by others in keeping government open for everybody," Norton said.