It's not all "public servants", just police. And sure, it's not entire personnel files, but it's a sensitive part of personnel files.
So hey, I'm not normally so friendly toward police. Back in the day, one of my favorite songs was MDC's "Let's Kill All The Cops".[0,1]
But I've mellowed. As I've gotten older, and less of a pain in the ass, I've found police to more than not be helpful. One state cop even helped me to change a flat tire. Maybe I reminded him of my dad.
Mostly, though, I feel strongly that we all deserve privacy. And I don't think that public shaming is a good approach for dealing with such low-level "public servants" as police. Seriously, a bad cop will maybe fuck over maybe 100 people per year. But a bad judge could fuck over maybe 1000 per year.
And what about bad state attorney generals, governors, presidents or Supreme Court judges? That's where to focus, I think, on better public access. When considering the tradeoff between privacy and public accountability, the key factors are power and authority. The potential to do damage to the public interest.
1) MDC = "Magnus Dominus Corpus", "Millions of Damn Christians", "Millions of Dead Children", "Millions of Dead Cops", "Missile-Destroyed Civilization", "Multi-Death Corporations", etc [alphabetical order]
