A Brief History
On July 4, 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was enacted, with an effective date one year later, July 4, 1967. In keeping with the wondrous and mysterious ways of Washington, DC, the FOIA was repealed the next day! Not to worry, a virtually identical FOIA was enacted on July 5, 1967, and was effective from July 4, 1967.
Digging Deeper
This goofy, confusing political posturing is exactly why the FOIA was needed. On the other hand, far from making government transparent as the FOIA was intended, self serving interpretations and vague wordage caused the 1974 Privacy Act to amend the FOIA in ways beneficial to the public. Of course, the bastions of individual freedom, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Anton Scalia (all executive branch operatives even back then) counseled President Ford against this increased clarity and Ford vetoed the bill. Congress overrode the veto, and the FOIA was amended.
Modification did not stop there, as the 1976 Sunshine Act allowed the government to withhold certain specified information relating to national defense, personal privacy, internal workings of government, financial institutions and criminal proceedings. (Should have called it the “Block the Sunshine Act!”)
Ronald Reagan made Executive Order 12356 in 1986 which grossly undermined the FOIA, allowing the government to keep much more information away from the public. In 1995, President Clinton un-did most of those restrictions, and released a wealth of previously secret information, especially about Cold War topics.
Other modifications concerning the way requests and fees were handled and allowing for electronic compliance with requests (instead of hard copies), and President George W. Bush restricted access to information about former presidents, which was in turn overturned by President Obama. In 2002 another bill was passed once again limiting access to information, especially by foreign entities. Not to leave things be, another modification, the Open Government Act of 2007 was passed, and in 2009 President Obama ordered that information could be retroactively classified as secret when requested.
The convoluted trail of “government openness” continued in 2010 when amendments were made to the FOIA as part of the Wall Street Reform Act in July and then repealed in September! Those amendments were to protect SEC investigations in progress. This repeal makes it harder to investigate Wall Street.
Governments all over the globe keep secrets from their own people, and the US is no different. The FOIA was supposed to at least partially change that, but it seems it keeps getting watered down. Even as this article is written, another bill with more modifications is before congress, supposedly to enhance public access to information.
Question for students (and subscribers): Should government business be secret, or should the people have a right to know what the feds are up to? Let us know what you think in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information on this topic, please see…
Brooke, Heather. Your Right to Know – Second Edition: A Citizen’s Guide to the Freedom of Information Act. Pluto Press, 2006.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="2816 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=2816">45 Comments
I can understand why the government might not want foregin entities to have access to some of the US government’s information, but I think the people become even more distrusting of the government when so much is hidden from them. We should have the right to know things about events that happened 50 years ago. Maybe there should be an amount of time that has to pass.
I had no idea that President Reagan kept that information from the public.
I believe the government shouldn’t keep secrets from its citizens.
Honestly, I don’t think the general public really cares about the hidden information if it doesn’t directly affect them. They have more important things to do, like working to feed their families, than worry about what really happened during the cold war.
Keeping things from the public is a reality that we must face. There are so many things that go on that we have no clue about.
I think that some things should be hidden for public safety.
The government keeps many things from society whether that’s right or wrong is questionable.
Seems ironic that something titled the ‘Sunshine Act’ was actually referring to the government’s granted ability to withhold information.
I do think some things should be kept away from the public. People take everything to seriously, turn everything into being raciest, if people disagree violence may start.
I believe there are some things everyone should know and that there are also things that should be kept secret.
I believe that there is some information that needs to be kept from the public.
I agree that this was wrong to keep away from the public. ‘Sunshine act’ sounds so comforting and sweet but it was deceiving ultimately.
I believe that the public should be aware of most information. I agree that it might cause some havoc though.
I think the government should not have to share every detail of information with the public. If it is classified or for the protection of the citizens, it should remain secret.
If Americans knew every classified piece of information that the US Government knows, we would all live in bomb shelters, never use a credit or debit card and be in constant fear. There are some things that the general population doesn’t need to know.
I think it is good that the people do not know everything that the government knows, but we should still have knowledge about important things that are relevant to us.
I think that the government should not hide any information from the public.
I think it is a good thing that we do not know everything. I think if we knew everything going on there would be a lot of panic and fear. I think somethings should not be kept secret or that after several years the truth should be told when it is solved.
The most i know about this act is the Right to Know is in work places. it is a book that tells of all the dangers of the work place because it is a workers right to know what dangers he may deal with
I do not believe that individuals need to know everything the government is doing, “ignorance is bliss.” I believe that public knowledge of the government’s doings would induce panic and lead to many protests and riots.
I know that the government does keep some things from the people, and I believe that is the way it should be. It just makes me wonder what all they are hiding.
The Freedom Of Information Act (1966) was created to give the American people more information and to have less secrets kept from them. With the recent posts of Wikileaks it is evident that the U.S. government has continued to hold things from the country.
I am ok with the Government keeping some things from the public. You can definitely see the difference in thinking between the Republicans and Democrats.
The act I think is very important for Americans although at times I feel like the government is hiding a lot from us, I think they have improved.
I find it pretty ironic that President George W. Bush denied the ability to access information about previous presidents. I find this ironic because Republicans generally have the “small government,” idea of being allowed to know what your leaders are doing.
I have honestly never heard of this Act, but I think the government does hide a lot of information from us. I was surprised to see how many times it has been changed by the different presidents.
I would like to know of all of the secrets that our government actually keeps from us. I can sometimes understand that it is to decrease a panic of the nation for some subjects, but on the other end of things, I feel that we as America’s people deserve to know what is going on with our country.
I do understand why the government chooses to keep certain things from the public to ensure that it won’t start a mass panic from occurring. I do feel that they keep much more than needed from the public, but it is hard to imagine that if we knew everything what some people might do with that information, and what our world would look like.
I agree with Shannon. The government want to keep those information because of some security purposes and political needs. But, I believe that people have the right to know about truth. Even for some good purpose, the government also has no right to suppress the truth.
People have rights to know about the truth, but for security and political problems, the government need to tell people the truth in special ways.
I agree that people have a right to know some government information, but on a need to know basis. I do believe that there are things that would not be safe for citizens to know.
I don’t think people need to know everything going on in the government.
I agree that certain people should have access to government knowledge, but on the need to know basis, but for security purposes I think that certain people should not have access to such knowledge.
I do not believe that this much information should be shared to the public,it is more of a danger to Americans.
I do not think that regular people should know highly classified information. They should know what they need to know and nothing more.
Even if Clinton released tons of information to the public I believe that there is still hundreds if not thousands of things that the government has never told the public.
This is an interesting article. I understand that the government is not going to come out and tell everyone everything because somethings are better left unsaid. It was nice too see Obama making some changes to what he believed was right.
There are so many documents and databases to sort and read through the American people would never be able to know all of the knowledge that relates to our government and it’s affairs.
As much as I think we should be made aware of what goes on in terms of our government, I do think that it is sometimes avoided to prevent panic and havoc
I feel most of the public does not have the knowledge to comprehend or understand the government properly.
I think that people have the right to know about certain things that goes on in their lives, but unless people ask for it individually, people should know nothing more than needed.
I think the public have the right to know what the government is doing.
I hate when we don’t know what the government is doing,
I do understand why the government chooses to keep certain things from the public to ensure that it won’t start a mass panic from occurring. However I do feel that they keep much more than needed from the public, but it is hard to imagine that if we knew everything what some people might do with that information, and what our world would look like.
I think that the public has the right to know about government business if they want to know. I don’t think it should be regularly publicized because I think it would create more chaos than necessary, but the information should be available somewhere for those that care to know what the government is doing at all times.