50 years after FOI act, celebrating government transparency

“Government secrecy – the first refuge of incompetents – must be at a bare minimum in a democratic society, for a fully informed public is the basis of self-government.” – Committee on Government Operations, U.S. House Representatives

July 4th marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s signing into law the federal “Freedom of Information” bill.

During these ensuing years, significant benefits have accrued to the American people because – for the first time – they have been able to exercise a legal right and corresponding free access to records of the federal government’s decision-making and conduct of public policy.

When the federal law became fully effective in 1967, ordinary citizens were able to obtain from their own government copies of federal laws, documents, reports, directives and other information essential to our form of government. Under the new law, if the government fails to deliver information not protected by one of several exemptions such as national security, the people are allowed to go to court to force release of the requested data.

The 1966 law instituted the public’s right to know about its government’s actions. Today we take it for granted that it is illegal for the federal government to govern in secrecy, to deny requests for information and to otherwise hide official records from public view.

“Government transparency is at the heart of a functioning democracy,” asserts Jonathan Jones, director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition headquartered at Elon University. “The passage in Congress of the federal FOI law 50 years ago brought much-needed reform to pull government into the sunshine. It opened doors of government for citizen inspection and gave each person the opportunity to see how well his or her government works.”

Significantly, passage of the federal law prompted the 50 states to adopt their own open access laws. North Carolina’s FOI law has been invoked thousands of times by individual citizens, newspapers and broadcast media, public interest groups and others. But our state government’s adherence to its own FOI law has not been perfect. Too often government officials have denied access, dragged their feet, rejected requests and forced court litigation – all at unnecessary expense to taxpayers.

Of course, government secrecy is nothing new. In 1775, our Continental Congress passed a resolution prohibiting its members from telling the American people about its actions, declaring: “If any member shall violate this (secrecy) agreement, he shall be expelled from this Congress and deemed an enemy of the liberties of America.” The federal government was less than a year old in 1790 when Alexander Hamilton denied a request to examine receipts that Baron von Steuben had presented for public money advanced to him. And President Abraham Lincoln ignored requests from Congress for information about his conduct of the Civil War.

America’s role in World War II and the post-war period gave rise to government secrecy on a scale never before seen. It was the atomic era and the rise of communism. Literally tons of documents were classified “For Official Eyes Only.” This practice produced the inevitable absurdities. Peanut butter consumed by the armed forces was classified “secret” because the government feared this information would disclose our degree of military preparedness. At the same time, another government agency was selling reports that detailed the exact size of the armed services.

It was at the height of post-war secrecy in 1953 that Congressman John E. Moss, a Democrat from California, confronted executive branch intransigence by challenging unwarranted secrecy at the U.S. Civil Service Commission. Moss, 39, pursued many such cases during the Eisenhower administration, but when his party’s candidate (John F. Kennedy) was elected in 1960, he was forced to back off for political reasons. Instead of folding up his tent, however, Moss bided his time and in early 1965 he worked out an arrangement with a 32-year-old Republican, Donald H. Rumsfeld of Illinois, who was serving on Moss’ House Subcommittee on Government Information.

With the quiet support of Moss, Rumsfeld took over the U.S. House effort to promote the need for passage of the Federal Public Records Act that had just been approved by the U.S. Senate. “John Moss was doing battle – quietly, because it was his party in the White House. But he was doing battle with the Kennedy administration all the time,” Rumsfeld explained.

Moss soon recognized that the advocacy efforts of Rumsfeld and other Republicans were fashioning an issue labeled as “the credibility gap” that might become a potent weapon for the GOP in the November 1966 election. He advised the White House of his concerns, and soon the administration’s objections to the bill began to fade.

Finally, on June 20, 1966, the U.S. House voted 307-0 to pass the Senate’s FOI bill and sent it to the president for signature.

Thanks to far-sighted efforts by members of Congress and the U.S. news media, among others, the ever-growing wall of secrecy in the executive branch of the federal government was largely dismantled in the 1960s. And the American people have been beneficiaries of the Freedom of Information law ever since.

July Fourth is indeed a time to celebrate.

This story was originally published July 3, 2016 at 6:00 PM with the headline "50 years after FOI act, celebrating government transparency."