If my career in journalism has taught me anything, it is that government seldom tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Admit a mistake, much less abject failure? Right. People – especially those entrenched in “the system” – are more concerned about saving their jobs, their money, their personal and political connections, their reputations, their time.
Catch them if you can.
The cover-ups and outright lies don’t surprise me – but the degree to which Americans now appear willing to tolerate them does.
This week – observed in newsrooms across the country as “Sunshine Week” – marks the 40th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act, the first law giving Americans the right to access federal government records. FOIA, as it is commonly called, is one of the most powerful tools Americans have to supervise the inner workings of their government. The act has been revised several times, but its gist remains the same: The public benefits when government conducts its business in the open.
Because of the FOIA:
This is the kind of accountability that makes journalists weep with joy. But make no mistake: FOIA is not about journalists’ rights. This remarkable piece of legislation helps make America the world’s strongest democracy. It is about the right all citizens have to know what their government is doing in their name.
Yet the FOIA has been undermined seriously in recent years and is truly under attack. The Bush administration has led the charge – and it uses the War on Terror to justify its actions. As recently noted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors: “Using the terror attacks of 9/11 as a reason to turn essential American values upside down, the federal government refused to name prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay; dragged its feet at requests to turn over documents to the 9/11 Commission; and used the Patriot Act to issue secret search warrants.”
Then there was the revelation in February that federal intelligence and security agencies for almost a decade have removed more than 55,000 pages of declassified historic documents from public access. After contending with the wrath of angry historians, Allen Weinstein, the nation’s chief archivist, had the good sense to declare a moratorium on the removal of more documents until an audit is conducted to determine whether any of those records actually needs to be secret.
Of course, none of this should come as any surprise. The first sign that FOIA was in major trouble came in October 2001, when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft instructed federal agencies to look for legal grounds on which to reject FOIA requests rather than to presume the public was entitled to the information it sought. In January 2003, the administration asked the Supreme Court to narrow FOIA significantly. The case hasn’t been heard.
The administration’s non-release policy and repeated claims of executive privilege and “national security” have had a profound impact. The number of classified documents rose from 8.6 million in 2001 to 15.6 million in 2004, according to the Information Security Oversight Office, a division of the National Archives and Records Administration. The number of declassified documents fell from 100 million to 28.4 million in the same period.
Don’t think that this cavalier behavior at the federal level doesn’t have a trickle-down effect on the halls of state and local government. Just last month, Chief Judge Brooke Jackson of the 1st Judicial District, which includes Gilpin and Jefferson counties, cited lack of funding and staffing as justification for barring public access to domestic and probate case court files. Jackson ordered that such files be released only to parties in a case or to attorneys of record. So much for thoughtful inspection of judges’ fairness and competency while handling divorces and wills.
But there are bright spots in the battle for open government. Denver District Court Judge Catherine Lemon in December ordered the Denver Police Department to release internal-affairs documents concerning the discipline of two officers involved in the department’s “spy files” case. People wanting to know if they are among the 51,000 people spied on by the Denver Intelligence Bureau since 1953 may now find out for free at the Denver Public Library. The floodgates were opened largely because members of CopWatch, a citizen group that monitors police activities, refused to take no for an answer.
What will you do to uphold the public’s right to know how its government operates? If you’re like most Americans, absolutely nothing – which is a terrible shame. But you’re not like most Americans, are you?
Here’s what you can do:
I always close my talks with this quote from President Abraham Lincoln: “Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe.”
Christine Tatum is a Denver Post staff writer and president-elect of the national Society of Professional Journalists.
