Good and Bad News on Government Information

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is the first international court to declare that access to government information is a human right. The recent ruling was reached in a case brought by Chilean environmentalists against the U.S.-based logging company Trillium. The court's decision is based on the American Convention on Human Rights' Article 13, which deals with "freedom of thought and expression." The ruling states, "Article 13 of the Convention, which specifically establishes the rights to 'seek' and 'receive' information, protects the right of all persons to request access to information held by the State." In other news, the nonprofit research group National Security Archive (NSA) is criticizing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' report on improving access to U.S. government information. The report "fails to acknowledge that many of the admirable goals set by [federal] agencies [to improve responses to Freedom of Information Act requests] can only be met with an increased commitment of resources," which "is not being considered by the Administration," states NSA. Among the "serious deficiencies" noted by the group are some federal agencies' "lack of basic technology such as copiers and Internet access."

Main Source: 
Editor & Publisher, October 13, 2006
Topics: 
Activism
Environment
Human Rights
Secrecy
U.S. Government

Comments

rgd replied on

I believe this could be a very interesting mesure to increase civilian awareness, though the structure surrounding the respect of this human right might be quite challenging. This mesure might be ignored by a government who refuses to put in the time and money for proper legislation and organization for this access.

rtpricetag replied on

Americans (must) become active in "demanding" that our government open records availability to the citizens of this nation.

It is being stated by the informed that the great majority of government-records being classified under security directives, have instead been falsely classified to hide government crime, corruption, and failures.

From the research I have done, I believe this statement is (more than) highly probable. What I have discovered from hard work, is that much past corruption will become worse in the future unless citizens wake up.

American citizens need join citizen-activist organization's (look out for Corp/Gov-Astroturf organizations) and force FOI laws that will stop our government hiding their failures and crimes as National-Security.