The majority of the nation strongly believes that open
government and public access to government documents is critical to
the functioning of good government, according to two national polls
recently conducted by Ohio University and Washington State
University.
The Ohio poll also found that one third of those surveyed
consider the federal government to be “very open.”
This is 33 percent too many.
It is important to realize that the government will not be open
on its own. President Lyndon Johnson, lauded for the statements he
made on the passage of the Freedom of Information Act, tried to
strike the legislation down. Committed journalists and other
citizens calling for a more open government gave us this law.
We should be aware, though, that that one act is not enough to
guarantee open government.
FOIA allows citizens to request documents that are not
classified, but these requests have to be very specific, and
government agencies are not known for helping to clarify queries.
The CIA has routinely tried to create exemptions for FOIA.
Meanwhile, lobbyists have no trouble making sure that the
government does not declassify information, which means that less
information is available to hold the government accountable.
Government agencies have even been reclassifying documents, some
available for decades and in published form. Recent news reports
show this to have been going on systematically since 1999, when
Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was in power.
This is not a partisan issue, but an issue of government versus
people.
Still, the way in which unlawful government behavior is being
spun is quite specific to this administration. Whistleblowers who
have acted in the interest of the public by shedding light on
government wrongdoing are being attacked.
Rather than seriously face charges of domestic spying, for
instance, the White House has put out statements that such
whistleblowing should not be judicially supported.
Our government is not acting in our interest by withholding
secrets about its policies and trying to rewrite history by
redacting the record. Presently, we still do not have full
disclosure on the practice of torture at Guantanamo Bay or the
detention of people within this country. We still deserve
information on how New Orleans could have had more protection prior
to Hurricane Katrina.
Such questions are only “political” when blind
nationalism drives pundits to cry out that questioning the
government means turning against your fellow citizen. What about
drug testing policies? Is it treasonous for citizens to expect open
information regarding the influence of corporate drug manufacturers
on the Food and Drug Administration?
At UCLA, we hold ourselves up as a community of intellectuals
and leaders. We need reliable information to write informed studies
or to offer informed policy decisions. Our credibility as
democratic and moral actors is only as good as the information that
we are willing to rightfully demand from our own government.
Hom is a graduate student in the library and information
studies program.