I've Got A Secret

Extolling the value of open government, President Jimmy Carter wrote a July 4th op-ed in the Washington Post, We Need Fewer Secrets, on the 40th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act. As he notes:

Our government leaders have become increasingly obsessed with secrecy. Obstructionist policies and deficient practices have ensured that many important public documents and official actions remain hidden from our view.

The events in our nation today -- war, civil rights violations, spiraling energy costs, campaign finance and lobbyist scandals -- dictate the growing need and citizens' desire for access to public documents.

* * * *

Increasingly, developed and developing nations are recognizing that a free flow of information is fundamental for democracy.

* * * *

Nearly 70 countries have passed legislation to ensure the right to request and receive public documents, the vast majority in the past decade and many in middle- and low-income nations. While the United States retreats, the international trend toward transparency grows, with laws often more comprehensive and effective than our own.

* * * *

We cannot take freedom of information for granted. Our democracy depends on it.

At the same time that the Bush Administration believes that its citizenry must increasingly surrender its right to privacy to the government's "need to know" for our protection, the government has denied our right to know how the government is functioning, shielding from public view how it conducts itself on our behalf. This is not the definition of democracy.

I'm not sure that we should be celebrating when you compare our freedoms as they exist today, on our Day of Independence, the birth of our Nation and its democracy, and realize that those freedoms pale in comparison to those of formerly authoritarian regimes and developing countries. Perhaps protesting in the street would be more appropriate.

E.J. Dionne of the Post also writes about the 4th in A Dissident's Holiday, noting the "distinguished national tradition in which dissident voices identify with the revolutionary aspirations of the republic's founders." The founders would fully support the protest.

"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. "
-words written on the Liberty Bell

(Picture -- Independence Hall, Philadelphia)

Tags: Commentary, Jimmy Carter, Fourth of July