Freedom of information in the United States results from freedom of information legislation at the federal level and in the fifty states.
Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatisfaction with the secrecy surrounding government policy development and decision making. They establish a "right-to-know" legal process by which requests may be made for government-held information, to be received freely or at minimal cost, barring standard exceptions. Also variously referred to as open records, or sunshine laws, governments are typically bound by a duty to publish and promote openness. In many countries there are constitutional guarantees for the right of access to information, but these are usually unused if specific support legislation does not exist.
The Privacy Act of 1974, a United States federal law, establishes a Code of Fair Information Practice that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies. A system of records is a group of records under the control of an agency from which information is retrieved by the name of the individual or by some identifier assigned to the individual. The Privacy Act requires that agencies give the public notice of their systems of records by publication in the Federal Register. The Privacy Act prohibits the disclosure of information from a system of records absent of the written consent of the subject individual, unless the disclosure is pursuant to one of twelve statutory exceptions. The Act also provides individuals with a means by which to seek access to and amendment of their records and sets forth various agency record-keeping requirements. Additionally, with people granted the right to review what was documented with their name, they are also able to find out if the "records have been disclosed".. and are also given the rights to make corrections.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, is a federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government upon request. The act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and defines nine exemptions to the statute. The act was intended to make U.S. government agencies' functions more transparent so that the American public could more easily identify problems in government functioning and put pressure on Congress, agency officials, and the president to address them.
The Puzzle Palace is a book written by James Bamford and published in 1982. It is the first major, popular work devoted entirely to the history and workings of the National Security Agency (NSA), a United States intelligence organization. The title refers to a nickname for the NSA, which is headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland. In addition to describing the role of the NSA and explaining how it was organized, the book exposed details of a massive eavesdropping operation called Operation Shamrock. According to security expert Bruce Schneier, the book was popular within the NSA itself, as "the agency's secrecy prevents its employees from knowing much about their own history".
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level. Its application is limited in Scotland to UK Government offices geo-located in Scotland. The Act implements a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the 1997 general election, developed by David Clark as a 1997 White Paper. The final version of the Act is believed to have been diluted from that proposed while Labour was in opposition. The full provisions of the act came into force on 1 January 2005.
Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential and generally pertain to the conduct of government.
In United States law, the term Glomar response, also known as Glomarization or Glomar denial, refers to a response to a request for information that will "neither confirm nor deny" (NCND) the existence of the information sought. For example, in response to a request for police reports relating to a certain individual, the police agency may respond with the following: "We can neither confirm nor deny that our agency has any records matching your request."
The Access to Information Act or Information Act is a Canadian Act providing the right of access to information under the control of a federal government institution. As of 2020, the Act allowed "people who pay $5 to request an array of federal files". Paragraph 2. (1) of the Act ("Purpose") declares that government information should be available to the public, but with necessary exceptions to the right of access that should be limited and specific, and that decisions on the disclosure of government information should be reviewed independently of government. Later paragraphs assign responsibility for this review to an Information Commissioner, who reports directly to parliament rather than the government in power. However, the Act provides the commissioner the power only to recommend rather than compel the release of requested information that the commissioner judges to be not subject to any exception specified in the Act.
Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977), was a case brought before the Supreme Court of the United States. The case involved a New York state law requiring reporting and storage of information concerning all Schedule II drug prescriptions. Physicians were required to report the name of the prescribing physician; the dispensing pharmacy; the drug and dosage; and the name, address, and age of the patient. This information was then stored by the New York Department of State.
The Automated Targeting System or ATS is a United States Department of Homeland Security computerized system that, for every person who crosses U.S. borders, scrutinizes a large volume of data related to that person, and then automatically assigns a rating for which the expectation is that it helps gauge whether this person may be placed within a risk group of terrorists or other criminals. Similarly ATS analyzes data related to container cargo.
Canadian privacy law is derived from the common law, statutes of the Parliament of Canada and the various provincial legislatures, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Perhaps ironically, Canada's legal conceptualization of privacy, along with most modern legal Western conceptions of privacy, can be traced back to Warren and Brandeis’s “The Right to Privacy” published in the Harvard Law Review in 1890, Holvast states “Almost all authors on privacy start the discussion with the famous article The Right to Privacy of Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis”.
EPIC v. Department of Justice is a 2014 case in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia between the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) where EPIC seeks court action to enforce their Freedom of Information Act request for documents that the Department of Justice has withheld pertaining to George W. Bush's authorization of NSA warrantless surveillance.
Statutes Found to Qualify under Exemption 3 of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C.§ 552(b)(3). Under its terms, as amended in 1976 and 2009, a statute qualifies as an "Exemption 3 statute" only if it "(i) requires that the matters be withheld from the public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the issue; or (ii) establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld." Additionally, any statute enacted after October 29, 2009, acting to exclude information release must contain a specific citation to subsection (b)(3) of the FOIA statute.
Department of Interior v. Klamath Water Users Protective Assn., 532 U.S. 1 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court case decided in 2001. The case concerned whether Exemption 5 of the Freedom of Information Act, which applies to "intra agency memoranda or letters", is applicable to documents within the Department of the Interior which discussed plans for the allocation of water in the Klamath River Basin. The Court held unanimously that the exemption did not apply.
Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T Inc., 562 U.S. 397 (2011), was a United States Supreme Court case on aspects of corporate personhood. It held that the exemption from Freedom of Information Act disclosure requirements for law enforcement records which "could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" does not protect information related to corporate privacy.
A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The Whistleblower Protection Act was made into federal law in the United States in 1989.
Department of Justice v. Landano, 508 U.S. 165 (1993), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Government is not entitled to a presumption that a source is confidential within the meaning of Exemption 7(D) of the Freedom of Information Act whenever the source provides information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the course of a criminal investigation.
The FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act of 2014 is a bill that would amend the Freedom of Information Act in order to make it easier and faster to request and receive information. The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to create a single FOIA website for people to use to make FOIA requests and check on the status of their request. The bill would also create a Chief FOIA Officers Council charged with reviewing compliance and recommending improvements. This bill would also require the federal agency to release the information it disclosed to the person who requested it publicly afterwards.
Access to public information and freedom of information (FOI) refer to the right of access to information held by public bodies also known as "right to know". Access to public information is considered of fundamental importance for the effective functioning of democratic systems, as it enhances governments' and public officials' accountability, boosting people participation and allowing their informed participation into public life. The fundamental premise of the right of access to public information is that the information held by governmental institutions is in principle public and may be concealed only on the basis of legitimate reasons which should be detailed in the law.
