As a guy whose maternal grandfather was a snitch for the US military and the FBI (and, in fact, an ineffective witness in the deportation trials of the communist-branded San Francisco ILWU leader, Harry Bridges, in the 1930s), I have always been fascinated by government lies and secrecy in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
No one knows for sure when lying became a constant factor in public life, but it seems to have generated its own head of steam following the Second World War with the communist witch hunts and the advent of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) charade led by Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. This was the genesis of the Cold War that has never ended.
History buffs may recall that the ensuing hysteria created a blacklist of actors, directors, and screenwriters, including a group known as the Hollywood Ten, all allegedly members of the Communist Party, or its sympathizers. They included Dalton Trumbo, Alvah Bessie, a former local resident, and Ring Lardner, Jr., but many hundreds of others were caught in the web. Aside from the clown show we call politics in the present day, this may have been our nation’s darkest hour. A good movie about the era, released in 1976, is called The Front.
One of the other government snitches, and there is no better word to describe their ilk, was a two-bit actor by the name of Ronald Reagan. But the real star of the show was Joe McCarthy, with the shark-like lawyers, Roy Cohn and Robert Kennedy, in support. Yes, that Robert Kennedy.
There can be no dispute that some information held by government sources should be protected, for the safety of the general public. But the government, at least until the next fascist regime is put in place, is not a paramilitary organization. All taxpayer funded activities should be open to public scrutiny, with a tiny number of exceptions. In theory.
The Freedom of Information Act (FIOA) of the 1970s shouldn’t have been necessary to enact, but it was. It is law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased or uncirculated information and documents controlled by the government upon request. The act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and includes nine exemptions that define categories of information not subject to disclosure. 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 FOIA has been changed repeatedly by both the legislative and executive branches.
The FOIA is most commonly known for being invoked by news agencies for reporting purposes, though such uses make up less than 10% of all requests—which are more frequently made by businesses, law firms, and individuals.
A society whose elected officials and federal and state governments constantly lie needs the FIOA to function correctly.