時差N小時:信息自由法令 The Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information movement began inearnest in the 1950s. After WWII, the extent ofgovernment secrecy was questioned by theAmerican Society of Newspaper Editors.

真正意義上的信息自由運(yùn)動始于20世紀(jì)50年代。二戰(zhàn)后，政府保密的程度受到了美國報(bào)紙編輯協(xié)會的質(zhì)疑。

At about the same time, a young Congressman fromCalifornia, John Moss, was coming to the sameconclusion — discovering that a lot of governmentrecords were being held back from the public almostby default, without a thoughtful or systematicprocess.

大約在同一年，約翰·莫斯，一位年輕的來自加利福利亞的國會議員，對此也深有同感。他發(fā)現(xiàn)政府幾乎是約定俗成、不經(jīng)考慮地把大量的文件檔案與公眾隔絕開來，更別提系統(tǒng)的程序約束了。

John Moss worked on this issue for 12 of his 26 years in Congress. He eventually authored theFreedom of Information Act. It offered a compromise between those who argue for secrecy asit relates to national security, and those who argue for a citizen's right to know, on acase–by–case basis. Based on the belief that individuals should know what their government isup to, The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law on July 4, 1966 — and expanded in1974 after the Watergate scandal.

在約翰·莫斯26年的國會生涯中，有12年時間致力于這個問題。最后他成為信息自由法令的作者。有些人認(rèn)為，文件關(guān)系到國家安全所以應(yīng)該保密，而另一些人則認(rèn)為信息自由是公民的權(quán)利，這項(xiàng)法案讓雙方都做出妥協(xié)。每個公民都應(yīng)該知道政府的決策，基于這樣一個信念，《信息自由法案》在1966年7月4日簽署成為法律，并在水門事件之后擴(kuò)大了影響力。

The Act allows any person the right to access information from a federal agency through awritten request. Government agencies are required to disclose the documents, unless theycan be lawfully withheld under the specific exemptions written into the Act. Because of hispush to release government information, the FBI kept an extensive file on Congressman Moss,which was recently released ... through the Freedom of Information Act.

該法案規(guī)定任何人都有權(quán)利通過書面請求的方式從聯(lián)邦政府獲得信息，并要求政府機(jī)構(gòu)公開文件。根據(jù)寫進(jìn)法案的具體豁免權(quán)，有些文件可能會被依法扣留，因此不在公開范圍內(nèi)。由于約翰·莫斯推動了政府信息的公開，美國聯(lián)邦調(diào)查局保存了大量關(guān)于摩斯議員的資料，這些資料最近才公開。