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Faculty Scholarship
Spring 2014
The myth of freedom of information.
John Chenault University of Louisville, [email protected]
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Original Publication Information This article was originally published in Kentucky Libraries, volume 78, issue 2, in Spring 2014.
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FEATURE KENTUCKY L IBRARY A SSOCIATION
THE MYTH OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION IN THE UNITED STATES
BY JOHN CHENAULT
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, REFERENCE DEPARTMENT KORNHAUSER HEALTH SCIENCES LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE
popular government, without popular infor- (March 4, 1809 to March 3, 1817). His birth- mation, or the means of acquiring it, is but a pro- day, March 16, is marked each year by an logue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. annual event sponsored by the American Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a peo- Library Association (ALA). ALA’s “Freedom ple who mean to be their own governors must arm of Information Day” recognizes individuals themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” and groups for championing access to govern- — James Madison, 1822 ment information and the “people’s right to know” with the presentation of the James Are the purported owners of the U.S. Madison Award (American Library Government, the citizens of the United Association). The quote from Madison cited States, also the owners of government infor- above appeared on the ALA “Freedom of mation? If so, are they entitled to unfettered Information Day” web page as recently as access to data, information, and documents 2006. However, on an undetermined date created or collected by government agencies shortly thereafter, the quote was removed and officials? Is the idea of “freedom of infor- from view. It apparently no longer serves as mation” embedded in the framework of the part of ALA’s awareness campaign, perhaps U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights? Or is it because it was misused as discussed below. one of the myths of a questionably “free” nation whose founding was circumscribed and It is not difficult to understand the evolution tainted by the legalization and institutional- of the Madison icon and its association with ization of racial slavery and other forms of the idea of freedom of information and all it social inequality? These questions provide the represents in contemporary discourse. As a backdrop against which this article will exam- rebel and revolutionary, Madison was acutely ine a pervasive idea in U.S. culture: that U.S. concerned about protecting citizens’ rights to citizens historically have had the right to free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom information created by their government in of the press. As the “Father of the Constitution,” the course of conducting the people’s business. he conceived and included those freedoms in What is briefly argued herein is that federal the Bill of Rights because he viewed constitu- laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s, and polit- tionally guaranteed liberties, especially a free ical and technological trends and develop- press, as bulwarks against an oppressive ments that occurred during the latter half of monarchy or government. But Madison makes the twentieth century, especially in the 1990s, no mention of freedom of information in the may give the public a false view of how the nation’s founding documents. The oft-quoted government historically has treated govern- statement on “popular information” cited ment documents and regarded the people’s above is a comment made more than two right to know. decades after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Moreover the quote, when used The quote cited above from founding father as a statement to advocate freedom of infor- James Madison contributes to a grand myth mation, is taken out of context. The opening about American freedom that has echoed sentence of Madison’s remark has been omit- across the centuries. Madison, who is known ted to make it congruent with the use to by the nickname “Father of the Constitution,” which it has been applied. The entire para- was the fourth President of the United States graph, which opens a letter dated August 4,
32 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 THE MYTH OF 1822 from Madison to William T. Barry, the to inconvenient truths. Is this judgment too F.O.I. …U.S. Lieutenant Governor of the State of harsh and too critical of the popular national Kentucky, reads as follows: narrative of American freedom? Let us briefly CONTINUED The liberal appropriations made by the examine this point from another perspective. Legislature of Kentucky for a general system of Education cannot be too much applauded Like many of his co-founding fathers, [emphasis added]. A popular Government, Madison spoke eloquently about liberty and without popular information, or the means the rights of man and did so fully cognizant of of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce the contradictions between his rhetoric and or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge the reality of his ownership of human beings. will forever govern ignorance: And a people Among his several notable remarks on the who mean to be their own Governors, must subject of slavery is the following excerpt from arm themselves with the power which a speech he gave on December 2nd at the knowledge gives (Madison “James Madison Virginia State Convention of 1829-30: to W. T. Barry”). It is due to justice; due to humanity; due to truth; due to the sympathies of our nature; Madison goes on to express his fond regard for in fine, to our character as a people, both the Commonwealth of Kentucky and its peo- abroad and at home, that they [enslaved ple, and to note the value and benefit of Africans] should be considered, as much as Kentucky’s State Plan of Education for its citi- possible, in the light of human beings, and zens. Nowhere in its contents does Madison not as mere property. As such, they are ever discuss freedom of information or the role acted on by our laws, and have an interest and responsibility of the government to its cit- in our laws. They may be considered as izens as a creator, collector or provider of making a part, though a degraded part, of information. Thus the view of Madison as an the families to which they belong (Madison advocate of “freedom of information” as we “Question of the Ratio of Representation in understand that term today, especially in refer- the Two Branches of the Legislature”). ence to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and access to government documents, Historians and Madison scholars have used has been conjured out of thin air by an act of such quotes to argue that Madison was a omission. This editorial sleight-of-hand benign and enlightened slave master. Dr. achieves its credibility due to the broad public Devin Bent, founder of the James Madison regard for Madison as the founder of American Center at James Madison University, offers freedoms. The false ideas that flow from it – this typical assessment of Madison’s character that Madison’s notion of “popular informa- in the matter of owning human beings: “To tion” and the people’s right to know is some- his credit, Madison was more troubled than how embedded in the founding of the nation most by slavery and by the hubris of the great and its founding documents – are the byprod- slave owners. He never seems as overtly racist ucts of a hagiographic construction of U.S. as Jefferson at his worst” (Bent). Bent but- history that intentionally ignores the contra- tresses his opinion with the following testimo- dictions inherent in the establishment of the ny from Paul Jennings, a man once owned by republic. The truth that rarely surfaces in pub- Madison, and who served as his body servant: lic education and in the public square is that Mr. Madison, I think, was one of the best the “land of the free” was built on the geno- men that ever lived. I never saw him in a cide of Amerindians, the foundation of chattel passion, and never knew him to strike a slavery, and the enactment of voting regula- slave, although he had over one hundred; tions that excluded the majority of its popula- neither would he allow an overseer to do it. tion from the franchise (women, indentured Whenever any slaves were reported to him servants, Native Americans, and most so- as stealing or “cutting up” badly, he would called free “Negroes”) by restricting the right send for them and admonish them privately, to vote mainly to property-owning “white” and never mortify them by doing it before males. The master narrative of the nation’s others (Bent). founding therefore is blind by design to its own omissions and historicist fallacies. The Madison never struck a slave, but he never whitewashed, sanitized, and sanctified past it freed one either. He inherited more than one serves up for public consumption remains pop- hundred slaves from his father in 1801, and in ular, nonetheless, in a society conditioned to 1809 he even purchased an indentured ser- prefer historical amnesia and selective memory vant from Thomas Jefferson named John 33 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 THE MYTH OF Freeman. Freeman’s name suggests he may the government began to address the need of F.O.I. …U.S. have been a free African American. The the citizenry for access to government infor- transaction was unusual in that the use of mation? Law Professor James O’Reilly offers CONTINUED indentured servants at that time in U.S. histo- some guidance in that direction in an address ry had significantly declined (James Madison he delivered in Lawrence, Kansas in 2002. Center). The purchase also illustrates that O’Reilly opened his speech to the University Madison’s personal antipathy to the institu- of Kansas Law & Public Policy forum with the tion of slavery did not preclude him from tak- following remarks: ing full advantage of its demonstrated eco- The right of broad public access to govern- nomic benefits. ment documents is a relatively recent American invention, a phenomenon that Madison’s role as the chief author of the U.S. has spread on the world stage in fits and Constitution, and his adoption by modern starts. The momentum supporting the “free- scholars as an icon of the concept of “freedom dom of information” concept has been flow- of information,” provides the context for the ing in only one direction, toward greater attention he has received in this discussion transparency and greater dissemination of thus far. Equally important, Madison has more government information, and this served as a focal point through which to flow has been accelerated by the inexpen- examine the general inability of many U.S. sive technology for internet web posting of citizens to view the past except through the government documents. While it has never lens of a highly selective and subjective achieved constitutional status, the right of national memory. If not selective in nature, if access to most types of government records not inscribing a hagiographic narrative while has been a part of our national consensus erasing or effacing the possibilities and per- from July 4, 1966, when the Freedom of spectives of contradictory and counter narra- Information Act was adopted, to September tives, by what other means can we account for 11, 2001 – but since then, some things may the master narrative’s blatant disregard for have changed (O’Reilly 166). actual events that illustrate the denial of American freedoms, real or imaginary, to so O’Reilly’s comment confirms the fact that many Americans? U.S. citizens have not always had the legal right to government information, and that a While this discussion of Madison and slavery constitutional right currently does not exist. has diverged somewhat from the topic of free- O’Reilly traces the “right of access” to the dom of information, it does so to establish passage of the 1966 Freedom of Information basic facts about freedom in the U.S. that Act, but then questions whether events subse- often are obscured, overlooked or dismissed. It quent to 9/11 may have effectively ended the confronts the question of the people’s right to national consensus regarding the people’s know through its assertion that American right to know. Before examining O’Reilly’s freedoms were not conceived for or available supposition that the 1966 Freedom of to all Americans. Any careful examination of Information Act fostered “the right of broad the facts surrounding the nation’s founding public access to government information,” it and the drafting and ratification of its found- is important to note briefly several precedents ing documents reveals a government for the dealing with the organization and dissemina- people, but a government by propertied white tion of government information. males. A question implicit in this discussion is: how much of the status quo has changed In the 1930s, under the auspices of President over the course of two centuries? Arguably, Franklin D. Roosevelt, two events helped to the wealthy elite continues to dominate gov- usher the government into the modern infor- ernment, and the lack of access to public and mation era: the founding of the National government resources, including government Archives and Records Administration Agency documents and information, continues to be a (NARA) in 1934, and the establishment of major factor in the lives of the nation’s poor the Federal Register the following year. Before and its so-called minorities. the advent of NARA, individual federal agen- cies bore the responsibility of maintaining If contemporary notions of “freedom of infor- their own records. Many agencies, however, mation” are grounded, in part, in American did not take appropriate measures to preserve mythology, what does an objective examina- and protect documents, and valuable records tion of the facts reveal about how and when were lost due to fire, water damage, and neg- 34 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 THE MYTH OF lect. The mission of NARA, which had its upsurge in information restrictions and gov- F.O.I. …U.S. roots in the efforts of the Taft, Wilson, and ernment secrecy that occurred during Hoover administrations, is to keep for posteri- wartime. Among its provisions to address the CONTINUED ty the estimated 1%-3% of government docu- content, form and timing of federal agency ments that are important for legal or historical rulemaking and adjudication, the act also reasons (National Archives and Records required agencies to “publish descriptions of Administration Agency). The next important their organization and methods of operations step to improve records management and the in the Federal Register” (Feinberg 440). One flow of government information occurred in element of the APA addressed the need of 1935 when Congress passed the Federal making agency records available to the public. Register Act and authorized “the Archivist of But provisions within the legislation used the United States to establish a division with- statutory language that prescribed releasing in the National Archives to be responsible, records only to “persons directly and properly with the Government Printing Office (GPO), concerned,” and were often interpreted in a for the publication of a daily Federal Register manner that led to the withholding of docu- under the authority of a newly established ments rather than their release. This section Administrative Committee of the Federal of the statute was amended in 1966 to create Register” (McKinney). The Federal Register the Freedom of Information Act (National came about to bring an end to the chaos and Security Archives). confusion regarding federal rules and regula- tions. Prior to its enactment, the profusion of Since its authorization and signing into law by gazettes, notices, codes, digests, and other a reluctant President Lyndon Johnson on July publications containing the regulations of 4, 1966, the Freedom of Information Act has Executive Branch agencies made it nearly been regarded as establishing a firm legal impossible for the public to know where regu- foundation for the public right to government lations could be found, or if they were current. information. But as soon as the new law took effect, government records managers raised a The establishment of NARA in the 1930s number of barriers to impede public access to occurred in response to growing problems fed- government documents. The law itself enacts eral agencies faced in dealing with govern- nine categories of information that are ment information and documents. It has been exempt from disclosure. Numerous other asserted that during the prior 140 years of the means for effectively blocking the release of nation’s history “access to government infor- information also emerged. A study conducted mation does not appear to have been a major by the Library of Congress during the first four issue among the three branches [of govern- years of operation of FOIA identified six such ment] or for the citizenry” (Relyea). The procedures: Secrecy by delay (on average it accuracy of this claim is difficult to verify. took more than a month for federal agencies Prior to the passage of the Administrative to respond to requests); Secrecy by dollars (fees Procedure Act of 1946 (the precursor of the for getting information varied by agency and 1966 Freedom of Information Act), a house- could be exorbitant); Secrecy by description keeping statute passed by the 1st Congress in (materials had to be described in detail before 1789 provided the primary statutory authority the request would be processed); Secrecy by fil- regarding the custody, use and preservation of ing (if a small part of a file qualified for with- executive branch documents. Thus, for the holding the entire file was withheld); Secrecy first century-and-a-half of the nation’s history, by superiority (Pentagon officials claimed only the heads of individual government agencies they could decide the classification of docu- determined the availability and accessibility of ment; Judges, despite hearing appeals under government documents. While the record the Act, were not qualified to reverse such from this period indicates few instances where decisions); and Secrecy by investigation (if a the Executive Branch refused to comply with case had been investigated, regardless of the information requests, little is known regarding outcome, it could be hidden forever) how the refusal of government agencies to [Archibald, 1993, p. 730]. hand over documents may have impacted the public (Relyea). It also should be noted that FOIA did not arise out of a sudden recognition by the gov- The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) ernment of the people’s right to know. was authorized in 1946 in the immediate Thomas Blanton, the Director of the National aftermath of World War II and the related Security Archive at George Washington 35 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 THE MYTH OF University provides the following insight into government documents: the enactment of a F.O.I. …U.S. how the Act came about: set of policies by President Bill Clinton that […] the U.S. FOIA, which has emerged as a favored declassifying and disclosing govern- CONTINUED model for reformers worldwide, was not the ment documents over withholding them, and product of democratic enlightenment, but the advent of the Internet. In 1993, Janet rather Democratic partisanship. The legisla- Reno, Clinton’s Attorney General, rescinded tion emerged from 10 years of congressional “a 1981 rule that encouraged federal agencies hearings (1955-65) as the Democratic to withhold information whenever there was a majority sought access to deliberations of substantial legal reason for doing so” the Republican executive branch under for- (Martorella 114). Reno’s memo reversed pre- mer President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The vious Justice Department policy by encourag- U.S. FOIA as it exists today – with broad ing the release of information to the public as coverage, narrow exemptions, and powerful the rule rather than the exception. The results court reviews of government decisions to were immediate: “From 1996 to 2000, the withhold information – is actually an Clinton administration declassified and amended version of the 1966 act, revised in released 795 million pages of government 1974 by a Democratic Congress over a veto information under the new FOIA standard” by then Republican President Gerald Ford (Martorella 114). These developments, cou- (Blanton 52). pled with the passage of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and the Electronic Sam Archibald, a former staff director of the Freedom of Information Act (E-FOIA) of Special Subcommittee on Government 1998, dramatically increased the flow of infor- Information, a position he held from FOIA’s mation from the government to the public, as conception in 1955 until its enactment into cited above. The E-FOIA, in particular, is law in 1966, provides an eye-opening chroni- noteworthy for mandating the following pro- cle of the political maneuverings, machina- gressive policy and procedural changes: tions and deals that eventually led to FOIA’s It expanded the definition of a record to passage. He also notes that the override of include electronic records and documents, Ford’s veto in 1974 “was an overwhelming databases, word-processed documents, and 371 to 31 in the House of Representatives but e-mail. E-FOIA effectively broadened the only 65 to 27 in the Senate, just three votes scope of FOIA and allowed the public more than the two-thirds necessary to over- access to a wider selection of government ride a presidential veto” (Archibald 731). information. The law required the develop- Blanton’s comment and Archibald’s article ment of agency e-reading rooms, the cre- underscore the political hypocrisy surrounding ation of electronic FOIA reference guides, the issue of freedom of information. Moreover, and publication of an annual FOIA report as Relyea shows in his CRS Report, historical- (Martorella 114). ly, agencies of the Executive Branch of gov- ernment have been the most resistant to the With the arrival of the Bush Administration implementation and administration of FOIA in 2000, the Clinton-era polices were system- rules and regulations (Relyea). atically reversed. President Bush made it clear to the nation from the outset that his admin- Despite these inauspicious beginnings, howev- istration would significantly restrict the dis- er, use of FOIA has grown exponentially since closure of information from the Executive its passage. Moreover, since first enacted by Branch. This policy was tested early in his the Congress in 1966, the concepts of “sun- administration when he refused to release the shine laws” and open government have spread deliberations of an Energy Task Force (headed nationally and internationally. Today all fifty by Vice President Dick Cheney) that held a states and the District of Columbia have series of secret meetings with representatives passed legislation authorizing some form of from the energy industries. The Bush position open records and freedom of information laws, of non-disclosure ultimately prevailed when and at least ninety other countries around the the courts decided against a suit brought by world have adopted similar policies (Hazell environmental watchdog groups to force the and Worthy; Supreme Court Debates). release of the documents. After 9/11, the shift to withholding government records went into In recent decades two events fostered a mas- overdrive. Attorney General John Ashcroft sive increase in the availability of government told agencies in a memorandum distributed in information and expanded public access to October 2001 that they could withhold infor- 36 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 THE MYTH OF mation with the full backing of the Justice effort to protect the personal interests of F.O.I. …U.S. Department if they had a “sound legal basis” Government officials at the expense of (O’Keefe 8). The policies and practices of the those they are supposed to serve. In CONTINUED Bush Administration decisively ended the responding to requests under the FOIA, brief era of open government and public executive branch agencies (agencies) should access. As Feinberg notes: act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, The most striking point in assessing “federal recognizing that such agencies are servants information policy” in the aftermath of the of the public (Obama 4683). September 11 attacks on the U.S. is the almost complete absence of any integrated Despite this full-throated embrace of govern- or coherent government policy that ment transparency, many observers see little responds to changing needs to balance difference between Obama’s policies and access, privacy, and secrecy. The Freedom of actions and those of his immediate predeces- Information Act (FOIA), the centerpiece of sor in terms of the withholding of massive access policy since 1966, no longer holds amounts of government information under this position (Feinberg 439). the guise of protecting national security. Recent scandals involving domestic spying by Instead of seeking to balance the need to pro- federal intelligence agencies have added fuel tect the nation from terrorism with the rights to the fire of criticism about the government’s of citizens to know what their government is collection and maintenance of information, doing, Bush and Ashcroft used national secu- especially as these practices pertain to U.S. rity and privacy issues to impede the flow of citizens. Yet once again citizens are told that information to the public. Accordingly, the national security trumps all other concerns, Bush administration exited the political stage especially the people’s right to know what in 2008 with a well-deserved reputation of their government is doing. Additionally, being the most secretive in U.S. history. This despite reasonable attempts to mandate brings the discussion to Barack Obama, the changes that will increase access to govern- current president, and his polices. ment records, some administrators in the Executive Branch appear just as determined as During his first presidential campaign, Barack in the past to obstruct and delay the imple- Obama indicated his full support of govern- mentation of FOIA policies. This culture of ment transparency and pledged to reverse his withholding information has prevailed predecessor’s practices of secrecy and with- through every presidential administration holding information. After taking his oath of since the passage of the first FOIA act in office on January 21, 2008, Obama directed 1966. Proof of this can be seen in two recent Attorney General Eric Holder to “issue new surveys conducted by the Knight Foundation guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads that marked the 45th anniversary of the of executive agencies and departments” FOIA. In 2010, the “Sunshine and Shadows” (Obama 4683). The basis for those guidelines survey “revealed that only 13 of 90 agencies would be an affirmative policy and practice of had implemented concrete changes in making government information available response to Obama and Attorney General without waiting for requests from the public Eric Holder’s early memorandums calling for for the release of documents. Obama’s direc- FOIA reform” (Anonymous 18). A follow-up tive to Holder was contained in a memoran- survey conducted in 2011 – “Glass Half Full” dum published in the Federal Register on – found the situation has improved with 49 of January 26. The key passage quoted below 90 agencies indicating progress in following briefly outlines his philosophy about govern- “specific tasks mandated by the White House ment information and the policy agenda of his to improve their FOIA performance” administration: (Anonymous 18). Nevertheless, these same The Freedom of Information Act should be studies noted that fourteen agencies actually administered with a clear presumption: In lost ground during the survey period. The the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Knight Foundation request to the top-35 Government should not keep information agencies for copies of their ten oldest record confidential merely because public officials requests also netted some troubling data. The might be embarrassed by disclosure, because single oldest record request they uncovered errors and failures might be revealed, or dated twenty years earlier to 1991, and per- because of speculative or abstract fears. tained to U.S. State Department files held by Nondisclosure should never be based on an NARA about nuclear research from the 37 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 THE MYTH OF 1950s. Other examples of unfulfilled requests frage), is a work-in-progress that requires con- F.O.I. …U.S. are equally eye-opening: stant efforts by the public to monitor, expand, Other long-standing requests include those and protect. Those who drafted and ratified CONTINUED to presidential libraries, which typically the U.S. Constitution recognized their limits need clearance from federal agencies. They as the architects of a new republic and a new include a 1995 request to the Reagan experiment in democracy, and thus created Presidential Library about “whether the provisions whereby the contract that American POWs and MIAs were left in bound the nation together could be amended Southeast Asia;” a 1998 request to the as the changing times and political circum- George H. W. Bush Library for documents stances required. Too often, however, the pub- related to the December 1988 bombing of lic has assumed that the freedoms delineated Pan Am flight 103; and a 2000 request to and mandated by the founders were far more the Kennedy Presidential Library for docu- comprehensive, inclusive and democratic ments about “politics and the Internal than reality shows. Revenue Service.” Also outstanding is a 2005 “urgent request” to the Transportation “Information is the currency of democracy” is Department for whistleblower complaints to an axiom that has been attributed to another be used in an Occupational Safety and founding father – Thomas Jefferson. As this Health Administration hearing nation moves further into the “age of informa- (Anonymous 18). tion” – as this post-industrial era has been dubbed – documents should be allowed to Last year the White House announced plans flow unimpeded from the government to its to implement a single, government-wide web citizens. Libraries have been in the forefront portal to permit journalists, researchers, and of efforts to defend the public’s right to know. citizens to go to one location to file their They also have led efforts to inform and requests for information. On February 25, instruct the public about the importance of 2014 the U.S. House unanimously passed openness in government. The annual H.R. 211, the “FOIA Implementation and “Freedom of Information Day” held by the Oversight Act” to facilitate the President’s ALA, and the James Madison Award con- agenda (Kasperowicz). This recent develop- ferred every year to commend the activities of ment offers hope for much-needed improve- individuals and organizations that raise ments to the FOIA process and the possibility national awareness of these vital issues, reflect of a significant reduction in time and costs the broad and deep commitment of librarians incurred for the service. But given the pat- nationwide to defend intellectual freedom, terns of evasion and obstruction in the past, civil liberties and the First Amendment. The the public and watchdog groups need to misuse of the quote by James Madison, remain vigilant. although unfortunate at the time, is indicative of the zeal with which the ALA has pursued This article began by citing a previously mis- its mission of protecting and educating the used quote by James Madison to discuss the public. Such passion is still needed to avoid myths surrounding the nation’s founding, and the “farce or tragedy; or both” predicted by the freedoms purportedly conferred by its Madison, if the government refuses to be founders in the drafting and ratification of the responsive to the information needs of its true U.S. Constitution. The argument put forth owners – the citizens of the United States. here is that the public’s right to know is not part of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and like the John Chenault right of all citizens to vote (universal suf- [email protected]
38 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 WORKS CITED THE MYTH OF F.O.I. …U.S. American Library Association. “Freedom of Information Day.” American Library Association 2014. Web. 24 March. 2014.
39 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 78 • NUMBER 2 Copyright of Kentucky Libraries is the property of Kentucky Library Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Copyright of Kentucky Libraries is the property of Kentucky Library Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.