Role in Democracy
"[FOIA] springs from one of our most essential principles. A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation permits." "The basic purpose of FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society." |
Skype Interview with Dr. Jon Wiener, Professor of U.S. History at U.C. Irvine
Plaintiff-Appellant in Wiener v. FBI (1991) March 27, 2014 |
"The overarching purpose of access to information legislation...is to facilitate democracy...It helps to ensure first, that citizens have the information required to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, and secondly, that politicians and bureaucrats remain accountable to the citizenry." "A building block of American democracy is the idea that as citizens, we have the right to information about how our government works and what it does in our name." |