The majority of the world’s population–or more than 5 billion people–now live in countries that have freedom of information laws on the books. However, only about half of those countries follow through in a way that conforms with their own regulations, according to a new audit released today by the Associated Press.
“Right-to-know laws reflect a basic belief that information is power and belongs to the public,” Martha Mendoza, author of the report, eloquently states. It’s a hard principle to argue against. That’s why more than 100 countries around the world have put laws on the books to facilitate public access to government-held information. Still, in many countries–including the U.S.–there is a wide gap between policy and practice.
Among the audit’s findings:
Right-to-know laws can work particularly well in newer democracies, because their governments can adopt what has worked elsewhere and discard what hasn’t. In the AP test, new democracies in general responded faster and better than more established ones.
Mexico, for example, gave the AP all the information requested within two months in response to a query filed through a single website. But in the U.S., the AP had to mail letters to six branches of the Justice and Homeland Security departments, email the FBI and follow up with 18 telephone calls. In return came 40 pieces of mail, with useful information only in two spreadsheets, and even then with names blanked out.
And later in the report…
The AP is still waiting on a 10-year-old request to the U.S. State Department for information about a now-defunct Greek terror organization. At the latest check, a staffer said: “The information was sent to a senior reviewer.”
To test so-called ‘right-to-know’ laws, AP reporters sent the same request to more than 100 countries around the world during one week in January 2011. The details of their experiment, and more surprising and important findings, can be found here, on the AP site.
