THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW: HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE
A CONFLICT almost as old as democratic government itself is raging anew in Washington these days. The issue is the accessibility of information about Government operations. This conflict often pits the President and the Executive Branch against Congress, regulatory agencies against consumer interests, bureaucrats against environmentalists, Congress against the voter, the courts against the bar and, at times, the news media against all of them. At its highest levels, the pitch of the argument is tuned by public disquietude over the war in Southeast Asia, and by public concern lest new foreign undertakings, veiled in secrecy, lead to new military commitments, if not to new wars.
A current cliché from the political lexicon—"the people's right to know"—marks the battlefield but does not exactly illuminate it. This lofty phrase was first used a quarter of a century ago by the late Kent Cooper, then executive director of the Associated Press. "It means," he explained, "that the Government may not, and the newspapers and broadcasters should not, by any method whatever, curb delivery of any information essential to the public welfare and enlightenment." The Constitution, as it happens, does not provide for any such right. The courts, moreover, have never interpreted the First Amendment—which prohibits Congress from abridging freedom of speech or the press—as requiring the Government to make unlimited disclosures about its activities.
Delicate Activities. Indeed, an uncurbed "right to know" collides dramatically with what might be called "the right not to know." Ever since governments were first conceived by man, public officials have argued that certain delicate activities of the state were best conducted in secrecy—intelligence operations, for instance, or diplomatic dealings. In the U.S., specific provisions for secrecy have quite often been enacted by Congress, as in the acts establishing the Central Intelligence Agency and the Atomic Energy Commission. Congress has also allowed business enterprises the right to hold inviolate their trade secrets, processes and many other internal operations.
In addition, the courts have upheld the validity of legal strictures concerning the substantial privacy of federal income tax returns, the raw investigatory files of the FBI, testimony given to federal grand juries, the confidential nature of the doctor-patient relationship, and a host of other matters. More often than not, Presidents have been able to shield their personal subordinates and the internal papers of their Administrations from investigation by either Congress or the press on the grounds of "executive privilege."