时差N小时: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.

真正意义上的信息自由运动始于20世纪50年代。二战后，政府保密的程度受到了美国报纸编辑协会的质疑。

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.

大约在同一年，约翰·莫斯，一位年轻的来自加利福利亚的国会议员，对此也深有同感。他发现政府几乎是约定俗成、不经考虑地把大量的文件档案与公众隔绝开来，更别提系统的程序约束了。

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.

在约翰·莫斯26年的国会生涯中，有12年时间致力于这个问题。最后他成为信息自由法令的作者。有些人认为，文件关系到国家安全所以应该保密，而另一些人则认为信息自由是公民的权利，这项法案让双方都做出妥协。每个公民都应该知道政府的决策，基于这样一个信念，《信息自由法案》在1966年7月4日签署成为法律，并在水门事件之后扩大了影响力。

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.

该法案规定任何人都有权利通过书面请求的方式从联邦政府获得信息，并要求政府机构公开文件。根据写进法案的具体豁免权，有些文件可能会被依法扣留，因此不在公开范围内。由于约翰·莫斯推动了政府信息的公开，美国联邦调查局保存了大量关于摩斯议员的资料，这些资料最近才公开。