Freedom of information laws by country detail legislation that gives access by the general public to data held by national governments. They establish a "right-to-know" legal process by which requests may be made for government-held information, to be received freely or at minimal cost, barring standard exceptions. Also variously referred to as open records, or sunshine laws (in the United States), governments are also typically bound by a duty to publish and promote openness. In many countries there are constitutional guarantees for the right of access to information, but usually these are unused if specific support legislation does not exist.
Read more about Freedom Of Information Laws By Country: Introduction, Pending Legislation By Country
Famous quotes containing the words freedom, information, laws and/or country:
“Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“As information technology restructures the work situation, it abstracts thought from action.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“Those rules of old discovered, not devised,
Are Nature sill, but Nature methodized;
Nature, like liberty, is but restrained
By the same laws which first herself ordained.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute.”
—J. William Fulbright (1905–1995)