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 of, freedom, information, laws and/or country:
“When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward—or go back. He who now talks about the “freedom of the press” goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“Our detachments move us toward freedom and death.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“As information technology restructures the work situation, it abstracts thought from action.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“His [the President’s] earnest desire is, that you may perpetuated and preserved as a nation; and this he believes can only be done and secured by your consent to remove to a country beyond the Mississippi.... Where you are, it is not possible you can live contented and happy.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)