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 a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“English literature is a kind of training in social ethics.... English trains you to handle a body of information in a way that is conducive to action.”
—Marilyn Butler (b. 1937)
“The members of a body-politic call it “the state” when it is passive, “the sovereign” when it is active, and a “power” when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title “people,” and they refer to one another individually as “citizens” when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as “subjects” when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)