Secrecy in Government

Report Outline
Encroachments on Freedom of Information
Information Practices of Federal Agencies
Proposals to Counteract Secrecy Trend

Encroachments on Freedom of Information

Practices followed by federal agencies in withholding or releasing information about activities that concern and are of interest to the public will come under the scrutiny of Congress early in the session that starts on Jan. 3. A subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations, which held preliminary hearings on government information policy in November, is to resume its inquiry soon after the legislators return to Washington. Department and agency heads then will be called on to answer complaints that present policies have led to undue secrecy about the affairs of the Executive Branch and to unnecessary suppression of non-security information.

Rep. John E. Moss (D-Cal,), chairman of the subcommittee on government information, said at the conclusion of last month's hearings that “a clear need for new legislation” to break down barriers against the free flow of information had been shown. Sen. Humphrey (D-Minn.) had said earlier that he would be glad to introduce legislation at the 1956 session to “place the Congress on record in a way that will insure greater access to information—if the newspaper community indicates that it wishes such an expression of our support.”

Complaints Against the Bottling-Up of News

The most articulate complaints against federal information policies and practices have come from the working press and from representatives of other communications media directly concerned with freedom of access to government information. Allen Raymond, veteran New York newspaperman, said in a recent report commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union that “A trend toward ever-increasing secrecy within the executive branches of the federal government has been going on during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.” Raymond went on to say: