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Show People's Right to Know Is Being Abused J Two recent reports present an alarming picture of how the flow of information about government is being hindered in these free United States, A new book, "The People's Right to Know," written by Harold JL Cross after a study sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, tells of widespread news suppression by "bureaucrats" on the national, state and local government levels. A special committee of Sigma Delta Chi, national newspaper men's professional society, so-ciety, took a long look at censorship and suppression practices in the country and concluded in an interim report that - the American people aren't getting all the facts necessary to participate in and support a free democracy, Recognizing that to remain free the peo- pie must bs adequately informed, the na- ; lion's founders wrote into the Bill of Right , the provision that Congress "shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press." Unfortunately, this does not prevent a federal fed-eral bureaucrat, police sergeant or school board from withholding information - to which the public is entitled. ; Twenty-one states have statutes guaranteeing guaran-teeing the rjght of public inspection of government gov-ernment records, but 27 do not. There is -no law on the federal books giving American Ameri-can citizens the right to examine govern- ment records, even those remote from national na-tional security. Such a law is being urgei h Statutory guarantees of the right of public pub-lic inspection are provided in these 'western states;. Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and ; Oregon. While Kansas and Colorado have no general law on inspection of public rec f ords, both provide that all records of county cf fiees and departments shall be open to the i public, .'hy these ' ara singled out is not explained. . - . . ; Some laws are whimsical in their application, appli-cation, Rhode Island, for instance, permits inspection of its liquor end. motor vehicle accident records,, but bars the public from, j ; records of Its Inspection of beehives, Some governmental units bar Inspection' j of tax records; some sehool boards keep ' q;salaries secret; an Alabama police depart- j ment's records are kept secret, a New 1 Mexico sheriff suppresses 'auto accident re- ports, and the California liquor isoard keeps 1 curtains drawn on all its transactions. In ; the federal government, the RFC and ; FH Ado all their business with the people's i funds in secret. Hie once-flourishing insH ,i tution cf the press conference has almost ; disappeared to ' Washington, outside the White House. - Since. Congress removed secrecy provi- j sions from welfare lists last year, 11 states, including Utah, have adopted legislation opening the rolls to public inspection. The j school of 'thought that would suppress, in- " formation about most everything involving 1 human misfortune has spread from wel- 1 fare offices, to criminal and divorce courts and law enferesment offices. ; Cross found that the backwash of world j trends toward secrecy in government and habits of censorship flowing from the war : are" primary causes cf increased suppres- : sion. They have even asfeeted information ? media Itself, Under pressure of other problems, prob-lems, a segment of the press sits back and lets suppression go unchallenged, even when 'recourse is clearly at band. In somfc cases, reporters, made soft by the handout system of government bureaus, are failing to r.eally dig for news. ',-,. , Many laymen consider freedom of information in-formation a problem of the newspapers alone. Actually, full publicity is the best . weapon against inefficiency and corruption J in aH governmental activity. The city com- ! raissioner or school head who declares the I official body, in executive session and as- j sures reporters that "111 tell you what took j place" is dosing the door to public confidence. con-fidence. The position of the bureaucratic cult of secrecy in the matter of public right as distinguished from official grace is a challenge to every American citizen. |