This production shows how the government and corporations have been collaborating to increase their surveillance rights while systematically making it more difficult for people and the press to have access to government records and information. Anne Marie Buitrago, the director for the Fund for Open Information and Accountability (FOIA) discusses some extraordinary events connected “to the people’s right to know, the people’s access to government information and the efforts by government to close off and clamp down on that information.” In 1982, President Reagan’s signed an Executive Order that made it legal for the FBI and CIA to surveil lawful, peaceful, domestic organizations. She points out how this same type of surveillance of organizations abroad has led to US foreign interventions including plotting assassinations and destabilizing of popularly elected governments.

With little coverage in the media, the Agents Identity Protection Act was passed making it illegal to reveal the names of government agents, severely limiting the power of the press. At the same time, the public information offices of government agencies were being shut down.

Buitrago speaks about the importance of the Freedom of information Act and steps we can take to preserve our access to information.

1982   TRT: 28 minutes   #7