Freedom of Information
Tomorrow—March 16—is national Freedom of Information Day. It’s annually celebrated in connection with the birthday of President James Madison, who many call the Father of the Constitution due to his work on the document and what we call the Federalist Papers. He was a staunch First Amendment and free speech advocate.
The day itself, however, owes its origin to our late friend, the hall of fame radio host Jim Bohannon. As I recall him telling the story, it came about in 1979 when he spoke during a session of the Society of Professional Journalists’ national convention.
Mr. Bohannon had received a press kit from the national pickle growers association or some such group. It declared a certain week to be “national pickle week” with all manner of information included to make the celebration memorable.
Jim said if pickles got a full week…the First Amendment ought to at least get one day, a way for journalists and others to celebrate the freedoms under the First Amendment. Folks quickly agreed, and the national “Freedom of Information Day” observance was born the following year.
The First Amendment is not most important because it is first…it became “first” in order when a few other amendments were consolidated later in the Bill of Rights. And it does not affect censorship of private speech.
What it does is ensure that any arm of government cannot stifle or prevent the speech of a citizen or entity in advance. If the speech is libelous, there can be action filed by the party harmed…but it is not government’s role to limit speech—that’s specifically prohibited under the First Amendment.
And by extension, that means government leaning on private actors to limit speech under the threat of retaliation. That does include the federal government urging social media sites to flag certain posts and limit who can speak on the platform. The government cannot impose on private entities to do something the government itself could not.
The reports of company representatives being summoned to the White House, or of White House officials sending messages urging limiting some voices in favor of others, should be quite unsettling to all of us.
I once said–rather inartfully, frankly, but it caught on—that the speech guaranteed to the best of us is only as good as the speech guaranteed to the worst of us. The better way to phrase that is that we must rise up in opposition if government censors speech, even speech that many don’t like…because that sets the precedent for them to keep going, and their power over thought and discourse improperly grows.
So particularly in honor of Mr. Bohannon, whose voice we miss every day…let our voices celebrate Freedom of Information Day tomorrow as the one way to ensure citizens in this participatory democratic republic have the information they need for proper self-governance, free from government interference. It cannot work any other way.
