Four library organizations and five other groups filed an amicus brief March 11 in a case challenging Vice President Richard Cheney’s right to withhold details of White House meetings with energy-industry officials that helped determine the administration’s energy policies.
The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch are seeking the disclosure of the names of members of Cheney’s controversial energy task force under the open-government law known as the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Following lower court rulings favoring the plaintiffs, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, et. al., v. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The brief asks the court to “reject the government’s claim that it may conduct the public’s business in secret,” arguing that “public participation in government can be meaningful only if the people know what officials are doing, and how they are doing it. Equally, without that information the people can’t hold public officials accountable for their actions.”
“A free, plural, and inclusive democracy can only prosper when it is continuously subjected to public review and scrutiny,” said Emily Sheketoff, Executive Director of the American Library Association’s Washington Office. “History has taught us that secrecy and democracy are like crude oil and pure water; no matter how hard one tries to integrate the two, they simply can’t co-exist as a single entity.”
Joining ALA in the brief are the American Association of Law Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for American Progress, Common Cause, the National Security Archive, People for the American Way, the Society of American Archivists, and the Special Libraries Association.
Posted March 12, 2004.