geeky
According to documents declassified in 2004, Ford initially wanted to sign the legislation, which also strengthened the Privacy Act of 1974. In an age of Watergate when the public had had its fill of secrecy in the oval office, it certainly would have been a politically wise move. But these records suggest that Ford was dissuaded from doing so by his White House chief of staff, former Illinois Congressman Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld’s deputy, former Wyoming Congressman Dick Cheney. Rumsfeld and Cheney argued that signing the bill would endanger national security by providing for judicial review of some classified documents. Additionally, Antonin Scalia, who was then the U.S. assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, provided an opinion that the law would be unconstitutional.
The Freedom of Information Act was initially introduced as a bill in the 89th Congress in 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson. When the two-page bill was signed into law it took effect on July 4, 1966, it had an effective date of one year after the date of enactment, or July 4, 1967. But that law was later repealed. During the period between the passage of the act and its effective date, a new act enacted June 5, 1967 repealed the original and replaced it with a substantively identical law. This statute was signed on June 5, 1967, and had the same effective date as the original statute: July 4, 1967.
Following the Watergate scandal, Congress passed the Privacy Act of 1974. This bill established a "Code of Fair Information Practice" that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals kept in the records by federal agencies. The Privacy Act prohibits the disclosure of information from a system of records absent the written consent of the subject individual, unless the disclosure falls within one of twelve statutory exceptions. The Act also provides individuals with a means by which to seek access to and amendment of their records, and sets forth various agency record-keeping requirements.
Rumsfeld and Cheney advised Ford that they were concerned that giving individuals access to their government records would lead to security leaks. They were also bolstered by Scalia's opinion that that the bill was unconstitutional. An apparently reluctant Ford was persuaded to veto the bill
But Congress voted to override Ford's veto, giving the United States the Freedom of Information Act still in effect today. The House voted to overturn Ford’s veto bill by a vote of 371 to 31, and the Senate vote came in at 65 to 27 in favor of overriding the veto.
These amendments to the Freedom of Information Act regulate government control of documents which concern a citizen. Citizens have the following rights: “(1) the right to see records about [one]self, subject to the Privacy Act's exemptions, (2) the right to amend that record if it is inaccurate, irrelevant, untimely, or incomplete, and (3) the right to sue the government for violations of the statute including permitting others to see [one’s] records unless specifically permitted by the Act.” In conjunction with the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act is used to advance the rights of an individual gaining access to information held by the government. The Justice Department's Office of Information and Privacy and federal district courts are the two channels of appeal available to seekers of information.
Effort to expand access to government information by citizens was led by two Democrats: Representative William Moorhead of Pennsylvania and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. During the House debate on whether to override Ford’s veto, Moorhead said: “Open government must not be sacrificed on the altar of bureaucratic secrecy. The hard lessons learned by the tragic Watergate experience must result in some positive achievement.”