In the 1970s and early 1980s, Church members in Britain worked with pro-FOIA groups and MPs to publicise the need for FOI (Freedom of Information) as an antidote to the secrecy that has long been a hallmark of the British system of government. In 1980, Scientologists helped to publish a booklet, Secrecy, or the Right to Know?,⁴ containing articles by well-known figures explaining the need of a British FOIA.

British MP Arthur Lewis, who worked with Scientologists on these actions, accurately foresaw that “Scientology is likely to be engaged more and more in public affairs” and he criticised “those in public affairs who wish the public to be kept in ignorance.” Like Lewis, Scientologists realised that false or discriminatory information in documents held by government agencies can lead to unjust or outright illegal action against individuals, organisations or entire segments of the population, such as ethnic or religious communities.

Since well before passage of its FOIA in 2000, Britain has had a rule that requires certain, limited government documents to be made available to the public 30 years after their date. However, this requirement has never been equivalent to a freedom of information law. By the time the records are released, it is too late to remedy injustices caused by false information. Moreover, those who may have suffered abuse have no means of recourse.

As an illustration, Church researchers recently obtained documents under the “30-year rule” that revealed a continuous pattern of religious discrimination by the government of the day, based entirely on false reports. If Britain had enjoyed strong freedom of information laws back then, these abuses could have been brought to light and corrected decades earlier.

The risk posed by false reports in government files encroaches on the broader issues of liberty. “It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong,” Voltaire shrewdly observed. Dangerous because, as Mr. Hubbard noted in 1969, some government agencies have a tendency to suddenly act upon information in their files with no attempt to first verify its accuracy.

Thus, the Church, early on, recognised that the public’s right to use the FOI law in Britain was long overdue. Through their efforts, Scientologists helped keep the need for a FOIA in the public eye.

Britain’s FOIA, effective January 2005, sets up an Independent Information Commissioner who can order public authorities to disclose information otherwise deemed exempt. However, government ministers can override the Commissioner’s decisions. This aspect of the new law, insisted upon by the government, has aroused strong criticism.

In January 2004, an independent review of British government communications concluded that to make the FOIA effective, “the government should announce publicly that Ministers will not use the right of veto.” The review cited the government’s own White Paper on FOI, which had pointed out that such a veto would “undermine the authority of the Information Commissioner and erode public confidence in the Act.” Urging “a culture of openness,” authors of the review criticised “the current system where the use of information as a political weapon has contributed to the atmosphere of mutual suspicion between the government and the national media.”

These statements underline the reason for the Church’s commitment to eliminating the “culture of secrecy” found even in certain democratic governments. Effective freedom of information law and the political will to apply it will ultimately serve both the British people and the many public servants who suffer from the erosion of public trust.

4: Published in 1980 by the Library Association for the Freedom of Information Campaign.