by Marc Phillippe Babineau

Created on: September 05, 2008

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the general assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. As with all government induced laws and regulations, additions, negations and re-wordings have happened at almost regular intervals, but the basic principles of Human Rights was established. Article 19 declares that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers.".

The data and information stored by governments is considered a medium, and people must be allowed to receive any information that they request from their government. The only exceptions to this could be if the information is considered by Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA, or any other policing agency to be against the best interests of the nation, or against national security. If that person is involved in a criminal investigation, any mentions to that will not be produced by the government, until the investigation is considered complete and no indictments or charges have been laid.

The International Right To Know Day was established in 2002, to be celebrated on September 28th of each year. After years of pressuring the government, the Freedom Of Information Advocates Network managed to convince congress that it would be in their best interests to not hold an open. high-court and high-profile case to try to quash the passage of the bill. Bearing all of this in mind, as we celebrate the International Right to Know Day in 2008, should access to information be considered a fundamental human right? Of course it should, as the United Nations (of which both Canada and the United States of America are members) stated that people must be given the right to receive information from any media, which would include government files.

All countries that belong to the United Nations must follow this accord, and not hinder any persons', organizations' or scientists' rights to free access to information. The only exclusions, of course, would be matters of international or homeland security, and information regarding any ongoing, or un-closed investigations into the entity requesting information.

If the exclusions were not made, then any criminal could simply ask for all information on their government files, and see that they are under investigation by any of the many policing agencies. A person's right to know is always trumped by the need

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