In the Kingdom of the Half-Blind

By Bill Moyers, AlterNet. Posted December 16, 2005.

Moyers addresses the Bush administration's obsession with secrecy and its bullying and manipulation of PBS.

Note: This is the prepared text of the address delivered on December 9, 2005, by Bill Moyers for the 20th anniversary of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, in Washington D.C. Collaborating with him on this speech was Michael Winship, a long-time colleague and journalistic collaborator.

Thank you for inviting me to take part in this anniversary celebration of The National Security Archive. Your organization has become indispensable to journalists, scholars, and any other citizen who believes the USA belongs to the people and not to the government.

It's always a fight to find out what the government doesn't want us to know. And no one in this town has done more to fight for open democracy or done more to see that the Freedom of Information Act fulfills its promise than the Archive. The fight goes back a long way. You'll find a fine account of it in Herbert Foerstel's book, "Freedom of Information and the Right to Know: The Origins and Application of the Freedom of Information Act" (Greenwood Press, 1999). Foerstel tells us that although every other 18th century democratic constitution includes the public's right to information, there were two exceptions: Sweden and the United States.