Going and knew they were going to die but they went. They were there. But they kind of there was something very noble and very, you know, romantic. That is one of the thicks i think would be good in this day and age. We put it into context. Then sunday evening at 6 00 on american artifacts. You also notice hes not wearing a weapon. He would also lead attacks carrying nothing but that riding crop that you see in his left hand and the men looked at t this and realized, hey, if the colonel can make it, well, i can take it too. We visit the mcarthur memorial to learn about the early life of douglas mcarthur. And in the pacific during world war ii. The great leaders also service conscious in chief with the highest level of integrity. With the moral compass locked on true north so that we can always count on them to do the right thing when times get tough or when no one is looking. He explains his Ten Commandments for president ial leadership. What they are and points higher vieds examples of president s that excelled at each one. Our complete American History tv schedule. Go to cspan. Org. Each week American History tvs american artifacts visits museums archives and historic places. A visit to the National Security at George Washington university to learn about the freedom of information act. Lyndon johnson and dragged kicking and screaming into signing the bill because the bill said any person not just a citizen. By rewest could get out of their government. Any records the government held as long as they werent damaging National Security or Law Enforcement investigation or personal privacy basically. Every one of the federal agencies is going to be rummaging through our files. We cant do that. Helped the newspaper editors especially. To marshall their arguments about how really in favor of government. One of the fascinating things we found is that he had actually written a really nice signing statement for president johnson. He has this ringing language. This legislation springs from our most essential principles, democracy works best when people know what their government is doing. And shouldnt be able to pull curtains of secrecy. We now know that on the telephone johnson called him and said cut that out. Come on. And he has to x through this ringing declaration about freedom of information and puts in there and we have the final version, final version just says yes this legislation springs from one of our most essential principles democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation permits them to have. Thats a big difference. Its really interesting. It shows some of that real reluctance. And dots an i with another pen and hands it back to them and hands that pen back. He was stage master of ceremonies. Not only was there no signing ceremony for the freedom of reformation act. It doesnt only appear on his daily sked kwul. All there are are these repeated phone calls from bill. He had been wired by the American Society of news editors. Newspaper editors back then. Now theyre news editors. They have written them on july 2nd. And it might be not signed by inadverse answer the in the lbj library. We found the telegram response and writes back not our style. And the final signing statement is a story from july 4th, 1966. The middle 3 paragraphs are not about open government. Theyre about secrecy. This one is about military secrets. This one is about privacy and confidentiality and deliberations. And constitutions commander and chief and i do not share this concern and i dont want to do that. And the middle hole of the section of the final segment is about with Holding Information but the impact of over 50 years has been amazing. The United States is the third country in the world to have the freedom of information act after sweden and finland. Some of the states like wisconsin have already done their own freedom of information acts and after the federal government passed theirs many other states joined in. Take the state of michigan for example. We know today that the water crisis, the lead poisoning, thousands of kids in flint michigan because state officials this is from their own emails. That released through the state freedom of information act. Their emails, we write to each other. And pipes and it will cost too much when the new water plant goes online and they blame the Community Groups all hissing and riling people up and its an old pipe and the city pipes and transmission pipes. We only do that because of the freedom of information request by reporters by a Virginia Tech professor by the investigator of the michigan aclu and did his own test to show it wasnt the pipes in the house. Once these emails came out, within five days the lead poison started to drop. It wasnt the only silver bullet. There were a series of others. Levels in kids blood and the epa scientist tested the pipes but the freedom of information act is what held people accountable and thats 50 years later making a difference, saving kids from lead poisoning. You can show a personal interest, economic interest, Family Interest in getting ahold of say a courthouse record you can get that but only through a judicial proceeding and gradually in the 1800s in this country the real estate Title Insurance companies brought action after action at the state court level saying now wait a second courthouse records we pay for them. Theyre taxpayer records. They should be open. These guys wanted to make a issue out of it but theyre the people that were the cutting edge. Not journalists. And if you have a need to know you might get access. You might be able to get it. Then in the 1930s with federal agencies we had the First Federal register in the mid 1930s and National Archives and world war ii when your government turned into a permanent big National Security state with Standing Army and huge expenditures on government it was a push back. It is a neat idea. It basically says if the government is going to do something that effects you or your business or your family, you have a right to know in advance and ability to come meant and was supposed to open up government record. And he tried to get information out of the Eisenhower Administration and they stone walled him and they need a particular statute that says we have a right to know some presumption of disclosure unless the government can show the release of the document. There was a lot of push back. Then into the 1930s a democratic president and you have a number of republican members of congress that got interested in this idea as a way to reign in executive power. It is a pretty good explanation as why the bill became a real majority bill. Its involved in so many different pieces of our life and our commercial life and personal lives, social security, so forth, we need the right to get those records out of agencies. So rumsfeld signed up and moss was ready. All the federal agencies said this is a bad idea. Its really bad idea but the news editors mounted a major Editorial Campaign and turned it into well is johnson going to be secretive or is he going to stand for open government and they converted him. Very influential. A press secretary to johnson but almost like the son johnson never had and he bail convinced and convinced his boss. You veto this thing, you let it go down, every newspaper in the country is going to editorialize against you and the first batch of information is the news clips. Now its done digitally and president obama gets it on an ipad but in those days it was a stack of xerox copies so lbj with no ceremony unwillingly. And then agencies figured out every kind of way to throw up obstacles so for example in the early law there were these National Security restriction that you saw in lbjs final signing statement so what agencies would do if there is a body of you be classified stuff theyd stick a classified document into the file called the contamination technique. Oh no that file is classified now. Was trying to get information about the win patterns in the pacific were such that our Nuclear Tests would send wind that could touch part of the islands. She represents hawaii and she wanted the data and the government said you cant have them. She said im a member of congress. No, you cant have them. Then the freedom of information act. They denied her. Went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said well the law doesnt specifically say that the court could overrule an agency and they have to accept the agency claims. But she lost. That was in 1973. That lead to a whole movement, 73, 74, happened right in the moment of watergate and vietnam war scandals and beginning of the cia scandals and impeachment of president nixon and his resignation so you had the congress accept freedom of information amendments and real leaders on this were senator Teddy Kennedy and these amendments were meant to strengthen that 1966 bill and they need to do the review and just whats on the record and there were restrictions on the ways that people like the fbi could claim oh this will impinge on the investigation. This has got to be under Law Enforcement. It built even on National Security this extra check and balance of the courts which had not really been there the first time around. Now whats amazing is under the freedom of information act one of Teddy Kennedys staff people got his file years later of his negotiations with the fbi about the bill because they were writing amendments to try to make it work and then the file was a memo. The fbi legislative liason written to her peers. The white house called us and told us to stop negotiating with Teddy Kennedys staff because they want this bill to be as bad as possible so we can sustain a veto. In other words no more amendments to make compromises with the fbis interest and the interest of openness. Leave it as bad as possible. Thats the bill that passed congress. President ford vetoed it. His heef of staff was a guy that cosponsored the 1966 bill. Its hard to figure out exactly we have gotten Library Documents and he wanted to sign it. His White House Council wanted him to sign it but all the agencies weighed in. A lawyer calls the cia and says the president might sign this you need to weigh in over there. This will be bad for you guys so we can show the cia lobbying and the Justice Department is lobbying. Inside the administration the chief of staff was a guy named rumsfeld and a guy named cheney and its hard to see exactly their role but we have note of two meetings they held with president ford in the ten days before he vetoed the bill and the meetings were all about the leaks. You and shut it down. And even though he comes to the office. He vows and were going to have an open administration and incited the press in to see him toast english muffins and somewhere really open. And then they veto the bill and unfortunately for him the congress then overroad those vetoes. And thats the bill that is the core of what we have today. Its why we can win. And the final analysis of the last of the documents the courts will always rule in the governments favor. And in between the beginning of it and the end, we get the documents out, thats the core of it. And the government to respond and hardly ever meets that deadline but if you have patience and persistence, it took us 17 years to get the cias family jewels appeals, threatening litigation, negotiating, finally getting that out. Persistence. Getting human beings on the inside. Most people work for the government were public servants. Theyre in there to try to do the right thing. If you can get one of those folks on the phone talk about the request. You can often get responsiveness. We were in the mid 1980s when government secrecy was going through the roof on National Security brands and a lot of journalists and understood that they really didnt stand up to scrutiny. And came out of the cia they all write their own memoirs. Most of what i saw, that could be released. Within a short period of time so these skrournlists ajournalistso house the documents when they came in. There wasnt the internet so that you can just sit in with all the brown boxes around. Now we post them on the web and publish them for information. We try to publish and a lot of what the government holds is administrative and were rying to get at the policy documents where a decision could have gone a long way or another and we can get at the history or policy and that is one of my favorites to show you this and the whole series of meetings with foreign leaders and this one happened to be with the Turkish Foreign minister in 1975. Its fascinating because the turks say you need to ship us some weapons down here from nato stores so we could kill them over there and he says thats illegal and guess who jumps in . Before the freedom of information act i used to say at meetings, the illegal we do immediately and the unconstitutional takes a little bit longer. It was a joke but he goes on to say since the freedom of information act im afraid. The freedom of information act means these guys can go do bad things in secret covered by National Security classification but were going to find that. And awe just had a conviction just this past week. And Chilean Army Officer that killed the folk singer in the middle of the coup. Tracked down by other victims of his whole death squad. There were documents showing yes he was commander of this particular unit at this particular stadium. They had some eyewitness testimony and he was just convicted of it the other day. It was worth it. And one of the stories nowadays in the United States was opioid epidemic. And there was a famous case where the radio talk show host was caught sending the secretary out to get his oxycontin prescription. He had to go through rehab. The American Medical Association and doctors societies didnt want it out. No so they had to go through the act and say no the Public Interest value in this is so strong you cant show us unidentifiable harm and they gave it to us and put in a big data base and all of a sudden every state Licensing Agency for doctors started coming within the data base to check. Wait a second do i need to reign it back in . The licensers can go after the doctors that and change the pricing patterns and reimbursement patterns to put limits on what have become a real epidemic. I love this story because just in the last year found some really strange search terms. In their data base where they wrote a big story about it. The number one search people are doing now in our data base doesnt seem to be coming from license servers it seems to be coming from folks that want to know quote doctors do anything. And addicts are on board now. They face a choice. Do we take down this data because its helping people find a doctor that will give them anything . No actually we need to do more attention. Keep the data up and every place where we are referring to any of the opioid connected to the centers for Disease Control damage sheets the side effects and what can happen to you and the warnings about it and use the data to keep doing what we started which is bring down the rate of opioid abuse and effects hundreds of thousands of people and challenging the power of a small group of physicians in this country prescribing with little more than professional eth thicks and this puts another check and balance on that power. So other unknown stories just to give you a sense of the change even in the debate about Climate Change is that freedom of information act we have been filing freedom of information requests to try to look at all the negotiations over the last 30 or 40 years on Climate Change. Just what were the u. S. Positions, what were the foreign positions and what interests were served and who won the arguments and we found that Ronald Reagan was the hero in 1987 and the issue was the montreal protocol which is going to ban the whole class of carbons that used to be the engines for the bottles. Any bottle that had those in it and they were known to be destroying the ozone layer. And skin cancer and that kind of thing. To protect the cliemate pack then. But reagan overruled the job killing objections and ordered the signing negotiating the signing to save the ozone layer. Its interesting. It spreads the we get after some of the our specialty is the classified documents. And you see a declassified document appear on late night television. Theres usually motte that much thats funny. There you have Steven Colbert earlier this year because right back in 2002 when rumsfeld and others in the george w. Bush administration about mushroom clouds and hussein and the dangers. Rumsfeld is writing to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff saying please take a look at this material as to what we dont know about weapons of mass destruction. It is big. Real contrast that public pr face versus inside what we dont know. That is really important. For the public to know that the disaster in iraq. The president had available to him intelligence from all level of the government. It was all shared and supplied and its never certain. If it were a fact it wouldnt be called intelligence. Wow. I think you answered my question. This is freedom of information. We got this one. Its called a snow flake. Rumsfeld