Freedom of information legislation and the democratic oversight narrative

Abstract

ABSTRACT Oversight of national security operations is often presented as vital to ensuring military and intelligence personnel of democratic states abide by the rule of law. Collectively, such portrayals place stock in what this paper conceptualizes as the democratic oversight narrative. In the US and the UK, freedom of information legislation is presented as a tool giving the democratic oversight narrative real-world form. This occurs, it is argued, because such legislation allows those (such as legislators and the media) responsible for national security oversight access to information about said operations in order to mediate between citizens and states. In recent years, documents containing implicatory information have been released by the US and the UK, but often only after prolonged legal cases and significant obstruction by both states. Drawing on documents pertaining to processes set in motion by the American Civil Liberties Union and the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition focused on obtaining information about War on Terror era detainee abuse, this paper argues those engaged in oversight of US and UK national security operations are faced with unduly restrictive barriers and impediments when seeking the disclosure of potentially implicatory information that should, via oversight tools such as freedom of information processes, legitimately be released. These barriers and impediments arise, it is shown, because both states can counter oversight by drawing on an opposing set of tools to stop (or at least stall) the release of such information.