Once upon a time, Americans could proclaim with confidence that we had created the world’s most open government, subject to the strictest standards of accountability in the world. In reaction to Watergate, the Congress of the 1970s adopted a series of open government laws to ensure that the “plumbers,” the “enemies list,” the runaway FBI with its “black bag jobs,” illegal CIA surveillance of domestic political activists and other abuses common in the Nixon years, would never come back.

The centerpiece of this new legal program was a vastly improved freedom of information law, promising access to government documents to every citizen. Alarmed at the proposed restrictions on executive secrecy, President Gerald Ford vetoed the 1974 freedom of information bill. In rare defiance of executive claims to secrecy, the Congress struck a historic blow for open government, overriding the Ford veto with two-thirds’ super-majorities in both houses of Congress.

That was then. The post-Watergate reforms represent the high-water mark for demands for open government in the United States. Since then, the pendulum has swung the other way. Successive Congresses have repeatedly passed laws cutting back on the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

When information requesters have mustered the resources to challenge government decisions to withhold information, the courts have often been reluctant to second-guess executive branch decisions to withhold. That was the case even before the current administration took office. Since then President Bush has implemented a policy of maximum secrecy in all matters.

We were recently shocked to learn that government agencies such as the CIA and the FBI not only refuse to disclose information to the public, but they also refuse to share information with each other, making our nation less secure and more vulnerable, as with 9-11.

But the demand for open government lives on. Perhaps most astounding is that the post-Watergate reforms provided a model for democracy activists around the world who sought to establish open governments of their own.

When Congress enacted them in the 1970s, fewer than 10 countries had adopted freedom of information laws. Today more than 50 countries have FOIAs. They include former communist countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, and Asian nations including Thailand, Japan and South Korea. Recent adoptees include Mexico, India and Turkey. (The details concerning many of these new open-government systems can be found at www.freedominfo.org.) If promotion of open government is an important goal of American diplomacy, this was a great victory indeed. And it didn’t cost a dime.

There is a powerful message here. There is deep hunger for democracy in every corner of the world. And transparency is a fundamental characteristic of democratic government. That is why the deterioration of the U.S. FOIA is so disturbing.

In 2002, the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research institute, conducted an “audit” of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, based on its requests to 35 separate federal agencies. The results were sobering. “The FOIA process does not work well for the ordinary FOIA requester,” the authors concluded. The study identified such problems as “inaccurate contact information, lost requests, long lag times, and lack of oversight” as typical obstacles to efficient processing of requests.

The attitude displayed by federal government agencies in FOIA litigation provides more cause for concern. My study of court records in these cases and interviews with lawyers representing information seekers show many government agencies desperate to avoid disclosure of potentially embarrassing information. The well-known battle to obtain the release of documents used by the Cheney Energy Task Force is but one example.

The Freedom of Information Act is a glory of the American system of government that has inspired people all over the world. It is time to rejoin the community of nations seeking greater openness in government rather than less, and for Congress to reaffirm that openness is a vital principle of American democracy.

Lawrence Repeta is an American lawyer in Tokyo. During the 2003-04 academic year, he served as an Abe Fellow at The National Security Archive, a nonprofit research institute in Washington.