{"id":70190,"date":"2017-08-28T19:42:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T02:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=70190"},"modified":"2026-02-27T14:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:36:21","slug":"freedom-of-religion-freedom-of-information-and-the-national-security-state","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=70190","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Information, and the National Security State"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Editor’s note<\/strong>: This article was originally published on the World Religions and Spirituality<\/a> website, and is available as a pdf<\/a> on this site.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Revision and expansion of paper given at
\nCESNUR Conference
\nSan Diego, California
\nAugust 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n

In August 2007 my husband, Fielding McGehee, and I observed a very special anniversary. It marked the sixth year since we \ufb01led a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel the Justice Department to provide an index to three CDs the FBI has prepared. The CDs contain records of the agency\u2019s investigation into the 1978 assassination of U.S. Congressman Leo J. Ryan that occurred near Jonestown, Guyana, as well as documents collected from Jonestown itself.<\/p>\n

By way of background, it may be necessary to note that a group of 1000 disaffected Americans belonging to Peoples Temple, a congregation within the Disciples of Christ denomination, immigrated to Guyana, South America in the mid-1970s. The community of Jonestown was a re\ufb02ection of the Temple\u2019s socialist values as much as it was a refuge from what its residents saw as a racist, repressive society in the U.S. In November 1978, California Congressman Ryan visited the isolated jungle community\u2014named after its leader Jim Jones\u2014accompanied by journalists and relatives of Peoples Temple members. On 18 November 1978, sixteen Jonestown residents asked to join Ryan and his party as they left. While they waited to board two small aircraft, a few young men who had followed the party from Jonestown began \ufb01ring upon them, killing Ryan, three newsmen, and one defector. A dozen others were wounded, some quite seriously.<\/p>\n

Back in Jonestown, more than 900 residents gathered in the central pavilion, where Jones told them what had happened and exhorted them to drink a cyanide-laced fruit punch. Although a tape recording of the incident reveals that a few residents protested, others shouted down all opposition.[1] <\/sup><\/a> Eyewitness accounts are con\ufb02icting, with some saying that people were coerced into taking poison, and others saying that people willingly drank the mixture. Whatever the circumstances, the results are well known: by the end of the day, 918 Americans in Guyana were dead: 909 in Jonestown; \ufb01ve on the airstrip; and four in the Temple\u2019s residence in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana.<\/p>\n

It took a number of days for investigators to \ufb01nd all of the bodies, and daily news reports updating the body count gave birth to conspiracy theories about the nature of the deaths. The release of government information relating to Peoples Temple and Jonestown, therefore, could put to rest a number of these theories. Although many agencies have pieces of the story\u2014from the State Department and the U.S. Air Force, to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Communications Commission\u2014certainly the FBI has the largest collection of relevant material of any government entity.<\/p>\n

In 1992 the FBI released nearly 39,000 Jonestown documents to settle a FOIA lawsuit with the Church of Scientology. The release followed the agency\u2019s review of earlier classi\ufb01cation decisions relating to the papers. The FBI generated many of these documents itself when it investigated Leo Ryan\u2019s death. When we \ufb01led a FOIA request in 1998 for a copy of all of\ufb01cial lists of people who died in Jonestown, the FBI said it had identi\ufb01ed 48,738 pages in response, and would make those available to us upon receipt of $4873.80. After some negotiation with the agency\u2014including the intervention of Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), then the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, which has jurisdiction over implementation of the FOIA\u2014the FBI agreed to make all of its documents relating to Jonestown, Peoples Temple, and Leo Ryan available on three CDs.<\/p>\n

The good news is that anyone making a FOIA request for information about Peoples Temple and Jonestown may receive three CDs\u2014that is, absolutely everything the FBI has released on the subject\u2014for $30. (The CDs are also available for $15 from http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/<\/a>.) The bad news is that there is no index to the \ufb01les, which are stored graphically as PDFs. One must search all three CDs, more than 48,000 pages, to \ufb01nd what one is looking for. In short, the FBI is not being truly responsive to requests for information about these subjects. And that is the basis of the lawsuit, McGehee et al v. U.S. Department of Justice<\/em>: to compel such an index.<\/p>\n

There are several additional problems with the current release and presentation of information about Peoples Temple. First, and most basic, is that literally thousands of the FBI\u2019s scanned pages are illegible, and hence unusable. Second, the FBI has withheld hundreds of pages and blacked out portions of thousands more, citing FOIA exemptions on national security, privacy, and law enforcement. We have challenged the FBI\u2019s use of these exemptions, and the passage of time merely strengthens our case. In 2008 the documents will be thirty years old, well past a newly-implemented automatic declassi\ufb01cation deadline of twenty-\ufb01ve years, which went into effect 31 December 2006. A third hurdle is that the FBI has shifted responsibility for releasing some items to the departments which generated the materials. For example, a teletype from the State Department sent to the Justice Department in the weeks following 18 November1978 (and now in the FBI\u2019s possession), must be reviewed by State before Justice can release it. This requires an administrative referral which, we have learned, is often ignored unless ordered by a court (which is the only way we were able to force such a referral and to receive hundreds of pages of State Department documents via the FBI). It also raises the possibility, noted by the courts, of various agencies moving documents from one agency to another to avoid release. In any event, we have argued that the volume of newly-released materials resulting from our suit necessitates updating the CDs. A \ufb01nal problem, and most signi\ufb01cant, is that in recent years the FBI has re-examined some documents, not with an eye towards declassi\ufb01cation, but rather to classify material which was formerly available. We know this to be true because we have copies of FBI documents released in the 1980s which provide more information than those currently available on the three CDs.<\/p>\n

What does the FBI\u2019s handling of its \ufb01les about a particular religious organization have to do with the larger issue of religious freedom? Any classi\ufb01cation and withholding of information threatens to undermine the foundations of democratic society. \u201cKnowledge is power,\u201d wrote former CIA Director William Colby, \u201cgiving strength to one who possesses it, weakening him deprived of it.\u201d[2] <\/sup><\/a> Colby was reiterating what James Madison had said 200 years earlier: \u201cA people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.\u201d[3] <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Democracy by de\ufb01nition requires an informed electorate so that citizens may participate responsibly in the decision-making process. That in turn requires open access to information. Everyone needs, and is entitled to, the information essential to make a variety of judgments: personal, economic, political, social. This entitlement especially pertains to government functions. \u201cThe American view has traditionally been that the operations of government no less than other areas of life should be subjected to continuous scrutiny through the searching spotlight of publicity,\u201d wrote Francis Rourke during the McCarthy Era of the 1950s. \u201cThe premise upon which this view rests is that nefarious activities on the part of government of\ufb01cials can be prevented in no other way than by fear of exposure before the bar of public opinion.\u201d[4] <\/sup><\/a> Writing twenty years later, after the experiences of Watergate and the publication of the Pentagon Papers, Morton Halperin and Daniel Hoffman echoed Rourke: \u201cThe public\u2019s \u2018right to know\u2019 has always been a basic tenet of American political theory. A healthy democracy requires public participation in the formulation and administration of government policy.\u201d[5] <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Not all secrecy is bad, of course. The secrecy in the ballot booth or the con\ufb01dential deliberations of a jury are processes which bene\ufb01t an open, democratic society. Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations General Secretary (1953-1961), believed that the most fruitful international negotiations occur behind closed doors, where diplomats can speak freely, rather than on the \ufb02oor of the assembly, where national spokespersons tend to posture for political reasons.[6] <\/sup><\/a> Secrecy in a democracy, where it is openly discussed, is of a different order than in a totalitarian state, where even the existence of secrets is itself a secret.[7] <\/sup><\/a> \u201cFirst-order secrecy (in a process or about a policy) requires second-order publicity (about the decision to make the process or policy secret).\u201d[8] <\/sup><\/a> We see this occur all the time when congressional committees close certain hearings to the public and the media on national security grounds.<\/p>\n

Certainly some religious rites are also legitimately kept secret. The early Christian community did not allow catechumens to participate in, or witness, the eucharist. Native Americans today closely guard their practices from non-native religious \u201ctourists\u201d who wish to appropriate traditions restricted to the duly-initiated. Esoteric knowledge, or proprietary information, is controlled by authorities at the Church of Scientology, or at Self-Realization Fellowship, and is made available only when a practitioner has reached the appropriate level of competence and understanding. Almost by de\ufb01nition, religions maintain secrets which are revealed at the proper times and places, to the proper persons and in the proper manner.[9] <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Personal privacy is another area in which we bene\ufb01t from secrecy. Sissela Bok de\ufb01nes secrecy as \u201cintentional concealment,\u201d while privacy is \u201cthe condition of being protected from unwanted access by others.\u201d[10] <\/sup><\/a> The things I do in my own home are not secret, but they are private. Citizens are justi\ufb01ably angered by reports of wiretapping and bank record examination without search warrants, because these are invasions of privacy. The argument that goes \u201cwhy should you be bothered if you have nothing to hide\u201d deliberately obscures the clear difference between secrecy and privacy. Just because I have no secrets does not mean that I want my private life accessed by outsiders, particularly government bureaucrats.<\/p>\n

Despite the legitimate uses of secrecy, it still has a negative valence primarily because it is seen as the antithesis of democracy. Making information inaccessible \u201cis a form of government regulation… a regulatory system essentially hidden from view,\u201d the United States Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy declared in 1997.[11] <\/sup><\/a> By controlling information, agencies can control\u2014and by extension, dictate\u2014policy that affects the electorate. This control inexorably accompanies the bureaucratization of society and government, according to Weber and others. \u201cBureaucratic administration always tends to be an administration of \u2018secret sessions\u2019: in so far as it can, it hides its knowledge and action from criticism.\u201d[12] <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Bureaucratic growth, and the concomitant obsession with secrecy, occurred after World War II for several reasons. For one thing, the federal government swelled under the New Deal and the war effort. The development of nuclear weapons, as well as the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission, justi\ufb01ed measures to prevent access to the awesome power of the atom.[13] <\/sup><\/a> A postwar burgeoning economy required greater regulation, and greater protection of trade secrets, personal \ufb01nancial information, and personnel administration.[14] <\/sup><\/a> Containment of communism and limiting Soviet expansion seemed to require an extraordinary degree of secrecy\u2014both in terms of domestic surveillance and foreign espionage\u2014under the claims of national security. \u201cHyperpatriotism,\u201d as Edward Shils described it in the 1950s,[15] <\/sup><\/a> and a fear of conspiracy were the order of the day from the 1940s until the fall of communism in 1989. Thus, despite the universal acknowledgement that openness and transparency are required to sustain a democratic government, a culture of secrecy emerged in the United States during the Cold War,<\/p>\n

The battle against Communism was fought at home and abroad, and the history of U.S. intervention in the politics of the small South American country of Guyana to ensure an anti-Communist regime is paradigmatic.[16] <\/sup><\/a> America did not want another Cuba in the Western Hemisphere, so clandestine activities \ufb01nanced by the CIA helped place President Forbes Burnham and the Peoples National Congress (PNC) in power in 1964, two years before Guyana\u2019s independence in 1966. The U.S. found the PNC much more palatable than the popular, but Marxist, Peoples Progressive Party. Again working through the CIA, the U.S. helped engineer Burnham\u2019s re-election in 1968, and in 1973 it recognized the illegally-obtained PNC parliamentary majority. In 1978\u2014the same year as the deaths in Jonestown\u2014the PNC government passed legislation which, in effect, made Burnham president for life. Assassinations and violence against political opponents continued until the Peoples Progressive Party \ufb01nally ousted the PNC in 1992. The U.S. sided with Burnham throughout this turbulent period in Guyana\u2019s history, and the history of CIA intervention in Guyanese politics is well known.<\/p>\n

It seems inevitable that the Cold War obsession with communism would lead U.S. agencies to spy upon Peoples Temple. During the 1960s and 1970s, democracy appeared to be under siege by a variety of Marxist movements for national liberation. America seemed to be attacked by its own citizens within the civil rights and antiwar movements. Many activists from these movements in Northern California later found a home\u2014or at least a sympathetic reception\u2014in Peoples Temple, and the organization prided itself as being seen as this \u201cenemy within.\u201d It was involved in progressive politics in San Francisco in the 1970s, it relocated to a \u201ccooperative socialist republic,\u201d and it had contacts with representatives of the Soviet, Cuban, and North Korean embassies in Georgetown, Guyana. The emigration of 1000 citizens, the majority of whom were African Americans espousing radical ideas, would make the group suspect in almost any era, but especially during the Cold War. CIA documents released under FOIA make it clear that the United States was indeed monitoring activities in Jonestown.[17] <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Peoples Temple was not the only religious group spied upon by federal agents, however. The FBI maintained extensive \ufb01les on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other religious leaders involved in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover supervised a number of dirty tricks against King. During the American war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, peace groups and religious activists were targeted for penetration. The most notorious incident was the FBI infiltration of the Berrigan brothers\u2019 plot to pour \u201cblood\u201d\u2014red paint\u2014onto draft files. An FBI agent provocateur tried to encourage the Catholic priests to blow up a building at the same time; the Berrigans demurred. During the 1980s, the FBI in\ufb01ltrated the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), the interfaith committee that was rescuing people from El Salvador during that nation\u2019s 12-year civil war. In that instance, an FBI informant was \u201cinstructed to break our chapter any way he could,\u201d according to Linda Hajek, who was working at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Dallas when she was placed under surveillance by the FBI from March 1983 to June 1985.<\/p>\n

When weapons couldn\u2019t be found, nor anything else illegal, he said his supervisor suggested trying to get involved with me sexually. This guy was a Catholic and I was still [a nun] in my order at the time, so he balked.[18] <\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) had an agent living with the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Robert Rodriguez, who began monitoring the Branch Davidians from a house across the street from their facility, and then participated in Bible study before he was invited to live with them, reported on the activities of the Davidians, and tried to warn the BATF on 28 February 1993 that the group knew of the agency\u2019s planned attack that day.[19] <\/sup><\/a> Unfortunately, BATF refused to abort the attack, and lives were lost then, and again on April 19, \ufb01fty-one days later.<\/p>\n

The end of the Cold War did not terminate the culture of secrecy. On the contrary, it has escalated since the al-Qaida attacks of 11 September 2001. A brief list of current secrets held in our national security state would include warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency; extraordinary rendition and \u201cblack sites\u201d for torturing political prisoners; and the George W. Bush administration\u2019s plans for invading Iraq as early as 2001. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Bush administration has targeted American Muslim groups for in\ufb01ltration and scrutiny. In December 2005, the FBI\u2019s secret monitoring of radiation levels at mosques around the country became public knowledge, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act release. (No radiation was reported.) In May 2006, the ACLU \ufb01led a FOIA request asking for documents relating to surveillance of mosques and individual Muslims in Southern California. According to the executive director of an Islamic group in Anaheim, \u201cnumerous Muslims reported being questioned by the FBI about their religious practices and sermons given during prayer services.\u201d[20] <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In 2002 Attorney General John Ashcroft widened government ability to investigate religious groups when he declared worship services fair game for in\ufb01ltration. The directive authorized FBI agents to pretend to be spiritual seekers in order to gain information. Updating guidelines that had been gone into effect after the Watergate scandal, Ashcroft enlarged the opportunities for surveillance, lowered the threshold for terrorist investigations, and introduced an unregulated area of \u201cinitial checking of leads,\u201d which essentially allows agents enormous freedom in their investigative authority.[21] <\/sup><\/a> The rationale behind the revised guidelines was to check up on Islamic institutions at which terrorists might be involved.<\/p>\n

The FBI has also directed recent investigations of Christian social activists. Records obtained by the ACLU in 2005 under FOIA reveal that counterterrorism agents have spied on the Catholic Worker movement since 2001.[22] <\/sup><\/a> One document reporting on a peace protest at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California states that the Catholic Worker group claims it \u201cadvocates love and peace thru prayer… [and] advocates a communist distribution of resources.\u201d[23] <\/sup><\/a> According to another FOIA release, the FBI spied on the School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch), a multinational faith-based group which gathers yearly at Fort Benning, Georgia, to protest the School of the Americas (SOA) and U.S. policy in Latin America. SOA trains hundreds of law enforcement and military of\ufb01cials from Latin America, and has a reputation for including torture techniques in its curriculum.[24] <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

It is no exaggeration to say that freedom of religion is at great risk these days. Religious groups involved in anti-war activities have become targets of monitoring by the Pentagon, the NSA, the FBI, and the FBI\u2019s Joint Terrorism Task Force, as well as by local law enforcement. Documents released under FOIA reveal spying upon the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Justice in Pittsburgh, Jonah House\u2014a faith-based community dedicated to nonviolence\u2014and the American Friends Service Committee, both in Baltimore. Although government agencies claim they are investigating terrorism, the substance of the information gathered focuses on public dissent. An FBI report on its surveillance of the Merton Center, for example, observed that the center lea\ufb02ets daily, and is \u201ca left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, paci\ufb01sm.\u201d[25] <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom of religion\u201d means at least two things, according to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. First, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. In plain English, this means that the government will not \ufb01nance, support or favor any one religion over another. This is in contrast to the state-sponsored or state-\ufb01nanced churches in Europe, or the Islamic republics which abide by shariah in secular society. Second, the First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. This means that people can practice the religion of their choice, and may request and obtain accommodation for their religious beliefs: for example, taking Saturday off rather than Sunday to observe the Sabbath. Neither element is absolute or unquali\ufb01ed, of course, so we see Christian symbols in public places in de\ufb01ance of the non-establishment clause, and we see restrictions on polygamy and certain religious rituals in breach of the free-exercise clause.<\/p>\n

Freedom of religion is profoundly connected to freedom of information. It is only by exposing government activities, and making of\ufb01cials accountable for their actions, that we can maintain constitutional guarantees for liberty of conscience. In other words, what we don\u2019t know can<\/em> hurt us, and does<\/em> hurt us because of the inhibiting effects of surveillance, bogus worshippers and religious power politics. This seems quite evident today with the Bush administration\u2019s intimate relationship with conservative Christian leaders. To what extent are these leaders dictating policy\u2014not just in the general sense of being advocates, but in the specific sense of being close advisors? Lack of disclosure obscures the large role that fundamentalist Christians are playing at the highest levels of government. At the very least, we know that public funds are supporting evangelical programs\u2014and voters\u2014under the faith-based initiatives program. This clearly violates the non-establishment clause of the Constitution, as well as Article VI which prohibits any religious test for public of\ufb01ce. At the same time, when certain religious groups are targets of in\ufb01ltration and spying, the free exercise clause is violated. We thus see the establishment of a particular religious view on the one hand, and the suppression of alternative religious views on the other, in clear contravention of the two religion clauses in the First Amendment. It is only by learning about these facts through FOIA, however, that we can understand the true nature, and the true danger, of our current situation.<\/p>\n

The Fourth of July in 2006 marked the fortieth anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s signing of the Freedom of Information Act into law. The purpose of FOIA is to grant access to government records by law, \u201cadding available information to the tools necessary to make freedom of expression work in a democratic society.\u201d[26] <\/sup><\/a> In theory, FOIA allows any member of the public to ask any government agency for almost any government document, without having to provide reasons for wanting the information or explaining what will be done with the records. The act permits agencies to withhold documents\u2014again, in theory\u2014only if they fall under one of the law\u2019s nine exemptions, such as national security, protecting con\ufb01dential sources, maintaining individuals\u2019 privacy, and preserving the secrecy of law enforcement methods. Congress amended FOIA in 1974 to correct problems immediately identi\ufb01ed, such as long delays, exorbitant charges, unreasonable requests by agencies for precise descriptions, and excessive withholding of documents. Congress has done little since then, although federal court case law has refined FOIA extensively. McGehee v. CIA<\/em>, for example\u2014an earlier FOIA lawsuit we filed\u2014requires an agency to search for its records from the date on which an appeal is decided, rather than from the date of the initial request. Given the fact that years elapse between \ufb01ling a request and receiving a judicial decision, McGehee v. CIA<\/em> helps requesters enormously by including more documents in a given search.<\/p>\n

As of this writing, McGehee et al v. Department of Justice<\/em> has been in court for six years. During that time, we have received hundreds of State Department documents which were in the FBI\u2019s \ufb01les on Peoples Temple. Much material on these and other documents remains classi\ufb01ed, however. With almost 50,000 pages currently available from the FBI alone, it would appear that the story of the federal government\u2019s relationship to Peoples Temple and Jonestown is complete, but this is far from the case. First, many of the documents have material excised from them. Second, there is a story that remains to be told in the thousands of pages yet to be released. No account of the government\u2019s monitoring of Jonestown before 18 November 1978, or of its investigations afterwards, will be complete without full access to them. We will ask the court to order the creation of a new set of CDs\u2014to include newly-released items and newly-scanned items (to replace illegible ones)\u2014in a computer-searchable format. We will also continue to appeal agency decisions to withhold various documents as we identify them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe secrecy system has systematically denied American historians access to the records of American history,\u201d then-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) and chair of the bipartisan Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy declared in 1997.[27] <\/sup><\/a> Athan Theoharis, a professor at Marquette University who has used FOIA to obtain thousands of documents relating to the Cold War and J. Edgar Hoover, surveyed more than twenty historians about their own experiences with the FBI. Most said the items they received were extremely helpful, but a few said that they could not afford lengthy appeals, and that the number of exemptions\u2014which resulted in fragmentary records\u2014often made the releases worthless.[28] <\/sup><\/a> Theoharis concluded that the selective and fragmentary release of documents makes it dif\ufb01cult to interpret what is, in effect, an incomplete record. Without context, text is meaningless.<\/p>\n

To alleviate the problems that accompany document classi\ufb01cation, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12958 in 1995 which created the Information Security Oversight Of\ufb01ce. The agency\u2019s two main tasks are to set guidelines so that a minimum number of government documents are classi\ufb01ed, and to insure that national security information is declassi\ufb01ed in a timely manner. Toward that second goal, ISOO coordinates activities of the Public Interest Declassi\ufb01cation Board (PIDB) which began meeting regularly in 2006 in order to facilitate the identi\ufb01cation and declassi\ufb01cation of records \u201con speci\ufb01c subjects that are of extraordinary public interest.\u201d The PIDB works on declassifying records of \u201cpermanent historical value\u201d that relate to U.S. national security policy, such as the Iran-Contra affair, prisoners of war\/missing in action in Vietnam, Chile under the Pinochet regime, and Nazi war crimes.[29] <\/sup><\/a> It is possible that Jonestown documents will be included in this review once our lawsuit is settled.<\/p>\n

The 2006 ISOO report reveals a number of discouraging trends, however.[30] <\/sup><\/a> Not surprisingly, secrecy under the Bush Administration has increased dramatically, going from 105,163 original classi\ufb01cation decisions made in 1996 under Clinton, to a high of 351,150 decisions in 2004. That \ufb01gure dropped in 2005 to 258,633, and further in 2006 to 231,995, still more than double under the previous administration. Despite some federal departments decreasing the number of original classi\ufb01cation decisions, the Justice Department increased its share. Similarly, the number of pages that have been declassi\ufb01ed decreased under Bush: from 196 million declassi\ufb01ed in 1996, to 37.6 million in 2006, The 2006 ISOO Report proclaims that 1.33 billion pages have been declassi\ufb01ed in the period 1980 to 2006, but by far the majority of declassi\ufb01cation actions occurred before 2001: in six years under Clinton, 864 million pages were declassi\ufb01ed; in six years under Bush, 282.1 million pages have been declassi\ufb01ed.<\/p>\n

Editorials and news articles re\ufb02ecting upon the fortieth anniversary of FOIA in July 2006 noted similar problems. The Coalition of Journalists for Open Government reported that the backlog of FOIA requests at 22 federal agencies rose to 31% in 2005, up from a 20% backlog in 2004.[31] <\/sup><\/a> The slow-down is attributable, in part, to Attorney General John Ashcroft\u2019s 2001 directive that encouraged agencies to deny information requested under FOIA. On the occasion of FOIA\u2019s fortieth anniversary, former President Jimmy Carter observed, \u201cObstructionist policies and de\ufb01cient practices have ensured that many important public documents and of\ufb01cial actions remain hidden from our view.\u201d[32] <\/sup><\/a> According to Carter, nearly 70 countries have adopted freedom of information legislation which is far more comprehensive and effective than that in the U.S. \u201cWhile the United States retreats,\u201d he said, \u201cthe international trend toward transparency grows.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the community of religious studies scholars to do about the problem of government secrecy? This affects not only the study of Peoples Temple, but research into other incidents of religious violence as well, such as that of the Branch Davidians and more recently, the Nuwaubians, radical Jihadists, and the Fundamentalist Mormons, More broadly it also affects inquiry into all government in\ufb01ltration and spying on religious groups. Scholars took some preliminary steps toward increasing government transparency in 1998, on the twentieth anniversary of the deaths of Jonestown. A group of thirteen NRM scholars wrote an open letter to Congress which asked the U.S. House Committee on International Relations to release documents generated by the Committee\u2019s investigation into Leo Ryan\u2019s death, \u201cNow, twenty years later,\u201d the scholars wrote, \u201cthe need for keeping these documents away from the public no longer exists and we, the undersigned, respectfully petition the Committee to move to make these documents accessible to the academic community, the families of the deceased, and the general public.\u201d[33] <\/sup><\/a> Three scholars\u2014Massimo Introvigne, J. Gordon Melton, and Mary McCormick-Maaga\u2014held a press conference on 18 November 1998 to release the letter, during which Melton said, \u201cThere appears to be no compelling issues of national security or interest to keep these documents secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

The academic call for declassi\ufb01cation went unheeded. In the intervening years, my husband and I have contacted several members of Congress about protecting and preserving these records, even though we have not been allowed to view them. An important part of these contacts has been to maintain congressional interest so that the documents are not inadvertently lost or destroyed. Unfortunately, Congress has exempted itself from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, as well as from other open government legislation.<\/p>\n

Constituent and public pressure will always be required to secure the release of Jonestown documents. We are hoping that in 2008, on the thirtieth anniversary of the Jonestown deaths, scholars, relatives, and the media will be able to gain complete access. But we have no doubt that it will require a Democratic Congress and the strong support of a ranking member of the House Government Operations Subcommittee to do so. And even then it may be a lost cause.<\/p>\n

Scholars are not entirely without resources, however. In 1992\u2014prompted by the Oliver Stone movie JFK<\/em>\u2014Congress passed the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which was \u201cdesigned to strip away theories that implicated federal agencies in a conspiracy to murder the young president.\u201d[34] <\/sup><\/a> The Act created an Assassination Records Review Board in the National Archives, and required the collection of records from various agencies, and their \u201cexpeditious\u201d disclosure. The account of AARB\u2019s struggle to get records from a number of different sources\u2014 including NSA and DIA\u2014is both discouraging and encouraging: discouraging in that the agencies fought disclosure every step of the way; encouraging in that the federal government intervened and forced more disclosure than had ever occurred before. It\u2019s one thing to dismiss a citizen; it\u2019s another thing to disregard Congress.<\/p>\n

While there is quite a bit of interest in Jonestown, especially among conspiracy theorists, I doubt that it matches the natural awareness of the Kennedy assassination\u2014though it is frequently paired with that and other high pro\ufb01le incidents of vigilance. Conspiracists claim that Leo Ryan was targeted for assassination by the CIA because of his sponsorship of the Hughes-Ryan Act, which required the president to report covert actions to appropriate congressional committees before they begin. The law passed in 1974, and the very next year Congress cut off funds for covert military and paramilitary operations in Angola. According to the conspiracists, this law supposedly was suf\ufb01cient reason for Ryan to be assassinated, and for 900 people to be killed to mask the murder.<\/p>\n

Withholding \ufb01les through the classi\ufb01cation process both obscures the truth and, in the case of Jonestown, gives rise to conspiracy theories. While initially there may have been suf\ufb01cient reason to classify government files\u2014for example, to pursue an investigation into Leo Ryan\u2019s death\u2014by the time the documents were reclassified in the 1990s, most reasons had become moot. There seems to be no reason for ongoing classi\ufb01cation at this point, other than inertia, or the desire to conceal damaging information about government activities.<\/p>\n

The larger issue of freedom of information is one that should appeal to scholars across a variety of disciplines: religious studies, history, political science, sociology and psychology. There are compelling reasons for scholars in religious studies to join forces in an organized and collegial way to work with their counterparts in other disciplines in a concerted effort to make the Freedom of Information Act work. Lack of information affects everyone who is attempting to explicate the past, understand the present, and forecast the future. It impacts all citizens, but scholars\u2014who bear responsibility for interpretation and critical analysis\u2014even more so. No matter how important and dedicated, individual efforts to obtain of\ufb01cial records are insuf\ufb01cient.<\/p>\n

The abuse and disregard of the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act is not just about Jonestown, or Waco, or any single religious group. It is about religious freedom and about democracy at its very heart and soul. It is worth quoting Madison again: \u201cA popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both.\u201d[35] <\/sup><\/a> We have witnessed the tragedies of Jonestown and Waco, and the near-tragedies of the Montana Freemen and the Nuwaubians. Freedom of information is just one more way to make government and government of\ufb01cials accountable, without which the idea of freedom of religion is indeed a farce.<\/p>\n

ENDNOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a>Audiotape Q 042, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, available at <http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=29081<\/a>>, accessed 13 July 2017.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a>William E. Colby, \u201cIntelligence Secrecy and Security in a Free Society,\u201d International Security<\/em> 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1976): 3.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a>James Madison, quoted in Morton H. Halperin and Daniel N. Hoffman, \u201cSecrecy and the Right to Know,\u201d Law and Contemporary Problems<\/em> 40, no. 3, \u201cPresidential Power,\u201d Part 2 (Summer 1976): 165.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/sup><\/a>Francis E. Rourke, \u201cSecrecy in American Bureaucracy,\u201d Political Science Quarterly<\/em> 72, no. 4 (December 1957): 542.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/sup><\/a>Halperin and Hoffman, 132.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/sup><\/a>Sissela Bok, Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation<\/em> (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982), 185.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/sup><\/a>Bok, 176.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/sup><\/a>Dennis F. Thompson, \u201cDemocratic Secrecy,\u201d Political Science Quarterly<\/em> 114, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 185.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/sup><\/a>A special issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion<\/em>, 74, no. 2 (June 2006) has a number of relevant articles on the topic of religion and secrecy, and its distinction from privacy.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/sup><\/a>Bok, 10.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/sup><\/a>\u201cSecrecy: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy,\u201d PS: Political Science and Politics<\/em> 30, no. 3 (September 1997): 490.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/sup><\/a>Max Weber, \u201cBureaucracy,\u201d in Essays in Sociology<\/em>, trans, and ed. by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 233-34; quoted in Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience<\/em> (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,1998), 143. Rourke, \u201cSecrecy in American Bureaucracy,\u201d doubts that Weber\u2019s model can adequately be applied to the American experience, however, 544.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/sup><\/a>Shils quotes General Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, as saying, \u201cThe Army as a whole didn\u2019t deal with matters of security until after the atomic bomb burst on the world because it was the \ufb01rst time that the Army really knew there was such a thing.\u201d Edward Shils, The Torment of Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American Security Policies<\/em> (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1956), 42.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/sup><\/a>Francis E. Rourke, Secrecy and Publicity: Dilemmas of Democracy<\/em> (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), 32-38.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/sup><\/a>Shils, 77-81.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/sup><\/a>See Shiva Naipaul, Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy<\/i><\/a> (New York: Penguin Books, 1980); and Gordon K. Lewis, \u201cGather with the Saints at the River\u201d: The Jonestown Guyana <\/em>Holocaust<\/em> (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico, 1979).<\/p>\n

[17]<\/sup><\/a>Rebecca Moore, \u201cMcGehee v. CIA,\u201d in A Sympathetic History of Jonestown: The Moore Family Involvement in the Peoples Temple<\/em><\/a> (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985), 399-427; \u201cMcGehee v. CIA\u201d is also available online at http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=16588<\/a>, accessed 13 July 2017.<\/p>\n

[18]<\/sup><\/a>Colman McCarthy, \u201cThe FBI: Brave Battlers Against Nuns,\u201d The Washington Post<\/em>, 25 September 1998, F2.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/sup><\/a>Catherine Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven\u2019s Gate<\/a><\/em> (New York and London: Seven Bridges Press, 2000), 60, 64-65.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/sup><\/a>H. G. Reza, \u201cOn Behalf of Muslims, ACLU Seeks FBI Surveillance Data,\u201d The Los Angeles Times<\/em>, 16 May 2006, B4.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/sup><\/a>For a discussion of Ashcroft\u2019s directive, see Michael Barkun, \u201cReligion and Secrecy After September 11,\u201d Journal of the American Academy of Religion<\/em> 74, no. 2 (June 2006): 275-301.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/sup><\/a>\u201cNew Documents Show FBI Targeting Environmental and Animal Rights Groups Activities as \u2018Domestic Terrorism,\u2019\u201d American Civil Liberties Union, 20 December 2005, <http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/safefree\/spying\/23124prs20051220.html<\/a>>, accessed 13 July 2017.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/sup><\/a>Email to FBI counterterrorism unit, 23 May 2001, released under the Freedom of Information Act to the ACLU, <http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/spy\ufb01les\/jttf7670_671.pdf><\/em>, accessed 7 August 2007, no longer active 13 July 2017.<\/p>\n

[24]<\/sup><\/a>Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, quoted in \u201cFBI Counterterrorism Unit Spies on Peaceful, Faith-Based Protest Group,\u201d ACLU, 4 May 2006, <http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/safefree\/spying\/25442prs20060504.html<\/a>>, accessed 13 July 2017.<\/p>\n

[25]<\/sup><\/a>Alexandra Marks, \u201cFBI, Police Spying is Rising, Groups Allege,\u201d The Christian Science Monitor <\/em>(23 March 2006), online at <http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2006\/0323\/p03s03-ussc.htm<\/a>>, accessed 13 July 2017.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/sup><\/a>Sam Archibald, \u201cThe Early Years of the Freedom of Information Act: 1955 to 1974,\u201d PS: Political Science and Politics<\/em> 26, no. 4 (December 1993): 731.<\/p>\n

[27]<\/sup><\/a>Daniel Patrick Moynihan, quoted in Athan Theoharis, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d A Culture of Secrecy: The Government Versus the People\u2019s Right to Know<\/em>, ed. Athan Theoharis (Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 13.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/sup><\/a>Theoharis, \u201cThe Freedom of Information Act Versus the FBI,\u201d in Athan Theoharis, A Culture of Secrecy <\/em>16-36.<\/p>\n

[29]<\/sup><\/a>Information Security Oversight Of\ufb01ce, \u201c2005 Report to the President,\u201d <http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/isoo\/<\/a>>.<\/p>\n

[30]<\/sup><\/a>Figures in this paragraph come from ISOO, \u201c2006 Report to the President,\u201d * <http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/isoo\/<\/a>>.<\/p>\n

[31]<\/sup><\/a>Alan Johnson, \u201cFeds less eager to share records; Study \ufb01nds a slower response to requests,\u201d The Columbus Dispatch<\/em>, 1 July 2006, A7.<\/p>\n

[32]<\/sup><\/a>Jimmy Carter, \u201cAmerica has far too many secrets,\u201d The San Diego Union-Tribune<\/em>, 4 July 2006, B7.<\/p>\n

[33]<\/sup><\/a>\u201cAn Open Letter to the Committee on International Relations of the United States House of\u00a0Representatives on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of Jonestown, November 18, 1998,\u201d Center for Studies on New Religions, <http:\/\/www.cesnur.org\/testi\/guyana_lett.htm<\/a>>, accessed 13 July 2017.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/sup><\/a>Anna Kasten Nelson, \u201cThe John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board,\u201d in Theoharis, A Culture of Secrecy<\/em>, 211.<\/p>\n

[35]<\/sup><\/a>James Madison, quoted in David O. Stewart, \u201cOn 40th birthday. Freedom of Information Act faces midlife crisis,\u201d The Baltimore Sun<\/em>, 4 July 2006, A9.<\/p>\n

(Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for\u00a0<\/em>Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions\u00a0and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute.\u00a0 Her other articles in this edition of <\/em>the jonestown report are <\/em>The FBI and Religion: The Case of Peoples Temple<\/a>;<\/em> Representations of Jonestown in the Arts<\/a><\/em>; <\/em>Joanstown: A Different Look at Guyana<\/a><\/em>; and <\/em>An Update on the Demographics of Jonestown<\/a><\/em>.<\/em> Her complete collection of articles on this site appears\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published on the World Religions and Spirituality website, and is available as a pdf on this site.] Revision and expansion of paper given at CESNUR Conference San Diego, California August 2007 In August 2007 my husband, Fielding McGehee, and I observed a very special anniversary. It marked the sixth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":16580,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-70190","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70190"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134262,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70190\/revisions\/134262"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}