Published by the Church of Scientology International

he real security of a nation is the intelligence and understanding of its people. Every effort would be made by government – the servant and not the master – to assure that maximum information be available to the people who are the ultimate power under the Constitution.

“No agency, no department, no individual has demonstrated a need so great as to avoid accountability for actions taken – for decisions made.”

– U.S. Representative John Moss ¹

Timely coverage on freedom of information issues includes articles by respected experts.

Throughout its history, FREEDOM has been a pioneer in the use of the Freedom of Information Act and in educating others on the importance of freedom of information.

The popular Handbook on How to Use the Freedom of Information Act, prepared by the editors of FREEDOM, makes it easy for people to understand how to file requests and appeals under the act.

Many of FREEDOM’s exposés through the years have been based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. In 1985, for example, FREEDOM described how Ernest Hemingway was driven to suicide following a series of brutal electric shock treatments which destroyed his ability to write. Hemingway had gone to see a psychiatrist in New York at the urging of his wife and a friend. That psychiatrist, James Cattell, referred Hemingway to the Mayo Clinic, where he received electric shock while under the care of psychiatrist Howard Rome.

A principal reason Hemingway was pushed to see a psychiatrist was because he had insisted that “feds” were keeping him under close scrutiny. Under the Freedom of Information Act, FREEDOM obtained more than 100 pages of FBI documents which showed that J. Edger Hoover’s agents had haunted Hemingway’s life right up through his final days. The “feds” he complained about had been no illusion.

	Many thousands of pages of documents have been obtained by FREEDOM under the Freedom of Information Act on a broad range of topics, such as the FBI’s secret surveillance of Ernest Hemingway.

FREEDOM has filed literally hundreds of requests under the Freedom of Information Act to many different government entities, and has had many thousands of pages of documents released to it.

In order to share their acquired expertise under the act, in 1989 the editors of FREEDOM prepared The Handbook on How to Use the Freedom of Information Act, a 46-page guide to understanding and using the act. This handbook was broadly distributed as a public service by the Church of Scientology to tens of thousands of individuals and groups, causing a resurgence in use of the Freedom of Information Act.

In addition to explaining the purpose of the act and giving an overview of how it works, the handbook describes how to write request and appeal letters, with samples of both letters included.

Throughout the years, FREEDOM has provided timely coverage on freedom of information issues, featuring articles by respected experts on the subject.

1. Representative John Moss is known as the Father of the Freedom of Information Act. See “Human Rights Advocate of the Month, United States Congressman John Moss,” FREEDOM, May/June 1989.