How Free Can The Government Be With Your Information Property

Offhand when I read how the Freedom of Information Act was used to acquire personal information from the files of the FBI as reported by Randy Herschaft and Larry Mcshane in this Associate Press article featured in the Houston Chronicle, I question the Constitutionality of that action. The Declaration of Independence states it is to secure the right to property and information about a person is their property.

That is why the Constitution protects individuals from unreasonable search or seizer of their person. The exception is public domain information which seems to include all the released information. If the information is slanderous or libelous the government should not release it in respect for the individuals reputation, even if they are dead. This ideal has been violated in this information release . If the FBI has seized confidential records or other property from or about a person they are to be used only for the purpose they were seized for and not release to the general public unless the government has paid a fair value for them as that is what the Forth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution state. After use the government should destroy intellectual and related property such as x-rays on the government’s media or return other property such as x-rays on the individual’s media as it is not legally theirs unless ownership legally changed to them.

I quickly scanned the Freedom of Information Act and feel reasonable confident of it Constitutionality though it should forbid the release of information of a slanderous or libelous nature. An individual could of course have full access to their own information property provided it did not endanger the ideals enumerated in the Preamble of the Constitution.