Thanks to Google News Alerts for my daily dose of Johnny Cash, I found out yesterday that Johnny Cash had a 208-page FBI file. It was declassified at NewsChannel 5's request.
Anyway, Johnny Cash apparently had a large FBI file, which shouldn't really be surprising. It would be interesting to read the whole document.
They're the untold stories in Johnny Cash's FBI file, which was recently declassified at NewsChannel 5’s request, detail the entertainer's successes and failures, but the Cash file is a case study on the price of fame.That's pretty interesting. At the same time, however, it's pretty troubling that government agencies are required to release files like that to the general public. Or, maybe it's not. This is actually a bit of a tough issue for me -- assuming that it's even appropriate for the government to collect such information to begin with (for the sake of argument, let's say it's appropriate), should the government be required to publish that information, as is the case under FOI regulations?
Anyway, Johnny Cash apparently had a large FBI file, which shouldn't really be surprising. It would be interesting to read the whole document.
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What you should really be asking is do they have a file on YOU!?! Or me for that matter...
Yes. Assuming, for the moment, that it is appropriate for them to collect this information (a tough assumption for me to make, but okay), then it is necessary that they be required to release it. If power corrupts, etc., then a safeguard is to make the exercises of that power transparent, eventually, anyway.
From what I can see, this has two effects:
1) It improves government by the people in that the people have the ability to see the information on which government bases its decisions.
2) It hopefully makes the government at least briefly consider what information it collects. It also let's the people see what information is collected, and if appropriate, cry FOUL!
Johnny Cash's credit score isn't a matter of national security, so it shouldn't be exempt from the FOIA. Whether it should have been collected at all is another question entirely.
But it's also not collected/computed by a government agency -- credit scores are generated by non-governmental companies.