The Security Service and a Family's Right to Know

摘要

The United Kingdom's Freedom of Information Act gives any person the right to be informed by the public authority whether it holds information specified in the request made and, if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him/her. Although an exemption clause includes the UK's Security Service (MI5), I argue, using an example I have come to know well, that a family's right to be informed should prevail over a service's refusal to release information that is 70 years old and an integral part of British history.