James Madison’s Legacy: The Past, Present, and Future of FOIA
By Kurt Brenneman, InformationToday, Summer 2026
This year is not only America250, it’s the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). FOIA is the law that says federal agencies must disclose their records and information to anyone who asks. Americans learn how their country is governed from records they get through FOIA. Where does President James Madison come in? Madison wrote the Bill of Rights. In 2023’s “Informed Dissent: Toward a Constitutional Right to Know” from The Journal of Civic Information, Martin E. Halstuk and Benjamin W. Cramer wrote that freedom of expression, promised by the First Amendment, implies freedom of information. The right to critique public officials “is one of the fundamental building blocks of self-government, and it requires access to information, or in other words, a right to know what the government is doing.” States, in turn, passed their own laws based on FOIA, so Americans could understand their state and local governments too. The U.S. Congress has reformed FOIA to fit the times and will amend it more during the next 60 years and beyond. Still, Madison’s essential right lives on.
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