All official documents were made available for copying except for information bearing on national security, the suppression of crime, the protection of legitimate economic interests and personal privacy provided for in the Secrecy Act. The first US federal legislation was passed in 1966. NZ and Australia enacted FoI laws in 1982 and Canada in 1983. Only Britain and the Republic of Ireland among the European nations have no FoI acts. Alan Rose says the traditional British approach has been that information should be released to the public at the discretion of the government and the general public interest is best served by a regime of secrecy.
Exemptions follow similar lines in most countries.
Every State and Territory in Australia has a FoI Act, with Victoria having enacted its law in 1982, shortly after the Commonwealth. USA FoI legislation is used by data-brokers to gain information for the purpose of sale. Their business has been made easier by a 1993 directive from the US Attorney-General requiring a presumption of disclosure and applying exemptions only when there is a real possibility of harm. Since the main category of fee waiver is for individuals' requests, and almost all third party requests including those from the media are paid for, this means, says Waters, that the bulk of applications have been individuals' requests for their own personal information. Given that FoI requests are also made by opposition politicians and public interest groups, the media must have had made only a few thousand requests at most, across Australia.