Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 66

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Unit: $U72

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 11 (1998)

21

Opinion of the Court

supra, at 167; Lujan, supra, at 560–561.
spondents here have suffered a genuine “injury in fact.”

In our view, re-

The “injury in fact” that respondents have suffered con-
sists of their inability to obtain information—lists of AIPAC
donors (who are, according to AIPAC, its members), and
campaign-related contributions and expenditures—that, on
respondents’ view of the law, the statute requires that
AIPAC make public. There is no reason to doubt their claim
that the information would help them (and others to whom
they would communicate it) to evaluate candidates for public
ofﬁce, especially candidates who received assistance from
AIPAC, and to evaluate the role that AIPAC’s ﬁnancial as-
sistance might play in a speciﬁc election. Respondents’ in-
jury consequently seems concrete and particular.
Indeed,
this Court has previously held that a plaintiff suffers an “in-
jury in fact” when the plaintiff fails to obtain information
which must be publicly disclosed pursuant to a statute.
Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U. S. 440, 449
(1989) (failure to obtain information subject to disclosure
under Federal Advisory Committee Act “constitutes a sufﬁ-
ciently distinct injury to provide standing to sue”). See also
Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U. S. 363, 373–374
(1982) (deprivation of information about housing availability
constitutes “speciﬁc injury” permitting standing).

The dissent refers to United States v. Richardson, 418
U. S. 166 (1974), a case in which a plaintiff sought information
(details of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) expenditures)
to which, he said, the Constitution’s Accounts Clause, Art. I,
§ 9, cl. 7, entitled him. The Court held that the plaintiff
there lacked Article III standing.
418 U. S., at 179–180.
The dissent says that Richardson and this case are “indistin-
guishable.” Post, at 34. But as the parties’ briefs sug-
gest—for they do not mention Richardson—that case does
not control the outcome here.

Richardson’s plaintiff claimed that a statute permitting
the CIA to keep its expenditures nonpublic violated the Ac-