What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek
liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes
too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts.
These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes.
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies
there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no
court to save it.
- Judge Learned Hand, 1944

The Iowa Freedom of Information Council was organized in the fall of 1976 and formally incorporated in 1977 as a non-profit consortium of newspapers, radio and television stations, media associations, educators, publishers, broadcasters and others interested in openness in government and First Amendment rights.

About 22 such statewide organizations are active in the nation today, and the Iowa FOI Council is among the oldest, if not the oldest.

The Iowa Council was established primarily in response to increases in the amount and the costs of litigation involving the news media. The Council's by-laws still provide that it can serve as a voluntary assessment district to finance lengthy court battles that would benefit Iowans interested in open government.

Over the years, however, the Council's work has been primarily educational in nature - acquainting journalists with the Iowa open records and meeting laws and conducting workshops for public officials and other citizens.

This fall the Council will publish the ninth edition of its IOWA OPEN MEETINGS, OPEN RECORDS HANDBOOK. The first edition was published in late 1978. That was soon after the Iowa Legislature had adopted a revised open meetings law to replace one that the Iowa Supreme Court found unconstitutional because of its combination of vagueness and criminal penalties. With the ninth edition, the number of handbooks distributed over the years - at cost or free of charge - will exceed 90,000.

In a special project, the Council has provided material for First Amendment and Information-Access Resource Centers in each of some 575 public libraries in Iowa. The project was funded in part by a grant from the National FOI Coalition.

The Council operates on an annual budget of about $17,000. Most of the funds are from sustaining members, who pay annual dues of $500, and from the Iowa Broadcasters Association, which annually contributes $4,000 to help support Expanded Media Coverage of Iowa's courts.

The Council presidency rotates each year among three representatives of the founding organizations of the Council - the Iowa Broadcasters Association, the Iowa Newspaper Association, and the Des Moines Register and Tribune Company. The Council's trustees come from these three groups, other sustaining members, two representatives of the working news media and from the journalism programs at Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and Drake University.

Professor Herbert Strentz of the Drake University School of Journalism and Mass Communication served as the Council's executive secretary from its founding until June 2000, when Kathleen Richardson, a former news editor of the Des Moines Register, took over the day-to-day duties of the Council. Strentz remains in an advisory capacity. The Council pays its operating expenses at Drake and provides stipends for graduate students who assist the Council.

The expenses of officers and executive committee members are paid by their employers or by themselves.

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