# Freedom of Information

> Freedom of Information is mapped as the machine: it turns political goals into repeatable decisions by specialized permanent organizations.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:political-change:bureaucracy-administration:freedom-of-information` |
| Family | Bureaucracy & Administration |
| Domain | Governance |
| Kind | institution |
| Archetypal function | The Machine |
| Epistemic status | synthesis; supported |

## Concrete anchor

Freedom of Information belongs to the **Bureaucracy & Administration** family. It is treated as a specific political object, role, institution, tactic, event, ideology, or mechanism before any symbolic transfer is made.

## What it does

Freedom of Information turns political goals into repeatable decisions by specialized permanent organizations, changing who can act, what becomes visible, and which costs are distributed to others.

## Who gains and who loses power

The mechanism can increase the capacity of actors able to use Freedom of Information, while shifting cost, delay, risk, exclusion, or dependence toward actors with less authority, information, organization, money, or safe access. The distribution is conditional, not an essence of the node.

## Archetypal function

**The Machine.** Freedom of Information is mapped as the machine: it turns political goals into repeatable decisions by specialized permanent organizations.

## Gift

creates continuity, expertise, memory, and scale; through Freedom of Information, that capacity becomes available for deliberate use.

## Wound / Shadow

lets procedure become purpose and discretion escape visibility; Freedom of Information can then reproduce the very arrangement it claims to change.

## Conditions

- scale and jurisdiction are explicit
- affected people and absent stakeholders are named
- time horizon and countermoves are considered

## Strategic meaning

Use Freedom of Information to identify the operative target, resource, dependency, decision forum, and likely countermove. Ask what would make the mechanism stronger, weaker, more legitimate, or less necessary.

## Divinatory meaning

The Machine enters through Freedom of Information. Read for the capacity seeking expression, the cost displaced from view, and the relationship that changes if the frame moves.

**Question:** What changes when Freedom of Information becomes the unit of analysis rather than background?

## Game function

**resource.** Reveal one hidden dependency connected to Freedom of Information; another player names a countermove. Initiative 3.

## Relationships

- **depends on — Records Request:** Records Request depends on Freedom of Information by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **institutionalizes — Administrative Burden:** Freedom of Information institutionalizes Administrative Burden by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **constrains — Velvet Revolution:** Freedom of Information constrains Velvet Revolution by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_
- **enables — Saul Alinsky:** Saul Alinsky enables Freedom of Information by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_

## Countermaps and polarity prompts

- Read Freedom of Information from the viewpoint of the actor who bears its cost.
- Reverse cause and symptom: what if Freedom of Information is an effect of the system it appears to drive?
- Change the clock: what looks different over a day, an election cycle, a generation, and a century?
- Ask when the Gift becomes the Wound through scale, secrecy, intensity, latency, or unequal reciprocity.

## Epistemic and Sentinel note

Claim layers: synthesis, interpretive, symbolic_divinatory. Scope, jurisdiction, period, and source perspective may change the claim.
No node-specific Sentinel factors were recorded; ordinary source, audience, and context checks still apply.

## Visual direction

A text-free enamel expression of Freedom of Information: one dominant mechanism, one counterforce, raised warm-metal linework, midnight field, restrained civic red, teal, ivory, and amber. No party logo, national flag, sacred symbol, or recognizable person.

## Research / provenance

- [Preventing Policy Capture](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/preventing-policy-capture_9789264065239-en.html) — OECD, 2017. Mechanisms and safeguards concerning capture of public decision-making.
- [Introduction to Political Science](https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-political-science) — OpenStax, 2022. Comparative institutions, political behavior, and public policy foundations.

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Engine Output version 1.0.0; generated 2026-08-24T00:00:00Z. Sentinel annotations are stored separately in `sentinel/handoffs.json`.
