Less than a week has elapsed since the US Supreme Court issued a devastating opinion in a federal Freedom of Information case — Argus Leader v Food Marketing Institute — that abandoned a well established interpretation of the law promoting access in favor of a narrower interpretation that promotes secrecy in private businesses' dealings with government.

The Court abandoned 40 years of interpretation requiring a showing of substantial competitive harm from disclosure of business information in the hands of federal agencies to an interpretation that requires a simple agreement between the business and the agency that the records are "confidential."

The Court's opinion dealt a tremendous blow to the public's right to know how tax dollars are spent — and where abuses are occurring — in programs like SNAP, the federal food stamp program.

Within the week, as the headline below suggests, the issue moved from the Court to Congress.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley announced that he was already working to legislatively plug the hole created by the Court's ruling and restore accountability.

It bears repeating that Kentucky's law already expressly includes a requirement that the agency resisting disclosure of "confidential" business information in its possession present proof that disclosure "would permit an unfair commercial advantage to competitors of the entity that disclosed the records."

The US Supreme Court case will have minimal impact on our right of access to similar records in the hands of state and local agencies.

But — now more than ever — it is critical that Kentuckians fight to preserve that specific law, and the open records law in its entirety, against legislative attempts to circumscribe the public's right to know.