This paper provides a framework for resolving questions about the recognition of information rights. It argues that information rights should be recognized where organizational opacity can be shown to have an adverse effect on the fundamental interests of citizens. In fact, it casn be shown that this logic undergirds many existing information rights, which are established to protect basic rights to physical and economic security, privacy, and polical participation. Transparency requirements could also be established to allow citizens to fulfill correlative duties associated with the recognition of certain basic interests as fundamental rights.