Cite as: 524 U. S. 11 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
supra, at 167; Lujan, supra, at 560-561. In our view, respondents here have suffered a genuine "injury in fact."
The "injury in fact" that respondents have suffered consists 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 assistance might play in a specific election. Respondents' injury 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 sufficiently 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 "indistinguishable." Post, at 34. But as the parties' briefs suggest—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-
21
Page: Index Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007