Comment The argument is irrelevant (Score 1) 534
The argument being made is irrelevant.
It is easy to show that a right to public oversight over private entities arises under the 9th Amendment as a right "retained by the people". We show this using a technique known since Euclid, namely proof by contradiction.
Assume that no such right exists. Then it follows that the government may infringe any right by appropriate delegation to third party entities. From this, it follows that no rights exists. But the Bill of Rights, the highest law in the land (superior even to the pre-Bill of Rights Constitution, as the history clearly shows) provides both for explicit rights and unstated rights. Hence we have a contradiction, and the assumption is shown to be invalid.
Government may not hide behind 3rd party entities, nor may it hide behind private property. As a corollary, it follows that the Bill of Rights can and often does limit the actions of private entities.
Law such as contract law and property law is only valid to the extant that it does not violate fundamental rights, including any rights arising under the 9th Amendment (rights retained by the people) or the 10th Amendment (rights reserved to the people) that are not explicitly stated in the law.
Thus, in this case, an argument based on contract law is irrelevant. If the request for information was appropriate, and if the refusal to provide information was made by a legal professional, sworn to uphold the Bill of Rights, while engaged in the practice of law, it follows that person is in violation of that oath.
All rights have limits, of course. In most situations, the only oversight that is required is of the long-term variety. In the case of government, long term oversight allows police, military, and espionage operations to be carried out with some degree of secrecy when appropriate. For instance, the identities of undercover agents may be concealed under many circumstances, for a reasonable period of time. In the case of private entities, long term oversight allows trade secrets to be kept for a reasonable period of time.
The people have the final authority to decide what is appropriate. That is inherent in the nature of rights retained to the people.
In practice, getting the legal profession to recognize the authority of the 9th and 10th Amendments seems difficult (aside from a few well known exceptions such as Roe vs Wade). This problem can primarily be ascribed to ethical conflicts on interest that arise on the part of the legal profession with respect to this issue. That last point that has been made numerous times on Slashdot during prior discussions, in the context of discussions on copyright law, patent law, contract law, and property law, so I won't belabour the point here.
Law is far too important to trust to the legal profession.