Today, in a huge win for transparency, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled that the Federal Reserve Board must disclose records containing information about how it intervened to bail out banks during the financial crisis.

Since Bloomberg News filed the lawsuit in November of 2008, the Fed has claimed that if the information is released it could do more harm to the already weakened banks by stigmatizing them, thus hurting their ability to compete.

Supporters of Bloomberg’s lawsuit say the public has the right to know where their money is going. These records tell which ...