Illinois Politician Seeks To Outlaw Anonymous Comments (But Allow Anonymous Gun Ownership)

from the is-anonymity-good-or-bad? dept

Last year, we wrote about a ridiculous and obviously First Amendment-infringing attempt by some thin-skinned NY politicians to pass a law that would effectively ban anonymous comments online. The mechanism would be that a website would have to remove any comments, upon request, unless the commenter agreed to reveal their name, and connect the comment to their name and home address. As we noted, the Supreme Court has been pretty clear that protecting anonymous speech is a key part of the First Amendment:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

It would appear that Illinois State Senator Ira I. Silverstein needs a refresher course on this basic concept, as he's recently introduced an almost identical bill to the New York one. Seriously. The wording is about as close to identical as you could imagine. Here's the Illinois wording.

Creates the Internet Posting Removal Act. Provides that a web site administrator shall, upon request, remove any posted comments posted by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.

Here's the widely mocked NY wording:

A WEB SITE ADMINISTRATOR UPON REQUEST SHALL REMOVE ANY COMMENTS POSTED ON HIS OR HER WEB SITE BY AN ANONYMOUS POSTER UNLESS SUCH ANONYMOUS POSTER AGREES TO ATTACH HIS OR HER NAME TO THE POST AND CONFIRMS THAT HIS OR HER IP ADDRESS, LEGAL NAME, AND HOME ADDRESS ARE ACCURATE. ALL WEB SITE ADMINISTRATORS SHALL HAVE A CONTACT NUMBER OR E-MAIL ADDRESS POSTED FOR SUCH REMOVAL REQUESTS, CLEARLY VISIBLE IN ANY SECTIONS WHERE COMMENTS ARE POSTED.

It kind of makes me wonder who is going around giving state politicians this language.

Meanwhile, Jeff Jarvis notes the ultimate irony that the very same Ira I. Silverstein, just days after introducing that bill to effectively ban internet anonymity, proposed another bill to keep gun owner info anonymous, amending the freedom of information act to exempt firearms ownership data from being available to the public.

Whatever you might believe about anonymous comments and/or gun ownership, it's difficult to put both of these laws together and not see some sort of extreme hypocrisy.

Filed Under: anonymity, anonymous comments, first amendment, foia, free speech, freedom of information, gun ownership, illinois, internet, ira silverstein

Justice Department Uses Red Tape To Delay Release Of Required Information On Domestic Spying Until Well After It Matters

from the most-transparent-administration-in-history! dept

A couple of months ago, Julian Sanchez wrote about the ridiculous situation in which he filed a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to reveal the latest semi-annual report from the Justice Department concerning how it was implementing the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. As we've been discussing, for a while, how the FISA Amendments Act broadly expanded the ability of federal law enforcement, in particular the NSA, to spy on everyone. While there is some language that suggests it's only supposed to be used on foreigners, it's been revealed that there is a secret interpretation of the bill, that likely allows them to use a loophole (plus the secret interpretation) to collect and review tons of data on Americans. The FAA is up for renewal, and it's likely that Congress will rush through a five year extension -- despite overwhelming evidence that many in Congress don't know how the NSA is interpreting the bill (and even making statements that directly contradict the evidence of how the bill is being used).

The law does require the "semi-annual" report mentioned above, and thanks to a lawsuit by the ACLU, the courts have said that the government is required to release redacted versions of those documents. Which is why it was crazy when Sanchez initially filed his FOIA request to see the most recent versions, arguing (quite reasonably) that such documents were inherently important in the debate over the FAA's renewal, that the DOJ initially told him that it had to deny his request because it could "neither confirm nor deny the existence of records in these files responsive to your request." That was obviously bullshit. Once again: the report is required by law, and the courts have already said that the content is subject to FOIA requests. Thankfully, after Sanchez went public with the ridiculousness of the situation, the DOJ quickly admitted the original response was a mistake, and promised they'd get right on finding the documents.

Sanchez now has an update of the situation, which is almost as ridiculous as the original story.

By mid-September, just under three months after my initial request went in, I was informed that they’d identified the reports I was looking for and forwarded them to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for a declassification review, which they expected would be completed by early November. Joy! Would we actually get information about an intelligence program out of the government without a lawsuit? Maybe even in time to have a semi-informed public debate?

Well, no. ODNI informed me earlier this month that they were wrapping up their review and redaction Any Day Now, at which point… their redacted version would be forwarded, one at a time, to every other intelligence agency whose activities were referenced in the report. At each agency, it would go to the back of the line of FOIA requests, exactly as though it had just been submitted for the first time. Estimated time before a heavily censored version of these reports see the light of day: Another six months. At least. By which time, it won’t matter much what these reports say about NSA’s use of its sweeping powers, because Congress will have already given them another five years of spying authority.

Notice what this means in practice: Even though a court has already established, thanks to an ACLU lawsuit, that they are legally required to release redacted versions of these reports to the public on request, a cumbersome bureaucratic process effectively guarantees that it takes a solid year to get this information out, which means at best you’re working with what the assessment found two reports ago, allowing the government to assert that they’ve fixed whatever problems were found. In this case, the timing of the review process conveniently guarantees that whatever we learn will come far too late to influence this year’s vote on FAA powers, but be old news by the time Congress takes up the question again. It’s a little hard to swallow the claim that all this delay is remotely necessary: Are we really supposed to believe that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will be so slipshod about letting sensitive classified information through that their work has to be independently double checked by every other intelligence agency? And that this process has to take six months or longer, even after ODNI has done their initial review and redaction? Of course it doesn’t: This is a bureaucratic procedure designed, not to protect national security, but to allow stalling on the release of politically inconvenient information that the courts won’t allow to be completely hidden from the public.

Once again, this seems to raise questions about the process here -- and how much of it really has to do with law enforcement officials being careful... and how much of it is purely political, seeking to hide damaging information that might impact the FAA renewal.

Furthermore, as Sanchez notes, the very idea that he had to file a FOIA for this information is troubling by itself:

What we should really be asking is why I had to submit this request at all. In his first days in office, after all, President Obama issued a directive not only urging agencies to err on the side of disclosure, but to adopt a policy of proactive release of documents likely to be of public interest. Surely if there were any doubt about the public interest in the use of sweeping surveillance powers, it should have been put to rest after the ACLU won release of the earliest compliance reports. So why didn’t the Justice Department follow President Obama’s directive and draft these reports with an eye toward preparing a declassified public version, knowing full well that civil liberties groups would come asking? Well, because then they wouldn’t be able to obfuscate and delay for months and months. Because then the public might be able to have an informed discussion about the secret surveillance powers we’ve given our spy agencies before we vote to extend them. Heaven forfend.

Filed Under: delays, faa, fisa amendments act, freedom of information, nsa, spying, surveillance

Still All Talk: 19 Of 20 Presidential Cabinet Agencies Ignore Requirements Of The Freedom Of Information Act

from the freedom's-just-another-word-for-*********** dept

Despite having 45 years to get "warmed up," the era of "open government" may take several more cycles before it becomes a reality. President Obama promised an unprecedented level of openness, but to date, the level of openness remains pretty much unchanged from his predecessors'.

An analysis of open-government requests filed by Bloomberg News shows that most cabinet-level agencies would rather break the law than comply with the requirements of the Freedom of Information act. And by "most," Bloomberg means "nearly all."

Nineteen of 20 cabinet-level agencies disobeyed the law requiring the disclosure of public information: The cost of travel by top officials. In all, just eight of the 57 federal agencies met Bloomberg’s request for those documents within the 20-day window required by the Act.

The Bloomberg analysis also tracked the timeliness of information requests, pointing out that fast turn-time was referred to as "an essential component of transparency" by Attorney General Eric Holder. Bloomberg was seeking disclosure on out-of-town travel expenses generated by top officials.

About half of the 57 agencies eventually disclosed the out-of-town travel expenses generated by their top official by Sept. 14, most of them well past the legal deadline.

The travel costs generated by some other Obama officials --Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, and Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano -- also remain undisclosed.

A request made in June for the travel records of Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, will remain unfulfilled for more than a year, according to a federal official involved in the case.

“We really appreciate your patience in this matter. The estimated completion date is July 2013,” wrote Chris Barnes, a State Department FOIA official, in a Sept. 24 e-mail. Under FOIA, the department is required to offer a timetable for delayed responses.

Travel expense reports aren't exactly the most arcane records. Every business has them and while the government may have more to track, it's hard to believe that requesting this data on only the top official in each department should take longer than the 20-day period. In fact, it's hard to believe that this data needs to be requested at all.

Eric Newton, senior adviser at the Knight Foundation, a Miami-based group that promotes citizen engagement, said agencies have no excuse not to rapidly disclose travel costs.

“In a 24/7 world, it should take two days, it should take two hours,” Newton said. “If it’s public, it should be just there.”

It looks as if FOIA requests, no matter what their reason, are either being stalled or given a very low priority in certain departments. Whatever can't be held off indefinitely is being avoided completely through abuse of exemptions. The Obama administration flexed its exemption muscle during its first year, deploying 50% more than the Bush administration. Since then, the numbers have died down a bit, but there's no reason to start celebrating a "new era of openness." This simply means a drop from a high of 466,402 down to 369,417 exemptions in 2011.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, a majority of these exemptions (231,634) were deployed by the Department of Homeland Security. (The next two are the Dept. of Defense [30,861] and the Dept. of Justice [23,916].) With the handy ability to cite the interests of "national security" at the drop of a hat, the DHS can turn down nearly any request. This hasn't stopped the public from trying, however. The DHS still receives the most requests but it's hard to believe it's receiving 10 times the number of requests the Dept. of Justice is, making its exemption percentage that much more egregious.

Even with exemption deployment being the default setting for a few agencies, there are currently no exemptions that apply to the requested travel information from disclosure. A slight delay could be expected for redaction efforts, but as Bloomberg points out, other agencies redacted personal data and still managed to respond in a timely fashion.

Responsive agencies were able to redact personal details within the FOIA time period. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the chief regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, provided the travel expense records for Acting Director Edward DeMarco’s six trips out of town within 15 days of the filing.

DeMarco’s trips cost $5,653.29, the documents show. Personal information such as his Social Security number and home address were blacked-out in the file.

Some of these delays can also be chalked up to good old fashioned bureaucracy, something which nevers seems to go out of style in DC. The administration is working on a streamlining plan for the FOIA process, but it's being rolled out at a very bureaucratic pace.

The administration acknowledged systemic issues with the FOIA process when the Office of Management and Budget issued guidelines Aug. 24 to all federal agencies on how to streamline government information. The memo called for all government information to be stored in an electronic format by December 2019 -- almost three years after the end of a potential second Obama term.

A glacial pace only a bureaucrat could love combined with what Bloomberg refers to as a "culture of obfuscation" means that requesting something as simple as travel records becomes an exercise in near futility. The Freedom of Information Act has been around since 1966 which means that a.) this isn't just this administration's problem and b.) the government has had more than four decades to make the process run more smoothly. One can only conclude that the government has very little interest in transparency, no matter what promises were made during the "honeymoon" period.

Fortunately, many more entities like the ACLU and the EFF are working to make the government comply with its own law. The process is arduous and far from satisfying, but without a continual push, the government will continue to allow the public to pay for the "privilege" of being told it's "none of their business." Oh, and it should be noted that after I finished this, Mike informed me that he's been waiting for months for the response to a FOIA he filed which, by law, should have been completed back in July. The reason given by the agency in question for the delay: give us more time, because we only have two people working on all FOIA requests.

Filed Under: administration, foia, freedom of information, secrecy, transparency

Credit Where It's Due: DOJ Changes Its Tune On FISA Transparency

from the now-let's-see-what-happens dept

Earlier this week, I complained that the Department of Justice seemed to be stonewalling a Freedom of Information Act request I’d filed seeking copies of mandatory semi-annual reports to Congress on the National Security Agency’s compliance with the procedures and civil liberties safeguards of the FISA Amendments Act--which the House voted yesterday to reauthorize for another five years. After sitting on the request for two months (the statutory deadline is 20 business days), DOJ had finally replied with a letter claiming they could "neither confirm or deny the existence" of reports that were required by federal law. I thought this was a little ridiculous. Fortunately, there were officials at the Justice Department who thought so too.

Having appealed the denial of my request, I got an impressively prompt reply on Tuesday evening from the director of the Office of Information Policy at DOJ, assuring me that she recognized the agency's initial response had been "incorrect," and that a new one would be forthcoming immediately. By Wednesday morning, their stance had changed entirely: They had found the reports I sought, and were forwarding them to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for review to determine what would need to be redacted before release--with a request that ODNI seek to expedite its analysis to compensate for their own delay.

Now, to be sure, I'd rather have had this response a month ago, and the documents before the House vote, but at this point DOJ appears to be doing exactly what they're supposed to and making a good faith effort to facilitate the redaction and release of these important assessments. So it seemed appropriate to follow up on my initial blog post to acknowledge that--and in particular Office of Information Policy director Melanie Pustay, who straightforwardly acknowledged the error and acted quickly to correct it. We'll see soon enough whether a similar spirit of transparency reigns at ODNI.

Cross-posted from Cato-at-Liberty.

Filed Under: doj, fisa, fisa amendments act, foia, freedom of information, mistakes, odni

Too Much Secrecy: Press Ask The Court To Open Up Bradley Manning Court Martial

from the how-we-got-into-this-mess dept

As the case against Bradley Manning moves forward, the government is doing what it always seems to do: trying to keep everything secret. However, over 30 news organizations have now asked the armed forces appeals court to open up, allowing public access to motions, briefs and written rulings associated with the case. The military's response has been that the only way the press should be able to access such documents (which are regularly available via things like PACER in the civilian court system) is through filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, which can take a long time, and are all too often ignored. Of course, it's the over aggressive attempts to keep information secret that may have resulted in this case even existing in the first place, as Manning allegedly believed that the over-classification of documents was harming US interests.

This Court should find that such an arrangement is uncon-stitutional. More than thirty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a presumptive right of access to criminal proceed-ings. See Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 573 (1980) (plurality opinion). As discussed below, the Court has reiterated its holding repeatedly, and the nation’s military courts have applied the same reasoning to extend this right of public access to courts-martial. Amici recognize that various interests, including the need to protect national security information, may justify sealed records in certain circumstances. They do not, however, general-ly justify complete secrecy. In fact, previous disputes about claims of national security have been litigated in the open: “Briefs in the Pentagon Papers case and the hydrogen bomb plans case were available to the press, although sealed appendices discussed in detail the documents for which protection was sought.”

Hopefully the court recognizes the significant public interest here and makes such documents public by default.

Filed Under: bradley manning, docket, foia, freedom of information, journalism, secrecy
Companies: wikileaks

We Ask The Supreme Court To Clarify If It's Legal For Virginia To Bar Techdirt From Filing Freedom Of Information Requests

from the restrictions-on-the-press dept

Like many media properties, we've filed Freedom of Information Act requests to seek out information at both the federal and state levels. The various federal and state freedom of information regulations are important tools for the public, and also for those doing journalism to seek out and report on important information that should be public. Unfortunately, some states like to limit these laws, and Virginia in particular has made its law such that it limits filings to only Virginia residents... or to a very small number of media companies that meet its "exemption" rules. Basically, it will allow freedom of information requests from "traditional newspapers, print magazines or FCC-licensed broadcast media." So if you're an online-only media property and not a Virginia resident, you're out of luck.

A small number of other states also have "citizens only" clauses in their FOI laws, though Delaware's was recently struck down as unconstitutional. However, Virginia is the only state that allows a partial exemption for some media players, but not for others. Even so, a court recently upheld Virginia's law as constitutional. This has created both a circuit split (with different courts in different circuits finding very differently on the general issue of "citizens only" clauses), and an unfair burden on anyone doing online-only reporting and thus not qualifying for the specific exemption in Virginia's law.

As the Supreme Court has been asked to hear an appeal of that case, we've signed onto an amicus brief along with the American Society of News Editors, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Ars Technica, Daily Kos, Grist, Matthew Lee, Muckrock, Automattic and Tumblr, arguing that this is an issue where existing rulings and the arbitrariness of the exemptions in the law have created massive uncertainty for anyone doing investigative reporting. So our filing is asking the Supreme Court to take the case and clarify whether or not Virginia's restrictive law is constitutional. Hopefully, the Court recognizes the problems of the law and makes clear that, in this age when anyone can do reporting, limiting such rules to only citizens or an arbitrary definition of professional media is too restrictive.

Filed Under: citizens, freedom of information, journalism, virginia

The Things You Learn When You Send A Freedom Of Information Act Request About What The Gov't Knows About You

from the evil-criminal-edition dept

I've been meaning to post this story for a little while, but am finally getting around to it. On a whim, a woman decided to send off some Freedom of Information Act requests to various government agencies to see if they had any information about her. She said she had basically forgotten about the whole thing... until, months later, the FBI sent her a giant package... containing a 436-page report on her that she had no idea existed. What she discovered was that, about a decade ago, the FBI had spent five days following her and some of her friends around, all because they were involved in planning and organizing a small local protest (she doesn't explain what the protest was about, other than to say it really wasn't that big of a deal). Either way, the FBI spent five days (a few days before, the day of and the day after the protest) following her and her friends and recording all of their activities. The actual report is incredibly mundane: At times, the file details seem particularly ridiculous: As she says, "As you can see, I pose a clear and present danger to society. I pick up other people's trash and put it in the proper bins." The entire file is apparently similarly pointless information about her activities. She sounds mildly embarrassed that she didn't spot the fact that she was being followed, but if you're not expecting that you're being followed -- and being followed by pros -- it's unlikely that you'd notice. The thing that's really amazing is that it makes you wonder just how much time and resources are being wasted here. I recognize that it's important for law enforcement to be on top of various activities, but it's hard not to wonder if this isn't overkill. She also notes that, for all of the time and effort put into following her around, they got a lot of the rather basic facts wrong:

I am repeatedly identified as a member of a different, more mainstream liberal activist group which I was not only not a part of, but actually fought with on countless occasions. To somehow not know that I detested this group of people was a colossal failure of intelligence-gathering. Hopefully the FBI has not gotten any better at figuring out who is a part of what, and that this has worked to the detriment of their surveillance of other activists. I am also repeatedly identified as being a part of campaigns that I was never involved with, or didn't even know about, including protests in other cities. Maybe the FBI assumes every protester-type attends all other activist meetings and protests, like we're just one big faceless monolith. "Oh, hey, you're into this topic? Well, then, you're probably into this topic, right? You're all pinkos to us."

In taking a general survey of all area activists, the files keep trying to draw non-existant connections between the most mainstream groups/people and the most radical, as though one was a front for the other. There are a few flyers from local events that have nothing to do with our campaign, including one posted to advertise a lefty discussion group at the university library. The FBI mentions that activists may be planning "direct action" at their meetings, which the document's author clarifies means "illegal acts." "Direct action" was then, and I'd say now, a term used to talk about civil disobedience and intentional arrests. While such things are illegal actions, the tone and context in these FBI files makes it sound like protesters got together and planned how to fly airplanes into buildings or something.

When you read stuff like this, and then think back to the various cases we've seen of the FBI manufacturing their own terrorist plots, it really makes you wonder if the money we're spending on law enforcement for these kinds of things is money well spent... or if the FBI really just has way too much time (and money) on their hands.

Filed Under: fbi, freedom of information

The DHS Says 'No' To Requests For Public Affairs Contact Numbers; Hysterically Cites 'Privacy' Concerns

from the surely-public-affairs-numbers-should-be-public,-non? dept

Not to continue to beat on this dead horse of administration promises, but statements were made about adopting a "presumption in favor of disclosure" when it came to Freedom of Information Act requests and a general mindset of "transparency" was supposed to be on its way, washing away 8 years worth of privacy erosion and compartmentalization.

But, privacy continues to be a one-way street paved with tax dollars. The Department of Homeland Security, which has expressed an interest in securing all information ever from U.S. citizens, is apparently concerned that releasing phone numbers for its Public Affairs department would result in a horrendous breach of privacy:

Some federal agencies post the office phone numbers of public affairs staff on their websites.

Not the Department of Homeland Security, which believes their release poses "a clearly unwarranted invasion" of employee privacy.

That was the department's response when it denied a Federal Times Freedom of Information Act request for the office phone numbers of its official spokesman. Personal privacy exemptions to FOIA are more commonly used to block disclosure of personnel or medical files.

This isn't an exception to the rule. Despite the clear wording of the 2009 directive, which instructed executive branch agencies not to withhold information just because they could, the end result has been an uneven distribution of compliance and stonewalling.

And it's not just intelligence agencies doing the stonewalling. The U.S. Post Office has also given FOIA requests the extended runaround:

In late 2009, for example, Federal Times asked the U.S. Postal Service for five years worth of data on its use of "standby time," when employees are paid to do nothing. Almost two years later, the Postal Service responded last month by withholding the information on the grounds it was covered by the "trade secrets" exemption. But along with that response, the Postal Service enclosed a copy of a recent inspector general's report that contains some of the same information Federal Times was seeking.

So much for "trade secrets." I'm sure that while FedEx and UPS would have enjoyed seeing the downtime numbers, they probably would have done little more than laughed at the USPS's inefficiency. And apparently the "trade secrets" weren't so secret that they couldn't be released through other channels.

But there is a ray of sunshine in all this mess (albeit, a ray swiftly being covered in black ink). The DHS finally responded to the FOIA request for Public Affairs phone numbers, in a way that only an intelligence agency could with a straight face:

The agency eventually released a 58-page directory of public affairs staff, but redacted every phone number under the privacy exemption.

Of course! Here's the information you requested! Please note that all of the information you've requested has been withheld! No refunds! An explanation of the decision to redact all of the requested information was delivered by Mary Ellen Callahan, head black marker wielder (Chief FOIA Officer) for the DHS:

"In many cases, information that identifies individual DHS employees does not directly shed light on the operations or activities of the government, and FOIA officers should withhold it," Callahan wrote last year. She added, however, that senior-level officials "have a lesser expectation of privacy than lower-level administrative employees."

If you can't even get the phone number for a PR flack, all hope (and some of the change) is lost. Great job, DHS!

(H/T to Radley Balko.)

Filed Under: freedom of information, homeland security, phone numbers, transparency

Student Journalists Sue Community College For Ridiculously High Fees On Open Records Request

from the avoiding-open-records dept

With various open records and freedom of information laws, many government organizations don't like the fact that they may have to reveal things that can be seen as embarrassing. Sometimes they try to get around this simply by refusing to disclose things they're legally obliged to, but that can backfire. So a sneakier way of hiding is to simply claim that the "cost" associated with retrieving the requested information is quite high. Most open records laws allow the agency to pass on any reasonable costs (and usually there are ways to get exemptions from those fees).

However, it appears that the student journalists at Johnson County Community College in Kansas were pretty shocked when the university told the student paper that it would cost $24,130.72 to provide staff emails and documents requested by the students. In a related issue, a request was made for all emails between two individuals over a seven month period... and the college responded that it would cost $47,426 to fulfill the request. After thinking that seemed crazy, the journalists resubmitted the request, but asked for just the emails between those two individuals for a single day, chosen at random, along with a list of all the open records requests the school had received... and was told that request would cost $23,630.96. So, then the journalists sent another request dropping the open records list, and just choosing a single day (one day after the one in the previous request) and was told to get just those emails it would cost $9,745.96... even though the total number of emails was around 20.

The school claims that it would cost that much because they'd have to spend $5,250 to contract with an outside agency for 25 hours of work to get the emails. The students (along with the Student Press Law Center) believe that it's really about a college simply putting forth bogus fees to avoid having to comply with open records requests. Thus, they're now suing the college for failing to obey the Kansas Open Records Act, which requires only reasonable fees to retrieve the information requested.

Filed Under: expenses, freedom of information, johnson county community college

NYTimes Sues The Federal Government For Refusing To Reveal Its Secret Interpretation Of The PATRIOT Act

from the secret-laws-and-secret-interpretations dept

We've been covering for a while now how Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been very concerned over the secret interpretation the feds have of one piece of the PATRIOT Act. They've been trying to pressure the government into publicly explaining how they interpret the law, because they believe that it directly contrasts how most of the public (and many elected officials) believe the feds are interpreting the law. While the two Senators continue to put pressure on the feds and to hint at the feds' interpretation, just the fact that the government won't even explain its own interpretation of the law seems ridiculous.

Given all of this, reporter Charlie Savage of the NY Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out the federal government's interpretation of its own law... and had it refused. According to the federal government, its own interpretation of the law is classified. What sort of democracy are we living in when the government can refuse to even say how it's interpreting its own law? That's not democracy at all.

Julian Sanchez points us to the news that Savage and the NY Times have now sued the federal government for not revealing its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, pointing out that if parts of the interpretation contain classified material, the Justice Department should black that out and reveal the rest, but simply refusing to reveal the interpretation entirely is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You can bet that the feds will do everything they can to get out of this lawsuit, just as they did with the various lawsuits concerning warrantless wiretapping. Here's hoping the court systems don't let them. No matter what you think of this administration (or the last one) and how it's handling the threat of terrorism, I'm curious how anyone can make the argument that the US government should not reveal how it interprets the very laws under which it's required to operate.

Filed Under: charlie savage, doj, extension, freedom of information, mark udall, oversight, patriot act, ron wyden, secret interpretation, wiretaps