The Justice Department has argued that various court filings (e.g., the ACLU’s filings against the PATRIOT Act, ongoing) need, as so many other documents need, redaction to keep sensitive material from becoming public.
Obviously, at least in some cases, “sensitive” doesn’t mean “possibly harmful to national security” but “possibly embarrassing and rhetorically endangering of our position” — such as in this proposed redaction from that previously mentioned ACLU filing (partially rescinded by the Supreme Court, before whom it was filed), where what was redacted was (a) a quote from a previous Supreme Court ruling, which is, of course, public record, and (b) a quote about the dangers of government carte blanche in acting to protect “domestic security”:
The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent.
That the Government (in this case, the DoJ) acted, in the name of “domestic security” to suppress this quotation is, in fact, mind-boggling, and indicative of the very dangers the quotation speaks of (in US v. US District Court for the Eastern Dist. of Mich., 407 US 297, 314 (1972).
And, just as bad as the manipulative nuttiness of such a redaction attempt is that it calls into question every other attempt to redact or suppress material, even those attempts which are wholly legitimate, defensible, and, were the facts known, supportable.
In other words, it’s bad enough that the folks involved in this are acting in so apparently self-serving and indefensible a fashion, but it’s even worse that it stands to hamper other attempts to rightfully protect national security — which attempts do sometimes require information to be redacted.
But who can accept that on face value now? Particularly given this laundry list of similar redaction attempts.
I’m still trying to figure out why John Ashcroft still has a job. It’s yo-yo moves like this that makes me think the only way to get rid of him is to get rid of his boss in a few months …
(via Antipixel)
Huzzah!
It’s long past time to have thrown the PATRIOT Act on to the dust heap of history (and Ashcroft with it).
I’ve seen very little sign of Ashcroft doing anything reasonably effective as AG. He seems to spend more time on trivial pursuits (like hunting down medical marjuana growers) than focusing on true threats to the nation.
I don’t know enough about the USA PATRIOT Act to speak globally on it — most criticism I’ve seen focus on particular secrecy and lack-of-oversight provisions in it, or else use it as a generic label for All That’s Evil. Certainly this incidence, assuming it stems from the DoJ’s use of PATRIOT, indicates the need for review and modification or repeal of some of those provisions.
The law enforcement and anti-terror effort cannot be totally transparent, for obviously reasons. Conversely, they cannot be totally opaque, either. That the Ashcroft DoJ has chosen to take the latter position is unsupportable.
Huzzah, Dave!
What irritates me the most about the PATRIOT ACT (besides its idiotic name) is that no one bothered to read the damned thing before signing off on it.
That was the real disgrace.
Agreed. “Legislate in haste, repent at leisure.” Everyone in Congress dropped the ball on this one.
(And, yes, I find the use of Congressional Righteous Acronyms Pretty Peeving, Y’know?)
But it can’t be bad…it’s name the THISISTHEMOMANDAPPLEPIE act, so to vote against it shows that you hate America.
Waiting in the wings…the INDUCE act.
Disappointingly, the INDUCE act has been renamed the IIC (Inducing Infringement of Copyright) Act. Didn’t they get the memo?
Upon reflection, I worry that getting huzzahs from both Boulder Dude and Scott will be enough to get me tossed out of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Which doesn’t bother me so much, except that the membership card gets me discounts at major fast food joints and country clubs.
Ahhh…
And I thought it only got you discounts at Sams’ Slubs ;-P
We don’t shop there. Sam’s Club is a Wallmart store.
I know…I was joking.