Robert A. Heinlein on secrecy and censorship…
Tag: secrecy
Dick Durbin blocks documents showing Ketanji Brown Jackson’s judicial record
The Senate hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination are not going well.
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin is blocking the release of documents showing Brown Jackson’s actual record as a judge, taking a page from the tactics of impeachment-obsessed Rep. Adam Schiff. That’s how Democrats do hearings these days.
According to John Solomon’s Just The News:
The Biden administration is keeping more than 48,000 pages of records about Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson from senators reviewing her nomination, including documents about her time at the U.S. Sentencing Commission that she has made a central part of her professional story.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is “hiding” records from Jackson’s time as vice chair of the Sentencing Commission, where she championed leniency for child predators, says Michael Davis, former chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Monday that 16,000 pages of substantive content has been released on Jackson, compared to the 48,000 pages withheld by the White House under the Presidential Records Act and FOIA exemptions.
…and…
“Durbin has refused a request by Republican senators to look at her records on the sentencing commission,” Davis told “Just the News – Not Noise” on Monday, hours after Jackson’s first day of testimony in front of the committee weighing her nomination to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
Which signals that there is something they are trying to hide.
According to the Article3Project, Brown Jackson sentenced perverts, predators, and child molesters to less-than-recommended jail and prison time on a consistent basis.
Pelosi Congress Claims Sovereign Immunity in Federal Court to Keep Secret January 6 Videos and Emails
“The Pelosi Congress (and its police department) is telling a federal court it is immune from all transparency under law and is trying to hide every second of its January 6 videos and countless emails,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The hypocrisy is rich, as this is the same Congress that is trying to jail witnesses who, citing privileges, object to providing documents to the Pelosi rump January 6 committee.”
In November 2021, Judicial Watch revealed multiple audio, visual and photo records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about the shooting death of Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol Building. The records include a cell phone video of the shooting and an audio of a brief police interview of the shooter, Lt. Michael Byrd. In October, Judicial Watch released records, showing that multiple officers claimed they didn’t see a weapon in Babbitt’s hand before Byrd shot her, and that Byrd was visibly distraught afterward. One officer attested that he didn’t hear any verbal commands before Byrd shot Babbitt.
Also in November, Judicial Watch filed a response in opposition to the Department of Justice’s effort to block Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit asking for records of communication between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several financial institutions about the reported transfer of financial transaction records of people in DC, Maryland and Virginia on January 5 and January 6, 2021. Judicial Watch argues that Justice Department should not be allowed to shield “improper activity.”
The Foilies 2022
Each year during Sunshine Week (March 13-19), The Foilies serve up tongue-in-cheek “awards” for government agencies and assorted institutions that stand in the way of access to information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock combine forces to collect horror stories about Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state-level public records requests from journalists and transparency advocates across the United States and beyond. Our goal is to identify the most surreal document redactions, the most aggravating copy fees, the most outrageous retaliation attempts, and all the other ridicule-worthy attacks on the public’s right to know.
And every year since 2015, as we’re about to crown these dubious winners, something new comes to light that makes us consider stopping the presses.
As we were writing up this year’s faux awards, news broke that officials from the National Archives and Records Administration had to lug away boxes upon boxes of Trump administration records from Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private resort. At best, it was an inappropriate move; at worst, a potential violation of laws governing the retention of presidential records and the handling of classified materials. And while Politico had reported that when Trump was still in the White House, he liked to tear up documents, we also just learned from journalist Maggie Haberman’s new book that staff claimed to find toilets clogged up with paper scraps, which were potentially torn-up government records. Trump has dismissed the allegations, of course.
This was all too deliciously ironic considering how much Trump had raged about his opponent (and 2016 Foilies winner) Hillary Clinton’s practice of storing State Department communications on a private server. Is storing potentially classified correspondence on a personal email system any worse than hoarding top secret documents at a golf club? Is “acid washing” records, as Trump accused Clinton, any less farcical than flushing them down the john?
Ultimately, we decided not to give Trump his seventh Foilie. Technically, he isn’t eligible: his presidential records won’t be subject to FOIA until he’s been out of office for five years (releasing classified records could take years, or decades, if ever).
Instead, we’re sticking with our original 16 winners, from federal agencies to small-town police departments to a couple of corporations, who are all shameworthy in their own rights and, at least metaphorically, have no problem tossing government transparency in the crapper.
Congress at work…
How government over-classification may hide UFO videos and harm our security
Remember those videos taken by U.S. military pilots showing unidentified objects flying at incredible speeds and executing impossible maneuvers? They’ve appeared widely in various media since 2017, but soon — if DOD gets its way — you may not be able to watch them, thanks to a move to classify all such videos and other materials relating to UFOs, officially known as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines recently acknowledged that excessive government classification undermines U.S. national security. As she wrote in January in a letter to U.S. senators, “It is my view that deficiencies in the current classification system undermine our national security, as well as critical democratic objectives, by impeding our ability to share information in a timely manner.”
She also acknowledged that excessive classification damages the public’s faith in government and “reduces the Intelligence Community’s capacity to effectively support senior policymaker decision-making.”
The DNI’s testimony followed that of senior military officers who have complained to Congress regarding excessive classification.
This is, in fact, a problem familiar to anyone who has worked extensively with classified U.S. government information.
The DNI’s concerns are particularly timely and important. As I used to remind my security and counterintelligence colleagues in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, we did not win the Cold War because we were better at protecting information; we won the Cold War because we were much better at moving and sharing information, especially in the private marketplace, where the resulting efficiencies and innovation enabled us to consistently outpace and outperform the Soviet Union.
Thousands of confidential ethics and juvenile records are published online
A website called judyrecords.com has published thousands of confidential court records from across the nation, including private ethics records in California and juvenile court records from several states, according to reporting by Law360.
The State Bar of California said judyrecords.com apparently obtained nonpublic information on about 260,000 attorney ethics cases as a result of a “previously unknown security vulnerability” in its case management portal. The bar uses Tyler Technologies’ Odyssey system, which was also used by affected court systems that spoke with Law360 about the problem.
Judyrecords.com describes itself as “a 100% free nationwide search engine that lets you instantly search hundreds of millions of United States court cases and lawsuits.”
Law360 said it searched judyrecords.com “and uncovered dockets with detailed information about minors that, in some affected jurisdictions, is normally restricted or confidential. The information included the names of defendants. In several cases, it also listed their birth dates, criminal charges and sentencing information.”
Biden Administration Urges Court Not to Allow Release of ‘Secret Report’ on Dominion Voting Machines
Top officials at a U.S. federal cybersecurity agency are urging a judge not to authorize at this time the release of a report that analyzes Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Georgia, arguing doing so could assist hackers trying to “undermine election security.”
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was recently provided an unredacted copy of the report, which was prepared by J. Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society.
The report discusses “potential vulnerabilities in Dominion ImageCast X ballot marking devices,” or electronic voting devices, according to the government.
While CISA supports public disclosure of any vulnerabilities and associated mitigation measures with election equipment, allowing the release of the report at this point “increases the risk that malicious actors may be able to exploit any vulnerabilities and threaten election security,” government lawyers said in a Feb. 10 filing in the case.
Pelosi Congress Claims Sovereign Immunity in Federal Court to Keep Secret January 6 Videos and Emails
Congress exempts itself from the Freedom of Information Act. Judicial Watch, therefore, brought its lawsuit under the common law right of access to public records. In opposing the broad assertion of secrecy, Judicial Watch details Supreme Court and other precedent that upholds the public’s right to know what “their government is up to:”
“In ‘the courts of this country’— including the federal courts—the common law bestows upon the public a right of access to public records and documents” … “the Supreme Court was unequivocal in stating that there is a federal common law right of access ‘to inspect and copy public records and documents.’” … “[T]he general rule is that all three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, are subject to the common law right.” The right of access is “a precious common law right . . . that predates the Constitution itself.”
The Court of Appeals for this circuit has recognized that “openness in government has always been thought crucial to ensuring that the people remain in control of their government….” “Neither our elected nor our appointed representatives may abridge the free flow of information simply to protect their own activities from public scrutiny. An official policy of secrecy must be supported by some legitimate justification that serves the interest of the public office.”
“The Pelosi Congress (and its police department) is telling a federal court it is immune from all transparency under law and is trying to hide every second of its January 6 videos and countless emails,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The hypocrisy is rich, as this is the same Congress that is trying to jail witnesses who, citing privileges, object to providing documents to the Pelosi rump January 6 committee.”
Tucker Carlson Plays Exclusive Video of Government Contractors, Secret Flights of Illegals
On Wednesday night, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson showed exclusive footage of New York police expressing their frustration over secret flights carrying illegal immigrants from the southern border to towns in their state. Carlson also showed footage of a government contractor being asked the reason for the secrecy and answering, “You know why. Look who’s in charge,” then asserting, “The government is betraying the American people.”
Carlson began, “So we’ve obtained exclusive bodycam footage from the police department in Westchester County, New York. The footage shows 100 apparently illegal immigrants, mostly teenagers, getting off a charter flight in the middle of the night in Westchester. The migrants then get on buses. Someone on the tape describes how ‘DHS wants this on the low-down.’ In other words, secret, so you won’t know about it, despite the fact that you are a U.S. citizen who’s paying for it. They’re hiding it from you; they’re doing this without your consent, speaking of an attack on democracy.”
“In the footage, Westchester police express their frustration with what’s happening,” Carlson said as he introduced the footage.
The footage showed a policeman saying, “You trying to figure out what this is?” The reporter answers, “Yeah.” The policeman responds, “Good luck with that.” Reporter, “Yeah.” Policeman: “You’re on a secure facility here and we really don’t know anything and we’re in charge of security. So, hence we’re having a problem here.” Another policeman, “We’re hanging out here on the tarmac. I used to pick up basketball teams that had more security than this.”
“Now just to be completely clear, what you just saw is illegal,” Carlson charged. “That’s a crime. That’s why they’re keeping it secret. The U.S. government is not allowed to abet the breaking of federal law. Sorry. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Hellbound and Down 
You must be logged in to post a comment.