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Classified Report On the CIA's Secret Prisons Is Caught In Limbo (techdirt.com)
sandbagger writes: A 6,700-page report that cost $40 million to produce is being blocked from circulation by the US Department of Justice by relabeling it as a Congressional Record, even though it isn't. Why? Congressional records aren't necessarily subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. Techdirt reports: "There had been some hope that ex-Senator Mark Udall might choose to release some of it from the Senate floor before leaving office, but that didn't happen. And, with the changing of the guard, the new head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, demanded that all the federal government agencies that received the report should return it to him so he can destroy it and make sure that no one ever sees what's in the report. As we noted, however, this whole thing seemed to be an effort to state publicly that the document was a Congressional record. That matters because Congressional records are not subject to FOIA requests. Executive branch records are subject to FOIA requests -- and the ACLU has made a FOIA request to the exec branch for a copy of the report."
And, with the changing of the guard, the new head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, demanded that all the federal government agencies that received the report should return it to him so he can destroy it and make sure that no one ever sees what's in the report.
Good luck with that, asshole. I hope to see it released in full by a whistleblower. The American public needs and deserves to know what god-awful and unconstitutional deeds are being done in their name.
If you're one of his constituents you should probably contact him and tell him to stop fucking up: http://www.burr.senate.gov/ Unfortunately, NC is not one of the 18 states that allow recall of a senator, so you'll have to threaten him with losing his job next election cycle.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
Any government that has/demands authority needs to recognize that citizens demand accountability as that is the only way to prevent abuse of said power.
This is almost as bad as secret laws that you can't discuss -- which I can't seem to find a link for ATM but read a few years back here on /.
"We here highly resolve that these [redacted] shall not have [redacted] in [redacted]—that this nation, under [redacted], shall have a new [redacted] of [redacted]—and that government [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], shall not perish from the earth."
The main reason for all the secrecy is to hide corruption. They love the new laws that piss all over the Constitution. Can you imagine? Secret laws, secret warrants, secret courts and secret prisons. How is any of that part of a free society? George Washington would fucking shoot their asses.
you forgot to redact "earth". Wouldn't want to give the enemy any information which helps them narrow down the search.
Both houses of Congress and much more often their committees can move into closed sessions which do not have their minutes published publicly.
http://www.rules.senate.gov/pu...
2)(A) Except with respect to meetings closed in accordance with this rule, each committee and subcommittee shall make publicly available through the internet a video recording, audio recording, or transcript of any meeting not later than 21 business days after the meeting occurs.
If you look at the Congressional Record, you see where it says they they went into Closed Session at such time, and no information about what happened in that session.
We have candidate "debates" that at best are "who can weasel their way out of a debate" contests.
A commander and chief that only reads things from a teleprompter written by other people.
Politicians that don't even hold themselves accountable for anything but lining their pockets through lobbyist.
A now nebulous "war on terror" costing some 1.6-1.7 TRILLION...part of which (iraq) was based on a lie.
A TSA agency that exists solely for safety theater
A huge data collection/retention/eves dropping system that blankets everyone
So no here we are, destroying evidence in public was just the next step.
What they are likely to want to keep secret is corporate contractors stuffing the pockets with reward money by handing over any one and everyone as terrorists. Consider the cash flow, first the reward syphoned off, then the private flight, then private managed prison, then more flights, then more interrogation supervision and then lawyers and more lawyers. Often parts all of the above contracted through single corporation. The big secret how much each victim cost the US government in contractor fees and charges and how by far the majority of it was a scam. The amount of money stolen from the US treasury by the fake war on terror would be simply mind boggling literally hundreds of billions of dollars buried in tax havens by the biggest criminals on the planet, many of whom are still in positions of power because to embarrassing to prosecute or they have too many secrets to prosecute.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The ruling that state laws mandating term limits are unconstitutional is based on the 17th amendment. The 17th says that voters, not state governments, select senators. A state law saying that the person voters aren not allowed to (re)elect whom they choose is contrary to this, the court ruled.
Allowing voters to (de)elect whomever they choose empowers voters, and is therefore consistent with the 17th amendment.
Also, the ruling was 5-4, so a slightly different set of facts could easily swing that one vote anyway.
I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that if a document is indeed "classified", then FOIA requests are pretty much pointless, regardless of which branch of the government happened to produce (or obtain a copy of) the document.