Archives for May, 2011
The Supreme Court giveth, the Justice Department taketh away
Posted: May 12, 2011 | Tags: Exemption 2, Exemption 3, Exemption 4, Exemption 6, Exemption 7, FOIA, Freedom of Information, Justice Department, Supreme Court
In March the Supreme Court rather bluntly told federal agencies and lower courts that they had been misinterpreting an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act for 30 years. Actually, the court could have said, in so many words, that folks should learn to read before they start saying what a law means.
The case involved a Washington man’s request for information about the blast radius of explosives stored on an island in Puget Sound. The Navy denied the request on grounds that the information could be withheld because of Exemption 2, which was designed, originally, to protect records ...
