ASHCROFT GETS SUED OVER SECRECY

Open gov­ern­ment groups are suing John Ashcroft after the Attorney General tried to reclas­sify publicly-​​available alle­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion, incom­pe­tence and cover-​​ups in an FBI trans­la­tion unit.
The law­suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in DC, “asks the court to find the [Department of Justice’s] May reclas­si­fi­ca­tion of infor­ma­tion unlaw­ful and uncon­sti­tu­tional and require the agency to declas­sify the infor­ma­tion,” accord­ing to a state­ment by Project on Government Oversight, one of the plain­tiff groups.

The infor­ma­tion relates to alle­ga­tions made by whistle­blower Sibel Edmonds, a for­mer FBI lin­guist who was fired after report­ing to supe­ri­ors numer­ous instances of wrong­do­ing in the FBI trans­la­tion unit where she worked.
This infor­ma­tion was pre­sented by the FBI dur­ing two unclas­si­fied 2002 brief­ings held by the Senate Judiciary Committee and was ref­er­enced in let­ters from U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-​​Vermont) and Charles Grassley (R-​​Iowa) to DOJ offi­cials. The let­ters were posted on the sen­a­tors Web sites, but were removed after the DOJ reclas­si­fied the infor­ma­tion. POGO has the let­ters and wants to post them on the Web to ini­ti­ate pub­lic debate.
“We believe the Department of Justice reclas­si­fied the infor­ma­tion to sti­fle con­gres­sional over­sight of the depart­ment and shield it from legit­i­mate pub­lic inquiry,” said Danielle Brian, POGOs exec­u­tive direc­tor. It is absurd to reclas­sify infor­ma­tion that has been in the pub­lic domain for so long. This is an entirely inap­pro­pri­ate use of the clas­si­fi­ca­tion system.”

June 23rd, 2004 | Cloak and Dagger | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.