Judging Freedom - Less Government Secrecy?

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

AG Garland Orders More Open Access to Government Documents #FOIA #Governementsecrecy #DOJSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, March 16, 2022. It's about 1110 in the morning here on the East Coast. And this morning, Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United States, former Federal Judge Merrick Garland, made what would normally be an ordinary routine announcement to the 90,000 people that work in the Justice Department, but in this day and age, it's become headlines. And the announcement was that I want you to comply with the request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act showing a bias in favor of openness rather than a bias in favor of secrecy. Now, you may say, well, why should there be any bias at all? Well, the statute says there should be a bias in favor of openness. So when Congress enacted the Freedom of Information Act, a federal statute that allows anyone, anyone at all, who wants to see a document, an official

document that the government has used from an FBI report to the president's notes, can request them. And the government has been resisting too many of these. You know, we're supposed to have an open and transparent government. We shouldn't even need the Freedom of Information Act. But because so many people in the government, particularly the deep state, the people that don't change when the political leadership changes, have adopted an attitude that I don't need to show what I'm doing to the public that we go through this. So most of the time when a document is requested under the Freedom of Information Act, there's litigation over it and there shouldn't be. The government should be open. The government should be transparent. The documents should be

available for any of us to examine. That's basically what the Attorney General said. I have been critical of him in many ways. When he does something that I agree with, I have to make a big deal out of it, because I have to be fair. My bias is in favor of the right of the individual to know what's going on. In this case, the statute, the Freedom of Information Act itself, expresses the same bias. And for the first time since that statute was enacted, but to all federal employees. Why? Well, if you ask for a document from the State Department and they wrongfully withhold it from you, it is the Department of Justice that will defend your, and you sue the State Department, it is the Department of Justice that will defend that litigation. So if you read between the lines in what Judge Garland,

Attorney General Garland is saying, he's basically saying, if you don't do the right thing, those of you in the executive branch that don't work for me, we're not even going to defend you and you'll lose. And that's the proper attitude because the government works for us. This is pure theory. I mean, government acts like we work for them, but the government is supposed to work for us. And therefore, we're entitled to know what it does and when it does it and to see all of its documents. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.