1.31.2005

Pay-per-view justice: The advocacy group People for the American Way sued the Department of Justice--and won--to turn over secret documents pertaining to the detention of suspected terrorists after September 11. Now the government says the group must pay $373,000 or more--a cost they say is deliberately high to "forclose access to this kind of information"--for doing the search. But that fee doesn't guarantee that whatever files are unearthed will be turned over, says the DoJ. It's a sad state of affairs in a supposedly open, democratic society. Lucy Dalglishy of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press says, "If that's what it takes to track down secrecy in our court system, things are worse than I thought. They think if they put a really big price on it, maybe the group will back off." (Thanks, Jim.)

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