The Costly Right to Know (re: OBL family members whisked away after 9/11)

[katinmn]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/opinion/02wed2.html?th
The Costly Right to Know

February 2, 2005

Citizens who rate the Freedom of Information law as priceless had better consider this: The Justice Department is demanding close to $400,000 from a public interest foundation before honoring its request for information on a lingering mystery of 9/11 - the secret numbers of immigrants who were rounded up after the terrorist attacks and never heard from as their court records were sealed. This huge tab, presented to the People for the American Way Foundation, is well beyond established criteria and amounts to an insult to the law's intent: letting citizens in on some of the murkier things the government may be up to.

Justice officials insist that there is no easy way to provide the requested information from scores of regional offices. The law provides for two free hours of searching, but officials presented an estimated bill steeped in Newtonian gibberish, if not outright stonewalling. Let's see, that's 13,314.25 hours at $28 an hour for $372,799, plus more expenses not yet tabulated in other jurisdictions.

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