I guess the price of freedom, liberty, yadda yadda has been defined in this transparent attempt to keep information hidden. Glad to know that the Soviet system hasn't died an unnatural death.
The Justice Department says a group that wants to see secret documents about the detention of people jailed after the Sept. 11 attacks first must pay nearly $373,000 to cover the cost of searching for the information.The advance payment doesn't guarantee anything found will be released.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, federal agencies must provide the public with access to government documents, unless the information falls under certain exemptions. ... People for the American Way Foundation, which sued for the records last year, accused the Justice Department of making the cost exceedingly high to deter its request.
“Unfortunately it's part of a pattern of the Justice Department trying to foreclose access to this kind of information,” Elliot Mincberg, the group's legal director, said Monday.
... The Justice Department, in a letter to Mincberg, said the search of all 93 U.S. attorneys' offices probably would take a year.
