Professor Karen Greenberg wrote an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times about how over-redaction and over-classification can negatively impact our democracy.
In the 448 pages of the Mueller report, there are nearly 1,000 redactions, some adding up to only a few words (or possibly names), others blacking out whole pages. The House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) insists we’ve entered a constitutional crisis largely because Atty. Gen. William Barr won’t let Congress see the entire report. Yet on the whole, criticism of the incomplete nature of the report has proved less than might have been anticipated, perhaps because Americans have grown used to living in an age of redactions.
Such complacency should be cause for concern. For while some redaction is undoubtedly necessary in modern government, the secrecy that accompanies it inevitably redacts democracy as well.
See additional media coverage on this topic:
Tomgram: Karen Greenberg, Now You See It, Now You Don’t
Washington’s Reliance on Redactions Threatens Our Democracy
