FBI Coverup Thwarted

The FBI complained that an opinion from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals explaining how the FBI coerced a false confession out of a terrorism suspect should be classified. The opinion was withdrawn and replaced with a redacted opinion. But, they were too late, because they were thwarted by the blogosphere.

A review of the opinion makes clear that the redaction simply tried to cover up FBI misdeeds, rather than protecting any legitimate national security interest of the United States. This happens a lot, but is rarely thwarted as it was in this case.

The Second Circuit should restore its original opinion. In a democracy, we need to know what kind of misconduct our security services engage in, because they are acting in our name.

Kudos to How Appealing for keeping the opinion available to the public, where it belongs. Our politicians, even the Democrats, in Washington may be weak kneed, but our bloggers have far more guts.