What is the attorney general doing?

What are they thinking at “Justice”? Everyone knows about
the government-press minuet where the participants use each other to get out
the news. Except when the government decides to be abashed about the dance, in
a feigned, “there’s gambling going on at Rick’s place” outrage. The job of
reporters is to report. The job of government officials working on confidential
matters is to maintain confidentiality. If anyone is to blame for an improper
leak, it is the leaker, not the leakee. And since Risen’s story is so old, how
can it have hurt the nation’s security? Why is this Justice Department pursuing
the provocative press policies of the Bush administration?

Where’s the change this administration promised? Where is
the policy of openness and freedom of information? Is the Obama administration
like all the others when it comes to the press — once in office, the
relationship changes from courtship to adversarial? Press reports about the
Risen case suggest that other similar cases are “in the pipeline.” What is
Attorney General Eric Holder doing?

This prosecutorial approach is the same as the department’s
adopting the state-secrets defense to block legal claims in pending extreme
rendition cases, also inherited from the Bush administration. What is the attorney
general thinking?

Ronald Goldfarb is the author of In Confidence: When
to Protect Secrecy and
When to Require Disclosure, Yale
University Press, 2009.

Visit www.RonaldGoldfarb.com.