Stupid question: why is the government even allowed to redact stuff? Isn’t the government keeping secrets from the people totally antithetical to democracy?
It's not the government, it's the department of justice. To name two: protection of witnesses, protection of state secrets ("the people" is not a person who can keep secrets).
Right, I’m aware of the excuses the government uses to keep secrets.
But on principle, what right does the government have to keep secrets from its own people? I don’t believe we had that button at the founding, it was added somewhere along the way. I’m asking what is the justification for this, and whether in the grand scheme of things that outweighs the principle of the government not being a separate entity from the people.
There are multiple ways to approach witness protection. For example if we have a problem with witnesses being harmed we could make being involved with witness harm at any layer of indirection a capital offense. We can probably think of other options besides the government being allowed to keep secrets from its own people.
>I don’t believe we had that button at the founding
Every government everywhere has and has always had state secrets e.g. names of spies.
>make being involved with witness harm at any layer of indirection a capital offense.
People still commit capital offenses. This just makes it much easier to get to that witness and get away. We also know from empirical evidence that the death penalty is not useful for deterring crime.
Witness protection is also getting to start over without everyone in your neighborhood knowing you were a criminal. It's part of the deal.
No you are confused. People commit capital offenses for one of two reasons: either because they lack impulse control, or because they don’t think they will be caught.
If we fix the second one, we only have the first group. We can fix the second group, and the remaining first group, while it does apply to capital offenses in general, does not apply to violence against witnesses.
It seems like killing witnesses (after the fact, since witness protection does not intervene during the initial crime being witnessed to protect the witness mere moments after their witnessing) actually requires impulse control, because to do it you need to a) anticipate an abstract threat b) formulate a plan in advance c) carry out the plan. This is why it is typically executed in organized crime by bosses, and not by people engaging in random violence.
I’m not saying no one carries out capital offenses, I’m just saying that no one engages in witness directed violence due to lack of impulse control, they do it because they don’t think they will be caught, and more thorough rules enforcement does address that.
On witness protection making one’s criminal record secret. Okay? One can easily be opposed to that practice. How about we don’t make deals to hide relevant safety information from the public? It seems pretty easy to oppose. Just because the government does it, doesn’t mean it is a good reason. Are you defending the reason, or just stating what is? If you are just stating what is, I don’t see how that’s relevant.
The power/right came from national security legislation written and enacted by elected officials. Because we have a government that works by proxy, it means that the leaders we elect are effectively supposed to represent the people they serve (that's the ideal. Obviously we've fallen WAY short of that).
Pragmatically, I think it's easy to recognize that the government should be allowed to have some secrets from the public. I think the clearest and most extreme example is the details of our nuclear armaments.
But the question of where the line is is a tricky one. IMO, we definitely allow the government far more secrets than it should have.
Is there an enemy invader actively performing military operations inside the country? In that case, I believe it’s typical for a nation to suspend its normal procedures, we don’t need our principle to hold in case of active invasion.
Otherwise, just don’t do war. It’s pretty simple. Especially when you have zero need for land.
Witness protection is a compensation for an inadequate and overly soft criminal justice system. If the person calling the hit fully expected to die by hanging for calling the hit, he would not call the hit.
It's not correct that there is a legal duty to redact names of people who might be accused of wrongdoing, but where the allegations haven't been proved.
The only two reasons that redactions are allowed are a) to protect the privacy of victims and b) to protect the integrity on ongoing investigations.
Competence and possibility of malicious compliance are interesting questions, but I think the more appropriate question is if DoJ will be sued for violating the law by redacting unrelated content?
