SCOTUS:

FOIA is often explained as a means for citizens to "know what the government is up to." This phrase should not be dismissed as a convenient formalism. It defines a structural necessity in a real democracy.

It should not take a law to open up the government to inspection by the citizens. That should be the default. It should rather take a law to define what kinds of things might be kept secret if absolutely necessary.

As an example of the difference, consider what the RWs and the bots say happened when Obama became president: "Once he learned what was really going on, he realized he had to do most of what Bush did." Why does anybody accept this? Why should you have to be president in order to learn what the dangers to the country are? If the citizens do not know what the dangers are, how can they elect the proper government? The idea that the dangers to the country are so secret that they cannot be the subject of a public discussion is absurd. Yet that is the situation we supposedly have. Who would believe this?

It does not have to be true, but it will be true to the extent that the rich countries allow it.

I realize you are having trouble with a bookmark (and what could be worse?), but let's keep things in perspective.

Not really. That was pretty incoherent. But if you are saying it is OK to keep people locked up for years who might innocent because we keep people locked up for years who might innocent, then I disagree.

You have it backwards, BG. If he is innocent he sinks but drowns, and there is no further problem. If he floats, he is guilty; then you kill him. You cannot escape "justice".

All people everywhere should be treated fairly and humanely. And that includes "those two".

Is Obama caught in a Catch-22 of Bush's devising?

Catch 22? What are you talking about? If you cannot put someone on trial, you let him go. Nothing is more fundamental to our legal system. And do not tell me that we have done things like this before, and so it is OK. If done before, it was wrong then, just as it is wrong now.

If they cannot go back where they came from, then they are our new citizens. If you violated their rights then they sue you, and you pay. How could anything less than that even come close to civilized behavior?

And while we are at it, we arrest anyone when evidence of their involvement becomes clear. Followed by trial. Anything less, and it will happen again. Or continue, as it does.

Two questions

1. Should a reporter turn down the Comey torture emails if the condition for seeing them is to write a story like the one the NYT published?

"See" them? We all got to "see" them, not just the reporter. So in agreeing to that condition, if that is what happened, the reporter just makes himself look bad. Is that the price has has to pay to keep his real bosses happy?

2. By getting an opinion that the interrogation methods were legal, isn't it rather irrelevant whether the White House was getting legal cover? Rather, what they did, by getting written an opinion no matter how poorly reasoned, is convert the issue of torture into a policy difference; and "in America, we do not prosecute over policy differences". More importantly than legal cover, they created political cover.

That looks backwards to me. "in America, we do not prosecute over policy differences" is just a convincing sounding reason that fits those particular circumstances. The general rule is "We never prosecute our wayward leaders." We just have to find an excuse, be it good or bad.

And not only that, but some of those pale, moldy, nerdy types think that Bush didn't protect the country on 9/11. But not my buddy glock45; he understands.

Defense in a court of law is currently irrelevant. The idea is to stop it from getting there by laying down a barrage of publicity that shows that it is business as usual, or at least that so many people were involved, that the enterprise is "too big to be allowed to fail" after the fact.

... kinder and gentler military commissions. But I guess this is part of the plan to make them more in keeping with the way the US legal system is supposed to work. Supposed to work, that is, after the Bush DOJ. Apparently we really have lost something fundamental in our legal system. Bush operates outside the rule of law. Obama seeks changes in the law so that the same actions are now within the new definition of the law. After the last four months, this is change I can believe in. But not what I originally thought he meant.

The rest of us will keep trying to clean up the Bush mess the best we can.

It is not clear to me how you will be helping with that process. Can you tell us, or is it a secret?

But one thing is clear, and that is that you and those who think like you share with the Bushies an indulgent mental property: the ability to avoid analyzing together a set of distinct but related events. It is only possible to avoid the disturbing picture of the Obama administration's attack on civil liberties if you refuse to look at the coherency formed by all the individual events.

This is a very complex issue.

I am reminded of a five year old trying to find the bathroom on the first day at a new school.

Sorry, it is not a complex issue for an adult. What is so hard about understanding that the danger to the troops is being grossly exaggerated in order to protect the guilty?