Court Rebukes White House Over “Secret Law”

[Valin]

Secrecy News:

Steven Aftergood

12/18/13

 

DC District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle yesterday ordered the Obama Administration to release a copy of an unclassified presidential directive, and she said the attempt to withhold it represented an improper exercise of secret law.

 

The Obama White House has a limitless view of its authority to withhold presidential communications from the public, she wrote, but that view is wrong.

 

The government appears to adopt the cavalier attitude that the President should be permitted to convey orders throughout the Executive Branch without public oversight to engage in what is in effect governance by secret law, Judge Huvelle wrote in her December 17 opinion.

 

 

(Snip)

 

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