Quote Originally Posted by redgunamo View Post
First Amendment, G. Probably the Fourth too. It's not circling the wagons, it's the law.

For us, the starting presumption is that official information belongs to the king (the Amies assume it belongs to The People). So he, his government, must prove a specific harm, a tangible identifiable injury, to keep it hidden from the public. We cannot simply argue that it may be embarrassing. In America, blandly releasing names on a list with no probably cause would be an egregious invasion of the privacy of many, mostly innocent, individuals.

Laws do reflect attitudes though, I suppose. Blame William the Conqueror.
Although right to privacy is not an enumerated right under the constitution. We are back to fhe James Maddison conundrum.....

Official information may belong to the Crown but it rests in the hands of officials, and officials decide whether and when official information is officially released, or whether it is officially withheld. In each case it is an official decision, officially decided, by the officials.

We also have a Supreme Court that holds virtually no authority and which a government can ignore. That was a good idea, wasnt it