November 17, 2004 | Reporters Committee Rates Alberto Gonzales

Those who file FOIAs and for those who value transparency/openness in the government should take a quick look at The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's evaluation of the "likely impact of Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales on press freedoms and the public's right to know."

What does the group conclude?

On Executive Privilege:

Alberto Gonzales has been an active defender of what is best described as a quasi-executive privilege, invoked repeatedly by the Bush administration in attempts to keep government information from public scrutiny. Gonzales believes that the executive branch's effectiveness hinges on the president's ability to communicate confidentially with his advisers without fear that they will later testify about those conversations.

On the First Amendment:

Online legal research shows that during his brief tenure on the Texas Supreme Court, Gonzales authored some 13 opinions, none of which apparently concerned First Amendment issues. Gonzales joined the majority in upholding the rights of the media -- while in some cases also declining to adopt increased protections recognized in other jurisdictions -- in all four Texas Supreme Court decisions involving free press or freedom of information issues that were published during his tenure.

Gonzales also wrote a lengthy concurring opinion in another First Amendment-related case, in which he explained why punishing the unknowing violation of Texas campaign-spending laws did not offend free speech -- while adding that the laws' "cumbersome and complicated" reporting requirements, if challenged in future cases, might violate the First Amendment.

On Guantanamo detainees:

On Jan. 25, 2002, Gonzales sent President Bush a now infamous memorandum regarding applicability of the 1949 Geneva Conventions prisoner-of-war guidelines to the conflict with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

In the memo -- which was not made public until Newsweek broke a story on it more than two years later -- Gonzales advised Bush that detainees in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and Iraq do not qualify as prisoners of war.

"In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions," the Gonzales memo reads in part.

On Freedom of Information Act requests:

In October 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft, following the pattern of previous new administrations, issued a memorandum designed to give guidance to government Freedom of Information Act officers. Gonzales is not likely to revoke or modify the directive.

Although the attorney general typically sets FOI policy for the federal government, the memorandum of guidance has not historically been changed within an administration with a switch in the attorney general. Ashcroft's guidance refuted his predecessor Janet Reno's direction that where discretion could be used agencies should make information available unless they could point to some harm that the disclosure would cause. Ashcroft instead assured agencies that the Justice Department would defend the use of exemptions.

There's much more in the report (including a discussion of Gonzales's involvement in the Valerie Plame investigation), though it is not especially lengthy.

Posted by Ryan Singel at November 17, 2004 11:56 AM

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