Secret Laws?

The Bush Administration has given us a mania for secrecy at any cost unrivaled since the time of Richard Nixon. Everything is classified, whether or not it actually needs to be, and every Freedom of Information Act request is fought tooth and nail.

The White House's paranoia has now inflated to truly Orwellian proportions. John Gilmore, the libertarian co-founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation sued the Administration challenging the rule that everyone has to show ID when boarding a commercial airline flight. In the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week, Justice Department lawyer Joshua Waldman argued that the rule is backed up by federal law - but refused to explain which law actually requires it.

In court last week, Judge Thomas Nelson incredulously asked Justice Department lawyer Joshua Waldman, "How do we know there's an order? Because you said there was?"

"We couldn't confirm or deny the existence of an order," Waldman replied.

Amazingly, the Justice Department has refused to identify the law in question to Gilmore's lawyers or to the public. Only the court judges would be allowed to know which law supports the rule, and they would be barred from communicating this.

In George Orwell's seminal novel 1984, Winston Smith ruminates that keeping a diary is not illegal "since there were no longer any laws," but the price would be high anyway. The very notion of secret laws, hidden from the public and unleashed only when someone unknowingly runs afoul of them, is odious and offensive to our democracy. The court should order the government to come clean on this issue.