Supreme Court limits access to government records
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court limited public and media access to government records Monday by expanding a federal law's definition of what can be deemed confidential.
At issue was whether confidentiality, as used in a section of the Freedom of Information Act, means anything intended to be kept secret or only information likely to cause harm if publicized.
Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the 6-3 decision, with Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting.
A retailers trade group, the Food Marketing Institute, and the federal government argued for a broad definition that would leave ample room to keep data from the public. Media organizations and public interest groups favored a more narrow definition requiring harm, which would make confidentiality apply to fewer FOIA requests.
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"At least where commercial or financial information is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner and provided to the government under an assurance of privacy, the information is 'confidential' under the meaning of (FOIA)," Gorsuch ruled.
Breyer differed by noting that "the whole point of FOIA is to give the public access to information it cannot otherwise obtain."
"Given the temptation, common across the private and public sectors, to regard as secret all information that need not be disclosed, I fear the majority's reading will deprive the public of information for reasons no better than convenience, skittishness, or bureaucratic inertia," Breyer said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/supreme-court-limits-access-to-government-records-in-loss-for-argus-leader-a-usa-today-network-affiliate/ar-AADlEL0
So much for the myth of conservatives being for smaller government.
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