U.S. State Department blackballs FOI advocate from distribution list
Steven Aftergood, who writes the Secrecy News blog for the Federation of American Scientists, is appealing a decision by the U.S. State Department to take him off a distribution list because he corrected errors in their Foreign Relations of the United States history publication. He writes on his blog today that the department confirmed he was removed from the mailing list because of his critical comments toward the agency. He appealed the removal to State Department Historian Marc J. Susser and awaits a decision.
This reminds me of the Maricopa County sheriff in Phoenix, Ariz., who removes from his press release e-mail distribution list news organizations that criticize him. All of this would be funny except that it's the first step down a slippery slope of the government picking and choosing who to help or harm based on whether they promote or criticize. For example, last year that Arizona sheriff jailed, for dubious reasons, two journalists who criticized him (and the journalists are suing now). It begins with being pulled from a distribution list, then goes to jailing, then what?