Freedom From Information Act

Here's a surprise (not): The New York Times reports that the Court of His Most Holy Imperial Majesty Bush administration Justice Department is stonewalling on requests for documents related to the unlawful NSA spying operation.

The Justice Department is balking at the request so far, administration officials said, arguing that the legal opinions would add little to the public debate because the administration has already laid out its legal defense at length in several public settings.

But the legality of the program is known to have produced serious concerns within the Justice Department in 2004, at a time when one of the legal opinions was drafted. Democrats say they want to review the internal opinions to assess how legal thinking on the program evolved and whether lawyers in the department saw any concrete limits to the president's powers in fighting terrorism.

This has been the modus operandi of this maladministration from the get-go -- stonewalling and refusing to issue information that should, by all rights, be freely available to Congress and the public. It's been the same way since Dick Cheney's oil company CEO love-fest energy conference and the 9/11 investigation, and continues now with the hurricane Katrina and Jack Abramoff investigations. The big question now is whether Arlen Specter and a Republican-controlled Congress will have the balls to issue subpoenas, or if they'll just meekly roll over and get out the Vaseline as they have so many times in the past.