Sunlight Foundation

Eric Holder Favors Maximum Disclosure of OLC Memos

According to Secrecy News, the incoming Attorney General, who will be confirmed later today, has stated his position that Office of Legal Counsel memos should be made publicly available to "the maximum extent consistent with sound practice and competing concerns."

“I firmly believe that transparency is a key to good government.  Openness allows the public to have faith that its government obeys the law,” Mr. Holder told Sen. Feingold.

More particularly, he said he favored maximum public disclosure of Office of Legal Counsel opinions.

“Once the new Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel is confirmed, I plan to instruct that official to review the OLC’s policies relating to publication of its opinions with the [objective] of making its opinions available to the maximum extent consistent with sound practice and competing concerns,” Mr. Holder wrote.

The Office of Legal Counsel provides authoritative legal advice to the Attorney General that often sets the legal policy of the administration. During the Bush administration, OLC memos were not available to the public and were often used to provide legal justification to many controversial programs and policies, including war time powers, the use of torture, secret prisons, warantless wiretapping, and extraordinary rendition.

As the Secrecy News article notes, ProPublica is providing a database of Bush era OLC memos on controversial topics.

Oversight on the Office of Legal Counsel and Secrecy

After previewing it first, I attended last Wednesday’s Hearing by the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee about “Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government.”

For fuller coverage, see FireDogLake, the Guardian, ACS Blog, or the statements and testimony from the hearing (set off on the upper right).

While my coverage will be far from complete, I find the process of taking and then preparing my notes from committee hearings to be a great way to digest what was presented, and to start to work through some of the issues that relate to open government and accountability, which lie at the heart of this hearing. (more)

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Senate Hearing on Secret Law


Tomorrow morning, the Senate Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government. In Chairman Feingold's words:



Senator Feingold is talking about memos put out by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), a part of the Department of Justice. The executive branch needs guidance on how the law affects its actions, and the OLC exists to provide legal interpretations for rest of the executive branch. These opinions strongly determine the nature of executive branch activities, and therefore have an undeniable bearing on the public interest. (more)

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