Kevin Poulsen is the plaintiff in a case concerning the government surveillance of the late Aaron Swartz.
Earlier this year, the Secret Service denied requests to thousands of pages of government notes on Swartz, citing a Freedom of Information Act exemption that can apply to on-going police investigations.
Over at Wired, Poulsen writes:
When the agency ignored my administrative appeal, I enlisted David Sobel, a top DC-based FOIA litigator, and we filed suit. Two weeks ago U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the government to “promptly” begin releasing Swartz’ records. The government told my lawyer that it would release the first batch tomorrow. But minutes ago, Kollar-Kotelly suspended that order at MIT’s urging, to give the university time to make an argument against the release of some of the material.
In short, MIT — not the Secret Service — stepped in to stop the release of papers that should be released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Here’s Poulsen again:
I have never, in fifteen years of reporting, seen a non-governmental party argue for the right to interfere in a Freedom of Information Act release of government documents. My lawyer has been litigating FOIA for decades, and he’s never encountered it either. It’s saddening to see an academic institution set this precedent.
While I have issues with the exemptions already built in to the laws surrounding FOIA, they should only be applied by a government or police agency, not an institution.
MIT should be ashamed of itself, and the U.S. district court shouldn’t listen to the school’s argument to keep this material private.