Thursday, November 26, 2009

On unfettered access

The opposition parties have thus far treated the fact that the Con-friendly witnesses before committee hearings on Afghanistan received access to the same documents denied to them and to the public primarily as a basis for outrage. But it's worth pointing out that the disclosure may have some substantive effect as well - at least, if the Cons do keep trying to weasel their way out of disclosing the documents involved and don't call the inquiry the public wants to see.

After all, one would figure that there would be no lack of requests already outstanding involving the same documents - with more sure to follow if there's any more delay. And now that the Cons have made it clear that national security considerations didn't prevent them from sharing the documents for political gain, is there much doubt that they'd be laughed out of any courtroom if they keep trying to resist disclosure through the access to information process?

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