Americans for Safe Access filed suit in San Francisco two years ago under the Information Quality Act, a federal law that allows members of the public to “seek and obtain correction” of false or misleading government information that affects them.
The organization said its members include seriously ill people who had been discouraged from using marijuana by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ long-standing position that the drug has no medical value. The department declined to respond to the suit, saying the Drug Enforcement Administration was still considering the advocacy group’s 2002 request to reconsider the status of marijuana.
Congress created “no judicially enforceable rights” when it passed the Information Quality Act in 2000, said [Justice Department] attorney Alisa Klein. She said the law requires only that a federal agency review such requests from members of the public; otherwise, she said, courts would be flooded with demands to second-guess government decisions on countless subjects.
The government’s position would make the law meaningless, argued Alan Morrison, the lawyer for Americans for Safe Access. Although some disputes are too subjective for court intervention, he said, others can be measured objectively – for example, “two plus two is four and not five” – and the law gives judges a role in keeping the government on track.
If I’m reading Ms. Klein correctly, she’s asserting that the law that says the people have a right to challenge the accuracy and validity of scientific information produced by our government is only a suggestion. The government will produce information and will also be the sole judge of its quality – that’s what you think the Information Quality Act is all about?
She really has no other tenable position. When the government’s position for 39 years has been that the emperor is wearing a resplendent outfit of the finest silk and cotton, you can’t really endorse a law that requires the government to point out he’s naked. While the previous administration was having an eight year Fashion Week of naked royal haberdashery (there’s no global warming, those Chinese toys are safe, Saddam caused 9/11, our skies are clear, our forests are healthy, we don’t torture, a wiretap requires a court order, the market is fine, there’s no housing bubble, etc.), the emperor’s nudity was easy to miss on the catwalk. But with the current administration pledging to “put science first” and address all the previously ignored “inconvenient truths”, that naked emperor stands out like Darth Vader at a Klan rally.
Uh, Ms. Klein works for Holder? Hmmmm.
And, if the “courts would be flooded with demands to second-guess government decisions on countless subjects”, then we better change the government that created those decisions.
It’s what you inherited from the previous idiots.