China Using 'State Secrets' Label To Hide Pollution 149
eldavojohn writes "More problems have surfaced as people attempt to bring soil pollution problems to light in China. From the article: 'When Pan sued the Hebei Department of Environmental Protection in 2011, he was given access to the environmental impact assessment that the environment ministry claimed it had done in the village. Pan discovered that the assessment, carried out by the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, had names of people who had left the village two decades previously and even a person who had been dead for two years — all "expressing favor" for the project. Pan surveyed 100 people in his village, showing them the purported environmental impact study. The majority of them gave him written statements that declared: "I've never seen this form," according to documents seen by Reuters.' Reuters has also discovered that China uses 'state secrets' labels to hide environmental studies and pollution numbers as well as using strong arm tactics to silence residents attempting to do their own studies."
Re:I'm only surprised they bothered to label it (Score:5, Interesting)
And this is distinctive from America how? In America, the State Secrets Doctrine has its roots in a wrongful death suit by the widows of some RCA engineers who were working for the US Air Force when they died in a plane crash in 1948. During discovery, the widows sought the accident report. The Air Force said that it contained information vital to national security and would not turn it over. Eventually, the case got to the Supreme Court, and without actually looking at the document, ruled that it could be kept secret. 40 some years later, it was declassified. It contained nothing in it beyond what was publicly known about the project, but it also revealed that the Air Force had negligently failed to install manufacturer recommended heat shields in the engines, among other issues with the plane, and that the engines caught fire leading to the crash.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/383/origin-story?act=2#play [thisamericanlife.org]
So you tell me, is our State Secrets doctrine, the one that Obama has used to prevent people from suing for unlawful detention, unlawful torture, unlawful wiretapping, and unlawful execution, based in anything but an attempt to avoid embarrassment and liability? How is it that we are morally superior to the Chinese government on this issue?
Examples:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/10torture.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/10/obama-administration-invokes-state-secrets-privilegeagain/ [go.com]
http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0811/Obama_admin_asserts_state_secrets_privilege_to_dismiss_Muslims_suit.html [politico.com]
http://www.salon.com/2010/09/25/secrecy_7/ [salon.com]