Censorship? Us?

Last week, I published an article on the negative reactions of 9/11 family members after a meeting with the Justice Department. The day after my article was posted, I received an indignant email from Dean Boyd a public affairs officer at DOJ, claiming I had “deliberately censored” him.

Last week, I published here at Frum Forum an article on the negative reactions of 9/11 family members after a recent meeting with officials of the Eric Holder led Department of Justice. As part of the research for the article, I interviewed one Dean Boyd, a public affairs officer at DoJ. The point of my article was the objection of some of the 9/11 families to the presence on the task force of Jennifer Daskal, previously a counsel at Human Rights Watch, where she wrote that military commissions were “illegitimate, dysfunctional, and a kangaroo court.” I asked Dean Boyd about Daskal. He answered with a detailed description of how the Guantanamo task force was established, how it collected information, and so on. He never gave me a direct answer to the issue of most concern to families: why was Daskal selected and not a representative from the families? I suppose I could have quoted the nonresponse as further evidence of the DoJ's insensitivity to family concerns. But that would have been mean and unprofessional! Instead I chose not to print the non-response. Then, the day after my article was posted in this space, I received an indignant email from Dean Boyd. By omitting to quote his lengthy background comments on subjects other than the topic of my article, I had (he wrote) “deliberately censored” him. It’s a fascinating glimpse of the concept of transparency in the age of Obama. Government officials have no obligation to answer questions posed by journalists, but journalists have an obligation to publish the unasked answers offered by officials. Is it censorship not to be allowed to say what one likes, where one likes, when one likes? If so, then I can only answer that by declining my request to speak to Jennifer Daskal, the Department of Justice engaged in “deliberate censorship” of me!