alt Hacker NewsBecause it's very hard to stop accidental or incidental information leaks. For an opinion to be rendered, generally they also attach the case facts which lead to that ruling. Heavy redaction means it becomes almost impossible to use that ruling as precedent but also runs a real risk of exposing state secrets. For example, which judge made the ruling? Well if you get that you can start pulling information about the days the judge was active and a short list of the people the judge was hearing cases for.
All it takes is 1 accidental redaction or someone who did something silly like using a black highlighter on a PDF and now where the nukes are stored is public information.
There's also simply information that can be gleaned just based on the location that the hearing is taking place. This came from x court in x district, well then it's likely a nuclear silo is roughly in that county or surrounding counties.
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These courts don't have public lists of who was being tried.
The specific location of the court, and even identity if the judge, can be redacted. We don't have to use the case as precedent.
Sounds like if one desperately wants some sort of excuse, this can be shoehorned to anything and everything. Exactly what 3 letter agencies would say to keep doing whatever nasty dirty unlawful and unconstitutional things they are doing on whims of current set of people in power.
Its still pretty lame and shows vast incompetence on all levels. Maybe I am a bit naive but correct solution is to tackle underlying problems, not just give up because thats what you basically suggest.
ok, so put a disclosure time on ruling. how how much time should pass so that information is non risk anymore? So you know that nukes locations got leaked, so what do you do? do you relocate the base? if not how sure can you be that this information is not accuired by enemies? So if you do not realocate the base you accept that this is acceptable risk. So might be that publishing the ruling is also acceptable?