The government owns almost all records produced by its employees while carrying out their official duties
— 👉except for those produced by Supreme Court justices and their staff.
Last month we joined with 20 other government traparency organizations in asking Congress to correct this anomaly.
“The working papers of Supreme Court justices have long been claimed as the personal property of each justice to destroy or disseminate as they see fit.
Yet no external authority has granted them private ownership of these papers.
✅“Congress should correct this anomaly by restoring ownership over the justices’ papers to the public
and directing the Court to create a uniform set of rules to regulate how and when these papers become publicly available.
That's the kind of thing that sounds simple but requires a little deeper thought to see how frought it is.
One step deeper is that on its own terms this would be seizure of private property. Fine. But, on account of "no external authority has granted them private ownership?" We don't normally accept that all is government by default, unless permission gives us permission to own.
Deeper is the nature of government ownership itself, as it's necessarily realized through executive branch interference. That's what ownership IS, functionally, so this implies presidential control over Supreme Court function.
No, this is a very bad idea.
Court control of court papers is not an anomaly but a simple implication of the independent judiciary.
