Reading Room Document
Opinion as to the legal propriety of a procedure by which the Clemency Board proposes to separately disclose the names of persons receiving clemency and the conditions of the grants of clemency.
The document is a letter from Antonin Scalia, Assistant Attorney General, responding to a request for legal opinion from Laurence M. Baskir, General Counsel of the Presidential Clemency Board. The letter addresses the proposed procedure of disclosing the names of persons receiving clemency and the conditions of the grants of clemency while protecting their privacy. Scalia concludes that the proposed procedure would be exempt from mandatory disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The letter also discusses the legality of the proposed procedure and its similarity to other government activities that protect privacy. The questions presented for review include the legal propriety of the proposed procedure and whether there are analogous government activities that employ similar procedures to protect privacy.
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