I idly worried the other day about whether the Freedom of Information Act was going to be gutted in the current climate of ‘giving up freedoms for liberty’ (or is it vice versa??}. Well, lo and behold, Attorney General John Ashcroft is now insisting that a new standard allowing rejection of a FOIA request whenever there is a “sound legal basis” for such DOJ opposition will replace the former, Reno-era standard that noncompliance with a FOIA request would need to be justified by a “forseeable harm” standard.