I Read Ed Brayton, and You Should Too

Here's why.

Ed is guest blogging over at The Agitator while Radley is on vacation. Ed introduces himself as follows:

For those who do not know me, a brief introduction is perhaps in order. My name is Ed Brayton and I am the voice behind the blog Dispatches from the Culture Wars. I am also the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media.

Perhaps most germane to this blog, I am also the plaintiff in a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Trade Representative regarding the WTO settlement that the Bush administration signed with Canada, the EU and Japan over our online gambling laws. Radley has written about this issue a great deal. In fact, it was on this blog that I first read about the settlement, which may cost American consumers something on the order of tens of billions of dollars to preserve the government’s ability to prevent Americans from gambling online. I immediately filed a FOIA request for a copy of that settlement, arguing that we certainly have a right to know how much of our money the government is willing to spend to prop up their authoritarian anti-gambling scheme. The USTR denied the request, claiming that the settlement was classified for national security reasons. That being patently absurd, I appealed and was again denied. I filed a federal lawsuit, which is ongoing as we speak. My attorney filed our reply to the government’s response brief last week and we should have a ruling in the next few months. Perhaps I’ll post more about that over the next few days.

–Ed Brayton