Reports Purged From the Website of the Civil Rights Commission

"As of 7 January 2005, the website of the US Commission on Civil Rights has been purged of 20 reports that didn't meet the approval of the agency's Republican majority."

"The site says that you may still order copies of these reports, but, tellingly, they require that you give them a physical mailing address. In other words, they'll send you a paper copy of a report, not an easily-postable electronic copy."

"The Memory Hole was able to locate 17 19 of these deleted reports."

From The Memory Hole, whose stated purpose is:

"The Memory Hole exists to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known.
The emphasis is on material that exposes things that we're not supposed to know (or that we're supposed to forget)."

Here's your chance to view material the government doesn't want you to easily access. As stated in the above quote, you can order the censored pages, but it means they insist you tell them who you are, since they'll be snail-mailed. Fortunately you can get most all of them here.

One that caught my interest was a report on Haitian asylum seekers. Since I've made a few posts on the current situation there, I'll give the direct link to that particular report, plus excerpt:

"Haitian Asylum Seekers and U.S. Immigration Policy" (June 2002)

"The ACLU and FIAC assembled three panels with a focus on immigration policies that have been applied unfairly to Haitians. The panelists specifically discussed the December 3, 2001, change in Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) policy that has led to the indefinite detention of Haitian refugees and asylum seekers in INS facilities, private hotels, and criminal correctional institutions in the United States."

"Cheryl Little, executive director for the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, noted that the INS has instituted a “no-release” policy only with respect to Haitian refugees. She noted that 187 Haitians fled Haiti on a 31-foot-long sailboat, the “Simapvivetzi.” The boat was discovered floundering in shallow waters off the coast of Miami on December 3, 2001. The interdiction of these Haitian asylum seekers led to an immediate change in INS policy that was not admitted until March 2002. Ms. Little remarked that Haitian refugees who arrived in South Florida by water have now been placed in a state of indefinite detention in three major holding areas: Krome Detention Center, an INS facility; Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, a Miami-Dade County maximum-security prison; and a private hotel. She insisted that the Haitian-only detention policy violates international laws to which the United States is a party, and encouraged the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to engage the authorities within the administration who are responsible for the policy and have the power to change it."

Of the few reports I've looked at so far, it's not surprising that they want this information to fade away. It's just part of the continuing legacy of this government to be the most secretive in U.S. history.