Genie let of the bottle...

It was a welcome show of transparency when the Government introduced the Freedom of Information Act, and went some way to restoring trust between citizen and the state. Now we are told that the Government wants to block access to this information by making it difficult for requests to be made.

The Government has already realised that through the application of Crown Copyright, it can suppress the further publication of documents obtained under the FOI act. Indeed it has already moved to do so on at least one occassion - the case of Craig Murray our former Ambassador to Uzbekhistan following his controversial sacking by the Foreign Office.

However although the Foreign Office has succeeded in having the 'Craig Murray' documents removed from Craig's site they still persist on the Internet.

It seems that the Genie won't go back into the bottle so easily.

('Genie let out of the bottle, it is now the witching hour' - Radiohead)