Politics

Cause Of Action Seeks Orlando 911 Call Transcript Censorship Docs

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

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Officials with the Cause of Action (CoA) Institute has filed three Freedom of Information Act requests for records related to the Obama administration’s deletion of references to Islamic terrorism in the Orlando shooter’s 911 call transcripts.

The nonprofit government watchdog asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) Friday for details on any direction or decision to delete terminology related to Islamic terrorism from the transcripts of the 911 call Omar Mateen made. The group also asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for their policies on how to use — or not use — Islamic terrorism terms.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Obama administration deleted those references “to avoid re-victimizing those people that went through this horror,” but public backlash forced the DOJ to release a partial transcript without redaction. The full transcript has yet to be released. (RELATED: FBI On Orlando Terrorist Attack: Unedited Transcript ‘Might Inflame Other People’)

“Political censorship not only chills public access to information, but also undermines public safety, “Alfred J. Lechner, Jr., CoA Institute president and former federal judge, said in a statement. “The proposed DHS policy on censorship is counter-intuitive and dangerous. The American public has the right to know who is engineering this censorship.”

The CoA Institute also requested communications between high-ranking DOJ, CIA and DHS officials over how to use — or not use — terms like “jihad” and “sharia.”

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