DON’T EMBARRASS CRIMINALS: New York State’s citizens have for many years enjoyed  the strongest Freedom of Information laws in the nation. Now Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing wait for it … wait for it … that those laws be amended to prevent the public from receiving mugshots and general arrest information. One editorialist summed it up nicely, saying that Cuomo is more concerned with embarrassing the criminals than providing the public with information to which it has a right to know:

This is understandable, given the impressive montage that might be made from mugshots of one-time Cuomo aides, advisors, and associates now on their way to prison, but it nevertheless raises serious civil-liberties issues around press freedom and public information—and it seems like yet another gubernatorial pander toward the Democratic Party’s crime-coddling Left.

Once upon a time the Left could be counted on to oppose opacity in government, especially when the disinfectant of sunshine might expose police brutality, corruption in the justice system, or the denial of Due Process. Of course, nothing in Cuomo’s proposal would prevent a perp-walk circus, so the government is still free to allow (or even tip off) favored media to broadcast arrests for live television.