EDITORIAL 

June 19, 2006 

It is a ghastly fact of public safety that for the past three years the most basic information about illegal gun trafficking in America has been hermetically classified as a state secret -- kept off limits to the public and the news media. The nation used to be told, for example, that 57 percent of crime guns came from just 1 percent of gun dealers, and something should be done about that. But -- shhh -- not any more: not since a malleable Congress and administration buttoned up reams of vital information by putting the privacy of unscrupulous gun dealers over the safety of the public.  

And now the Republican-led House is preparing to make the secrecy restrictions even more lunatic by actually leaving police officers subject to felony conviction if they dare to share interesting data on illicit dealers with colleagues in other departments.