Gill Press Release Betrays a Fundamental Misunderstanding of Impact of FOIA Decision

Archaeologist David Gill's latest PRNewswire press release betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the impact of Judge Leon's recent FOIA decision. See Looting Matters: Coin Dealers and Collectors Lose Case Against the US State.

That decision solely relates to whether the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs properly withheld the limited number of remaining documents at issue before the Judge under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/11/so-much-for-transparency-and.html As Judge Leon himself notes, the State Department already released numerous documents, though it took a lawsuit to force the State Department to process Plaintiffs' requests.

In fact, the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild hopes to ascertain the actual merits of the decision to impose import restrictions on ancient coins of Cypriot type in a "test case" brewing before the US District Court in the District of Maryland. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/09/collectors-challenge-us-state.html

The issue in that case will be whether the import restrictions on coins of Cypriot type were promulgated properly under the provisions of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2008/07/short-recap-of-cultural-property.html

If anything, documents produced in the FOIA case have helped supply a good faith basis for the ACCG to assert that the decision to impose import restrictions on ancient coins of Cypriot type was made in an "arbitrary and capricious" fashion. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2008/08/nicholas-burns-philhellene-cultural.html