It�s good to see Florida Attorney General and 2006 Republican candidate for governor Charlie Crist defending our right to privacy. Charlie jumped to protect Rush Limbaugh, and all the rest of us, no doubt, from overzealous prosecutors.

According to stories in the South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post, Crist’s brief before the Florida Supreme Court supports a lame compromise where they would have, “�a judge review all seized medical records in chambers to decide which ones are pertinent to a criminal investigation before releasing them to prosecutors.”

So have a judge read over all the records first, figure out which parts support or deflate a case, hand the evidence to the lawyers, and then sit back and hear it. Is it me, or is there a flaw here somewhere? Why not just have the judge plead the case too?

Gymnastic reasoning aside, one wonders about Crist’s objectivity. As the Post pointed out,

“Often, the attorney general fights for criminal investigators and on the side of the prosecution. But the office of Crist, a Republican, has refused to help Democratic State Attorney Barry Krischer in this case. “

Apparently Crist just doesn’t want anyone getting carried away. He stated in his brief, quoted in the Sentinel:

“Florida’s constitutional right of privacy guarantees citizens freedom from unwarranted observation of, and interference in, any aspect of their medical records. “