What law?

Marty Lederman comments on the Higazy case, where the Court has redacted all of Higazy's allegations that he was tortured by the FBI and, after accidently publishing them all on the internet is now trying to gag those who continue quoting them. Lederman asks under what theory of law does the court have a right to gag a defendant from talking about how he was treated by the FBI?

But let's not lose sight of the more fundamental problem: What was the justification for the court "sealing" Higazy's allegations in the first instance? I am aware of no doctrine in law, or other policy, that permits the FBI or any other law-enforcement or intelligence agency to prevent individuals from describing how they were treated by our government. The fact that the FBI's conduct here was plainly unlawful if Higazy's allegations are true only makes matters worse, since the government should not be able to classify its illegal conduct. But even if the threat had been a lawful interrogation technique, since when can the government insist that you must keep secret what they do to you?

The answer, of course, is that with our current government, whatever the government says is the law is the law, regardless of whether anyone actually legislated it. Get used to it. From here on out, the law gets made up by the authorities on the fly. We live in a tin horned dictatorship.