2018 Annual Report
40 YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION
2018 Annual Report
By the Numbers
Archive staff filed 1,948 FOIA and declassification requests, bringing our all-time total to more than 60,000 requests.
We submitted 89 appeals...
Winning the release of 384,165 previously secret pages.
The Archive received 4,354 research requests and hosted 284 visiting researchers in our Smith Bagley Research Center.
In the Papers
The Archive made headlines throughout the year, 984 to be exact. Here are some of the biggest:
Cables Detail C.I.A. Waterboarding at Secret Prison Run by Gina Haspel
New York Times
Aug 10, 2018
Torture of al-Qaeda suspect described in 2002 cables sent by CIA Director Gina Haspel
Washington Post
Aug 10, 2018
CIA memo describes "catlike" team members in interrogation sessions
CBS News
Aug 10, 2018
Judge won't order disclosure of Trump White House visitor logs
Politico
Jul 26, 2018
Declassified US Cables Link Uribe to Colombia Drug Cartels
Associated Press News
May 26, 2018
Cables Contain Claims Former Colombian Leader Is Tied to Drug Traffickers
New York Times
May 25, 2018
When Donald Rumsfeld Asks You to 'Solve Pakistan'
The Atlantic
Jan 31, 2018
‘My Dearest Fidel’: An ABC Journalist’s Secret Liaison With Fidel Castro
Politico Magazine
Apr 20, 2018
Fact-checking Donald Trump CIA pick Gina Haspel’s Senate hearing
PolitiFact
May 9, 2018
Ethics training reminds White House staff not to use encrypted messages for government business
Washington Post
Feb 5, 2018
The American Interest
Mar 12, 2018
George H. W. Bush : The Last Green Republican
Huffington Post
Dec 4, 2018
The War Game that Could Have Ended the World
BBC
Nov 9, 2018
Guatemalan President Shuts Down Anti-Corruption Probe
NPR
Sep 3, 2018
US Documents on Fall of Indonesia’s Suharto Declassified
Latin American Herald Tribune
Jul 27, 2018
For Your Reading List
Archive staff published 41 E-books this year, bringing our website
total to 654.
We published 2 Digital National Security Archive reference collections.
Soviet-U.S. Relations: The End of the Cold War, 1985-1991
This extraordinary collection includes declassified transcripts of every word the Soviet and American leaders actually said to each other in the historic summit meetings from Geneva 1985 through Moscow 1991, together with the previously secret preparatory and after-action reports from both the Russian and American sides.
CIA Covert Operations III: From Kennedy to Nixon, 1961-1974
Part III of the CIA series takes the story from the Bay of Pigs through a chain of lesserlittle-known covert activities in Indonesia, Iraq (the Kurds), Cuba, the Dominican Republic, British Guiana, Bolivia, and more. Provides unprecedented coverage of top-level CIA deliberations along with notes of meetings with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
58 posts on our blog, Unredacted.
Are 98% of Federal Agencies Actually on Track to Manage Electronic Records by 2019 Deadline?
The “Indiana Jones Warehouse:” How to use FOIA to get Documents from Purgatory
40 Cyber Briefs and related postings in our Cyber Vault.
We created several new public research guides and resources. Here are just two of them:
In the Courts
We filed 2 new Freedom of Information Act lawsuits:
FOIA Lawsuit Wins Chronology of Black Site Waterboarding Supervised by Future CIA Director
State Department US-Russia Relations
And 2 appeals:
Trump Visitor Logs On Appeal in 2nd Circuit
FOIA Appeal Fights to Preserve WH Emails and Instant Messages
Meanwhile, 2 other FOIA lawsuits continued to produce new document releases throughout 2018:
Department of State’s Dissent Channel Revealed
Rumsfeld Snowflakes Come in from the Cold
Awards
"Choice" Magazine Names "Digital National Security Archive" an Outstanding Academic Title for 2018