40 YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION
2017 postings and publications
This page shows all EBBs, News, Books, and Unredacted postings.
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Briefing Book 597
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Japan Announces Policy Change on Plutonium Overhang
Possible Turning Point for Nuclear Nonproliferation Efforts
Internal Debates, Media Coverage, Pressure from Allies and Neighbors, and Economic…
News
Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., December 20, 2017 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing this week of our dear friend, colleague, and inspirational partner Arseny Borisovich Roginsky, a founder…
Briefing Book 614
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., December 15, 2017 - With the approach of the 3rd anniversary of “17-D”—the iconic date of December 17, 2014, when President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro made…
Unredacted blog
Video Won Through FOIA Shows AG Sessions Spar with DOJ Interns Over Marijuana, Gun Control A video obtained by ABC News through the FOIA shows Attorney General Jeff Sessions taking pointed questions…
Briefing Book 613
Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Western leaders gave multiple assurances against NATO expansion to Gorbachev in 1990-1991 according to declassified American, Russian, British, Germans documents
Unredacted blog
This article originally appeared in Bloomberg. A Q&A with Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, on the historical value of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the sins of Julian…
Briefing Book 612
Edited by Robert A Wampler, PhD
For more information contact: Robert A. Wampler, 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 8, 2017 – The Clinton administration made plans for war against North Korea during the 1994 nuclear crisis. While U.S. officials believed they could “undoubtedly win…
Unredacted blog
Foreseeable Harm Standard Tested in Court The Ecological Rights Foundation is suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in what may be the first…
Unredacted blog
This posting originally appeared on the Society for U.S. Intellectual History’s blog. George F. Kennan, cherished State Department diplomat to the Soviet Union and father of the American doctrine of…
Briefing Book 611
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., November 30, 2017 – U.S. presidents sometimes made nuclear threats in the course of Cold War crises and confrontations, but powerful social norms – not just military…
Unredacted blog
Border Wall Plans in Texas would Disrupt Retirement Community, Wildlife Preserves A FOIA request from the Sierra Club’s borderlands team won the release of documents, which were then shared with the…
News
Washington, D.C., November 14, 2017 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing of our most senior fellow, Dr. Jeffrey T. Richelson, prolific Freedom of Information Act requester and…
Unredacted blog
This post originally appeared on The Wilson Center’s blog, Sources and Methods. The archives of Ukraine are open and they are filled with former Soviet secrets. Anyone conducting research on…
Unredacted blog
Anemic FBI Crime Report Published in Consultation with Public Affairs, not Advisory Board FiveThirtyEight has an excellent article on the FBI’s 2016 Crime in the United States report – “a collection…
Unredacted blog
As President Trump hopscotches across East Asia hoping to develop a viable strategy on North Korean nukes with the regional powers, newly posted declassified documents from the George H.W. Bush…
Briefing Book 610
Edited by Robert A Wampler, PhD
For more information contact: Robert A. Wampler, 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
George H.W. Bush chose diplomacy over military force in dealing with North Korean nuclear crisis in early 1990s, as U.S. balanced relations with allies and China
Special Exhibit
Malcolm
Over the years, we've seen countless cases of a government agency or official refusing to declassify a document on national security grounds, only to find out it's already been safely released…
Unredacted blog
DOJ OIP Head Implies New FOIA Portal will be “Better than the Letter of the Law” The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 mandates the creation of a “consolidated online request portal that allows a member…
Briefing Book 609
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Declassified documents describe founding of IAEA including US demand for leadership role plus safeguards system and deep Soviet skepticism over agency effectiveness
Briefing Book 608
Edited by John Prados
For More Information Contact:
John Prados,
202/994 – 7000
US dropped prosecution of Chicago Tribune for espionage during World War II for leaking that US Navy knew about Japanese plans to attack Midway Island
FOIA Federal Advisory Committee Highlights Email Preservation, FOIA Searches: FRINFORMSUM 10/19/2017
Unredacted blog
FOIA Federal Advisory Committee Highlights Email Preservation, FOIA Searches The Federal FOIA Advisory Committee met today (video available here and other resources here), with updates from the…
Briefing Book 607
Edited by Brad Simpson, Founder and Director of the Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, University of Connecticut
For further information, contact: 609-751-8206
U.S. government knew Indonesian Army was engaged in mass murder against Communists starting in 1965; U.S. supported suppression of left-leaning labor movement
Briefing Book 606
Edited by William Burr and Peter Kornbluh
For more information contact: Peter Kornbluh, peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
The United States planned for the military occupation of Cuba in 1962 with a temporary American military governor in charge, according to newly declassified documents
Unredacted blog
ICE FOIA Library Still Down U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement took down its FOIA library on October 3 “for review” – and has yet to reactivate the site. MuckRock’s Emma Best drew…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Details Pruitt’s Deep Industry Ties, Costly Security Detail A FOIA request from American Oversight has won the “most detailed look” to date at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
For further information, contact 202.994.7000
“There is no system for keeping track of Presidential visitors at Mar-a-Lago,” according to the government’s October 4, 2017, court filing in response to a National Security Archive Freedom of…
News
for further information contact: nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., October 2, 2017 - The National Security Archive's senior analyst, Peter Kornbluh, has been inducted into "the order of Bernardo O'Higgins." Chile's Ambassador Juan Gabriel…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Shows Immigration Judges Reassigned to Border Lack Work While Backlog Grows at Home A FOIA request to the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) shows that a Trump…
Briefing Book 605
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 25, 2017 – The National Security Agency’s (NSA) own official history conflated two different constitutionally "questionable practices" involving surveillance of U.S.…
Unredacted blog
Congress Surreptitiously Undermines FOIA Congress is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and members of congress are under no obligation to make their records public. But…
Briefing Book 604
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C., September 15, 2017 - The Department of Homeland Security today released exactly two pages of Mar-a-Lago presidential visitor records in response to a Freedom of Information Act (…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Request Helps Show What Steps NGA Taking to Reduce Overclassification The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is going beyond the Executive Order on classification to improve the…
Briefing Book 603
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
(with assistance from Jackson duPont)
for further information contact: peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., September 11, 2017 - Forty-four years after the U.S. - supported military coup, the Santiago Museum of Memory and Human Rights has inaugurated a special exhibit of declassified…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
For more information, contact Lauren Harper or Tom Blanton 202.994.7000
The widely anticipated release of Mar-a-Lago visitor records for President Trump’s first six weeks in office has been delayed until noon on Friday, September 15, at the request of the…
Unredacted blog
Tomorrow Deadline for Mar-a-Lago Records Release Tomorrow is the deadline for the Department of Homeland Security to release all responsive, non-exempt records of presidential visits to Mar-a-Lago in…
Unredacted blog
Will ‘Still Interested’ Letters Surge as End of FY 2017 Approaches? The Office of Government Information Services has a timely blog on the use of “still interested” letters, reminding agencies of the…
Briefing Book 602
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Officials in 1960s Sought Studies of “Longer-term Consequences of Nuclear Attacks on the Health of People or on Their Living Environment”
Unredacted blog
FOIA Helps Show How Conservative TV Giant Could Find its Way Into 7 out of 10 Homes FOIA requests to the Federal Communications Commission won the release of hundreds of pages of documents showing…
Unredacted blog
The Department of Defense and military agencies use the foreign policy exemption in Executive Order 13526 to deny or heavily excise documents that are well over 50 years old. According to…
Unredacted blog
Federally-Funded Private Prisons Should be Subject to FOIA The National Security Archive joined a large coalition of open government groups calling for the passage of legislation that would apply…
Briefing Book 601
Edited by Malcolm Byrne and Mark Gasiorowski
For more information contact: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., August 8, 2017 – The British Foreign Office approached the Truman administration on more than one occasion in late 1952 to propose a coup to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister…
Unredacted blog
To commemorate the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan in August 1945, the Nuclear Vault is adding two documents to the posting: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of…
Unredacted blog
CBP Response to Travel Ban Under Renewed Scrutiny Thanks to FOIA Request Documents released through the FOIA confirm that the agency ordered its employees to stonewall members of Congress and lawyers…
Unredacted blog
FCC Says No Written Documentation on Claimed DDoS Attack that Crashed Public Comments System during Net Neutrality Controversy The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in Unredacted’s hot seat…
Briefing Book 600
Edited by William Burr with Susan Gillett
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., July 20, 2017 – During a frank conversation with Washington Post reporter Murrey Marder in early 1967, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey said that “he is no longer sure he was…
Unredacted blog
CIA Overclassification Jeopardizes Hmong Veterans’ Fight for Military Burial Journalist James Eli Shiffer has a must-read piece in the Minneapolis StarTribune on Hmong veterans who fought for the…
Unredacted blog
The CIA is positioned to begin destroying a large number of potentially important documents, including classified information related to the Agency’s official actions abroad, investigative files from…
Unredacted blog
This article was originally published by the Atlantic Council. Sixty-four years on, the effects of the 1953 coup in Iran continue to resonate inside Iran and outside. Last month, the State…
Briefing Book 599
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 17, 2017 – The Department of Homeland Security will release the visitor logs for President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort by September 8, according to a court order filed…
Unredacted blog
A blistering 2008 Central Intelligence Agency legal settlement of $350,000 to the National Security Archive’s pro bono lawyers, paid after losing a Freedom of Information Act case, led to the…
Unredacted blog
Trump’s Deregulation Teams Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, interviews, and public records helped The New York Times and ProPublica identify 71 appointees to the Trump administration’s…
Unredacted blog
FOIA at 51 The Freedom of Information Act turned 51 this July 4, and the public is still fighting tooth-and-nail for its right to know decades after the law went into effect. This calendar year alone…
Unredacted blog
Public Access to CRS Reports Public access to Congressional Research Service reports is mandated in the House’s Legislative Branch Appropriations Committee bill for 2018, which passed out of…
Unredacted blog
Survey results analyzed in a Secret December 20, 2012, FBI Counterterrorism Division report shed some light on the Bureau’s insights about homegrown violent extremists. The report, released to the…
Unredacted blog
Drastic Cuts Coming to State’s FOIA Shop The State Department’s FOIA shop, which is heavily reliant on Limited Non-Career Appointment (LNA) Foreign Service Officers with decades of experience in…
Unredacted blog
The U.S. Military History Group awarded Nixon’s Nuclear Specter: The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War, with an Honorable Mention for the 2016 Captain Richard…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, working with our partners at ProQuest, is publishing a new compilation of documents on the Iraq war, one of the most consequential events in recent history—for the…
Briefing Book 598
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
For further information, contact: Malcolm Byrne, 202/994–7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 15, 2017 – The State Department today released a long-awaited “retrospective” volume of declassified U.S. government documents on the 1953 coup in Iran, including records…
Unredacted blog
When gunmen shot and killed Mexican columnist, investigative reporter, and author Javier Valdez Cárdenas in Culiacán, Sinaloa on May 15, a chill went through newsrooms everywhere. Not only was he the…
Unredacted blog
DOD Trying to Expand FOIA Exemptions for Third Year in a Row The Defense Department is seeking – for the third time in three years – a new FOIA exemption that, if approved, would allow the agency to…
Unredacted blog
Now is the Time for Archivist to Call the Torture Report a Federal Record The Trump Administration reportedly is returning copies of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the…
Briefing Book 596
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
For further information, contact: John Prados, 202/994–7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 2, 2017 – The Ford administration came close to igniting a constitutional showdown with Congress more than 40 years ago over demands by a House panel known as the Pike…
Unredacted blog
The Trump Administration reportedly is returning copies of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s torture program to Congress. The pernicious move, which would effectively hide the…
Briefing Book 595
Edited by Robert A. Wampler, PhDFor more information contact: Robert A. Wampler, 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
U.S.-ROK Relations during the Carter Years Faltered over Troop Withdrawals, Human Rights, an Assassination, and a Coup.
Unredacted blog
Pollard’s Parole Restrictions Will Not be Laxed A federal appeals court rejected Jonathan Pollard’s petition to ease his parole requirements and reasserted that it acted within its rights to require…
Unredacted blog
This post was originally published by The Wilson Center. How a lunch in Rio de Janeiro confirmed a US diplomat’s hunches about Brazilian nuclear weapons research The history of nuclear…
Unredacted blog
SCOTUS Won’t Hear Mugshots Case, Keeping Federal Mugshots Secret The Supreme Court left a July 2016 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which says that federal mugshots don’t need to be…
Briefing Book 594
Translated by Anna Melyakova
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
For more information, call or email: 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 25, 2017 –The National Security Archive marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 96th birthday today with the publication for the first time in English of…
News
In recognition of the extraordinary challenges facing Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, the National Security Archive took out this full-page advertisement in The New York Review…
Briefing Book 593
Edited by Michael Evans
Research assistance by Emily Taylor and Julian Moreno
This is the fourth and final article in a series published by the National Security Archive in collaboration with VerdadAbierta.com
For further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs
Washington, D.C., May 18, 2017 – The National Security Archive’s Chiquita Papers collection represents key evidence behind a “communication” calling on the International Criminal Court…
Briefing Book 592
Edited by Tatiana Navarrete, Michael Evans y Juan Diego Restrepo E.
Research assistance: Emily Taylor
For further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs
The FARC, the ELN, and to a lesser extent, the EPL, along with their dissident offshoots and political allies all profited from Chiquita’s security payments. Newly declassified documents on this…
Briefing Book 591
Edited by Dr. Ronald D. Landa
Introduced by Malcolm Byrne
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington D.C., May 10, 2017 – The United States’ cautious response to the unexpectedly powerful popular uprising in Hungary in 1956 grew out of the Eisenhower administration’s policy of “…
Unredacted blog
By Michael Martelle A FOIA request filed by the National Security Archive’s Intelligence Analyst, Dr. Jeffrey Richelson, has won the partial release of documents on the US’s cyber offensive against…
Unredacted blog
Newly declassified documents demonstrate the continuing haphazard application of United States secrecy regulations. The progress of declassification remains a one step forward-two steps back dance,…
Unredacted blog
Anonymous Phone Call Threatens Violence if Bankruptcy Lawyer Keeps Bothering Trump; FBI “Inadvertently” Claims Call Investigation Still Ongoing in Response to Records Request FOIA releases from the…
Briefing Book 590
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 3, 2017 – A Rand Corporation 1967 paper predicted many of the cyber dilemmas faced by policy makers today, and a 2017 expanded analysis of the “GRIZZLY STEPPE” hacking by…
Briefing Book 589
Edited by Michael Evans
For further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs
Washington, D.C., May 2, 2017 – Chiquita’s Colombia-based staff questioned the company’s payments to illegal armed groups, and asked whether Chiquita had gone beyond extortion and was directly…
Unredacted blog
The CIA’s Homosexual Investigations In 1980, the same year the Democratic Party endorsed a gay-rights platform, the CIA issued a three-page memo on how to “ferret out” homosexuals during…
Briefing Book 588
Edited by Carlos Osorio
For further information, contact Carlos Osorio: cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., April 27, 2017 – The infamous Southern Cone collaboration known as “Operation Condor” considered establishing “field offices” in the United States and Europe, and Condor members…
Briefing Book 587
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
For further information, contact: peter.kornbluh@gmail.com and 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C., April 25, 2017 – Media mogul Agustin Edwards Eastman, who was widely regarded as the Rupert Murdoch of Chile, died on April 24, at age 89, leaving a legacy of close collaboration…
Briefing Book 586
Edited by Michael EvansFor further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs
Washington, D.C., April 24, 2017 - Ten years ago, Chiquita Brands International became the first U.S.-based corporation convicted of violating a U.S. law against funding an international terrorist…
Unredacted blog
Deported DREAMer Files FOIA Suit for Info; Kelly Tells DHS Critics to “Shut Up” And Assume Agency Following Law Juan Manuel Montes, 23, was brought to the United States from Mexico by his parents 14…
Unredacted blog
Below are the National Security Archive’s comments on the Office of Government Information Services’ (OGIS) reviews and reports, submitted in anticipation of OGIS’s public meeting, tomorrow, 4/20, at…
Unredacted blog
FOIA requesters who relied on lists of classified directives published by both the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to know what documents to file FOIA requests for may now be…
Unredacted blog
The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) has justifiably acquired a good reputation for its fairness in making final decisions on mandatory declassification review (MDR) appeals…
Briefing Book 585
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 14, 2017 – The Trump White House announced today it would no longer disclose the routine visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service and published online by the…
Unredacted blog
Trump Visitor Logs Lawsuit The National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW…
Briefing Book 584
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 12, 2017 – The Ford administration had to use a combination of approaches to keep South Korea’s Park dictatorship from going forward with a suspected nuclear weapons program…
Briefing Book 583
Edited by Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 10, 2017 – The National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in…
Unredacted blog
Australia Fears FOI Release would “Educate…Potentially Illegal Immigrants” An Australian FOI request and subsequent court case has won the release of documents on “Australia’s asylum seeker turnback…
Unredacted blog
The following was published in Survival: Global Politics and Strategy (Vol 59 No 2). War Scare Sir, In ‘Able Archer 83: What Were the Soviets Thinking’ (Survival, vol. 58, no. 6, December 2016–…
Unredacted blog
By Swetha Kareti, Nate Jones, and Sean Moulton Download the PDF version of this report here. The National Security Archive and the Project on Government Oversight developed and circulated an…
Unredacted blog
Court Says FOIA’s Exemption 5 Protections for “Inter-Agency” Communications Don’t Apply to Foreign Agencies The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FOIA’s Exemption 5 – the oft-abused “…
Briefing Book 582
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 22, 2017 – President Park Chung-hee reportedly instructed South Korean scientists to build nuclear bombs by 1977, according to a secret report to Secretary of State Henry…
Unredacted blog
Houston, We Have a Problem if 3 out of 5 Agencies Ignore New FOIA Law Three out of five of all federal agencies are flouting the new law that improved the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and…
Unredacted blog
This posting initially appeared in Volume 49 of NACLA Report on the Americas. Poet, musician, theater director, teacher, and activist, Víctor Jara was the creative heart of the movement in…
News
Washington, D.C., March 13, 2017 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing of our dear friend, mentor, inspiration, and colleague, Anatoly Chernyaev, in Moscow at the age of 95.
Anatoly…
News , FOIA Audit
Audit compiled and written by Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, and Tom Blanton
Web publication by Rinat Bikineyev
For more information, contact Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, or Tom Blanton at 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 11, 2017 – Three out of five of all federal agencies are flouting the new law that improved the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and required them to update their FOIA…
Unredacted blog
ProPublica Uses FOIA to Win List of 100s of Trump Hires FOIA requests from ProPublica have, along with a list of names provided by the Office of Personnel Management, won…
Unredacted blog
Body Cam Footage Won through FOIA Shows Tucson Police Shoving 86-Year-Old Woman to Ground at Immigration Protest Police body camera footage obtained from a FOIA request submitted by Tucson News Now…
Briefing Book 581
Edited by Dr. Ronald D. Landa
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C. February 28, 2017 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower ruled out military intervention in Eastern Europe early in his administration, despite campaign rhetoric about rolling back world…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Request Reveals Anwar al-Awlaki’s Role in Failed 2009 Bombing A federal judge’s order that the FBI conduct a line-by-line review of documents on radicalized American imam Anwar al-Awlaki’s role…
Unredacted blog
Scottish FOI Releases Shed Light on Local Law Enforcement Dealings with Trump Team Scottish police have released 49 documents in response to FOI requests on “its dealings with Trump…
Briefing Book 580
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. February 15, 2017 – The Air Force chief of staff told the Joint Chiefs at a September 1971 meeting that in a nuclear war the United States “could lose two hundred million people…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive and the Project on Government Oversight are distributing a survey for both FOIA processors and FOIA requesters on how agencies conduct searches. The goal of the…
Unredacted blog
Air Force lieutenant general and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Leonard H. Perroots has died. I first learned of Perroots while reading the declassified President’s Foreign…
Unredacted blog
By Swetha Kareti, @swethak13 The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the only cabinet level agency that was able to meet President Obama’s 2009 instruction to …
Unredacted blog
Regulations Undercut OGIS’ Role as Go-To FOIA Experts The Office of Government Information Services has published a proposed rule change to its regulations in the Federal Register. A part of its…
Briefing Book 579
Edited by Dr. Ronald D. Landa
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C. February 7, 2017 – CIA covert aid to Italy continued well after the agency’s involvement in the 1948 elections – into the early 1960s – averaging around $5 million a year,…
Unredacted blog
Missile Defenses Then and Now A declassified Strategic Air Command History from 1968, recently cited in former SAC commander-in-chief Lee Butler’s memoirs, sheds light on the role of anti-ballistic…
Unredacted blog
DHS IG to Investigate Implementation of Executive Order on Immigration The Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General, heeding requests from Illinois senators Tammy…
Unredacted blog
DOJ’s Pustay Refuses to Answer Questions During 2017’s First FOIA Advisory Committee Meeting The FOIA Federal Advisory Committee held its first meeting of 2017 today. Chaired by the Office of…
Briefing Book 578
Edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington D.C., January 23, 2017 – The historic summit meetings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, built an intensive learning…
Condor Verdict In, FOIA Requests to the FCC Just Got More Difficult, and More: FRINFORMSUM 1/19/2017
Unredacted blog
Operation Condor Verdict – Life Imprisonment This week a tribunal in Rome sentenced two former heads of state and two ex-chiefs of security forces from Bolivia and Peru, as well as a…
Briefing Book 577
Edited by Carlos Osorio
For further information contact Carlos Osorio: cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., January 17, 2017 – A tribunal in Rome, Italy, today sentenced two former heads of state and two ex-chiefs of security forces from Bolivia and Peru, and a former…
Unredacted blog
Dos Erres Arrest in Maryland Federal agents arrested 54-year-old Jose Mardoqueo Ortiz Morales in Maryland last week for suspected involvement in the Guatemalan Special Forces brutal murder of more…
Unredacted blog
This a version of this article originally appeared in The Federalist, Newsletter of the Society for History in the Federal Government. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 (PRA) established that…
Unredacted blog
DOJ Updates FOIA Regulations The Justice Department updated its FOIA regulations in accordance with the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, which was signed into law by President Obama on June 30, 2016,…