Washington, D.C., March 23, 2023 - The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs invited the National Security Archive to testify today about ways to modernize the nation’s security classification system.
Washington, D.C., March 9, 2023 – The public still cannot submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the CIA or other prominent agencies through the national FOIA portal, FOIA.gov, seven years after Congress required the building of a website that allows “the public to submit a request to any agency from a single website.” Three out of four federal agencies do not even mention FOIA.gov on their individual agency websites, with many funneling FOIA requesters through independent portals with varying degrees of functionality, leaving them unaware of a more simplified
Washington, D.C., July 12, 2011 - What were the 11 words the government didn’t want you to see?
by Emily Willard
UPDATE: 7 May 2013, Department of Justice releases less-redacted version of decision. See less-redacted version of decision here. The New York Times is still waiting on a response to a FOIA request to the DOJ for release of the entire court record of this case including transcripts and expert witness testimony on declassified documents.
by Emily Willard
-Notes from the Evidence Project-
Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the massacre of six Jesuit Priests in El Salvador, along with their house keeper and her 16 year-old daughter on November 16, 1989. For Document Friday, the National Security Archive is posting newly released documents regarding the case, filed by the Center for Justice and Accountability in August 2009, against 20 former El Salvadoran officials in the National Court in Spain for their involvement in the massacre.
by Rachel Hatcher
US Embassy staff report that representatives from both the Salvadoran right and left expressed disapproval of possible international investigations into crimes committed during the Civil War.
Ignacio Ellacuría, killed in 1989.
by Emily Willard
The Recovered Documents
by Emily Willard
I would like to thank Mr. Kurtz of the National Archives and Records Administration for providing a candid and illuminating response to my previous post of November 17, 2010, regarding the missing documents of the El Salvador Human Rights Cases held at the NARA and the Library of Congress. I especially appreciate a clarification between the two different collections, the “Special Collection of Records Relating to El Salvador Human Rights Cases, 1979-1993” and the “UN Truth Commission Files, 1980-1993”.
Washington, D.C., June 9, 2022 – As the House Select Committee tonight launches its televised hearings into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the National Security Archive marks the event by posting former President Donald Trump’s “Shadow Call Log,” a new visual aid that helps fill in the blanks from the famous seven-and-a-half hour gap in Trump’s official call records, a gap that may be critical in the panel’s attempt to prove criminal intent.
Washington, D.C., March 16, 2022 - Former President Donald J. Trump has the dubious honor of winning the National Security Archive’s infamous Rosemary Award for worst performance in open government in 2021; a remarkable achievement considering Trump was out of office for much of the year. During his time in office, Trump was widely reported to have both destroyed records and prevented their creation in the first place.