Secrecy and FOIA
Aug 2, 2019 | News
Washington D.C., August 2, 2019 - The Secret Service has just released nearly 150 heavily-redacted pages concerning a Chinese delegation’s visit to President Trump’s winter White House, Mar-a-Lago, in April 2017.
Jun 20, 2019 | Blog Post
Proposed CIA Exemption Will Make It Harder for Historians to get Agency Information A provision in the pending intelligence authorization bill would allow the CIA to indefinitely withhold information on “the identities of all undercover intelligence officers, and United States citizens whose relationship to the United States is classified, regardless of the location of […]
Jun 13, 2019 | Blog Post
Emails Released through FOIA Show Special Relationship between Transportation Dept. and State of Kentucky FOIA-released records obtained by American Oversight and provided to Politico illuminate how Transportation Department Secretary Elaine Chao prioritizes requests from Kentucky – home state of her husband and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Specifically, the department established a special liaison, Chao’s […]
Jun 6, 2019 | Blog Post
Year after year, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) issues a summary of annual agency FOIA reports that misinterprets FOIA performance across the federal government to the point the report’s main conclusions are unreliable, and this year is no different. OIP’s mandate is to “encourage” government-wide FOIA compliance – an important step […]
May 30, 2019 | Blog Post
Trump Memo “Effectively Amends” EO 13526 to Transfer Limited DNI Authority to AG Barr President Trump recently signed a presidential memo that “effectively amends” Executive Order 13526 on classification of national security information to grant Attorney General William Barr the “authority of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify intelligence information concerning the 2016 election.” […]
May 23, 2019 | Blog Post
FOIA Shows Sailors Created “Rape List” That CO Failed to Properly Address A FOIA request from Military.com won the release of a 74-page investigation into a “rape list” created by members of the USS Florida’s Gold Crew – the second submarine to integrate women. The report found “Navy leaders failed to address sailors’ safety concerns after […]
May 16, 2019 | Blog Post
Trump’s Secrecy will “Blast a Huge Crater” in work of Historians if not Checked The Washington Post Editorial Board weighed in on the National Security Archive’s lawsuit against the Trump administration for failing to document meetings with heads of state, noting “The failure to document these meetings is not only about compliance with the law. […]
May 15, 2019 | Blog Post
A June 16, 2014 CIA “FLASH FYSA [For Your Situational Awareness] email to the Office of the Director of the National Clandestine Service [ODNCS] warned of a “Possible Future Washington Post Article regarding CIA Covert Influence Operations.” The “covert influence operation” was a doll. A doll with a likeness of Osama bin Laden, except that […]
May 7, 2019 | News
Washington, D.C., May 7, 2019 – The National Security Archive today joined Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) in filing suit to compel the White House to create and preserve records of the President's meetings with foreign leaders.
May 3, 2019 | News
Washington, D.C., May 3, 2019 - The National Security Archive, along with 15 other media organizations, filed a “friend of the court” brief on April 29 in the lawsuit Barr v. Redacted challenging the FBI’s authority to issue national security letters (NSLs) without any judicial oversight and under indefinite gag orders.