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 Scott Pruitt’s schedule. The 320-pages reveal the daily schedule for Pruitt’s first three months in office (February through May); included on the schedule is an […]
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 to the public by another deparment.
The sheer quantity of these "dubious secrets" points up problems of subjectivity, poor communication, and overclassification within the secrecy system.
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 administration initiative to speed up deportations by sending more than 100 of the country’s roughly 300 immigration judges on short-term missions to the U.S.-Mexico […]
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 congressional communications with the Executive Branch agencies they are tasked with overseeing are subject to FOIA. Justice Department Office of Information Policy guidance makes clear that […]
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 (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
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 quality of its classification decisions and reduce overclassification. The Federation of American Scientists’ Steve Aftergood analyzes the changes in the agency’s new classification guide, including three types of […]
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 government.
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 response to a FOIA lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and […]
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 most recent Department of Justice Office of Information Policy guidance on the use of these letters as the end of Fiscal Year 2017 […]
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 how the TV giant Sinclair Broadcast Group stands to benefit from the agency’s “deregulatory blitz.” Most important is a deregulation that […]