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 foreign policy, is poised to undergo a radical – and disruptive – shift. The National Security Archive has been contacted by sources within the department warning […]
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 describing planning and implementation of the covert operation.
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 expand the FOIA’s (b)(3) exemption to withhold “military tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP), as well as rules […]
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 Committee for evidence of possible abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At the height of congressional pushback against the “imperial presidency” in the mid-1970s, Representative Otis G.
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 CIA’s torture program to Congress. The move would effectively hide the report from FOIA and public scrutiny and comes after years of FOIA lawsuits to win access to the […]
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 report from FOIA and public scrutiny, comes after years of FOIA lawsuits to win access to the historically significant document and hold accountable those responsible for torture. […]
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 Pollard to wear an electronic tracking device. Pollard is a former Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel in 1985 and who was granted […]
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 released under the FOIA, in place this week. Last July the appeals court ruled en banc against the Detroit Free Press and against the status quo, determining […]
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 FBI raise new questions about President Trump’s business tactics, particularly when things were not going his way. The FOIA responses – to Buzzfeed’s Jason Leopold and MIT’s Ryan […]
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, with authorities responsible for the release of records misapplying applicable regulations, laws, and secrecy guidelines. Today’s illustration of this resides in a recently-declassified history of United States policy toward unrest […]