Secrecy and FOIA

Court Agrees to Release of Most Rosenberg Grand Jury Materials, Orders Government to Determine Status of Additional Witnesses

Washington D.C., July 22, 2008 - After hearing arguments today, a federal court in New York decided that the government must release most of the sealed grand jury records from the 1951 indictment of alleged Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. In response to a petition filed by the National Security Archive and others, the government conceded in a June filing that the Rosenberg case is of “significant historical importance” and therefore said it would not contest the release of testimony of witnesses who have passed away or consented to the disclosure.

Federal Prosecutors Agree to Release of Some Rosenberg Grand Jury Records After Petition from Archive and Historical Groups

Washington D.C., June 26, 2008 - Responding to a petition filed in January by the National Security Archive and several leading U.S. historical associations for the release of grand jury records from the 1951 indictment of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, federal prosecutors in New York conceded that a substantial portion of the grand jury materials could be made public after more than 55 years.

Archive Testifies that Implementation of Controlled Unclassified Information Framework Must Include Measures to Reduce Secrecy and Protect Public Disclosure

Washington D.C., June 11, 2008 - The National Security Archive’s General Counsel today warned that while “the establishment of trusted pathways for information is obviously essential to coordination amongst federal, state, local and tribal authorities, and private parties, those pathways are just as susceptible to manipulation and failure as individual agencies that jealously guard their secrets and turf.” The Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment of the House Committee on Homeland Security, chaired by Representative Jane Harman, asked for the Arch

Electronic and Classified Records are Overwhelming the National Archives,?According to Senate Testimony by Archive Director

Washington DC, May 14, 2008 - The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is overwhelmed and behind the curve, facing huge increases in both electronic records and classified records, according to Congressional testimony today by National Security Archive director Tom Blanton. The U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security, chaired by Sen.

Washington Post Profiles the Archive

Washington DC, May 8, 2008 - Today's Washington Post devotes the cover of its Style section and a full inside page to the National Security Archive, which the Post calls "the house that FOIA built and a mecca for document buffs." For the full text, photos and graphics, see the article on washingtonpost.com. Reporter Peter Carlson calls Archive staff "a good advertisement for the dubious proposition that spending your entire adult life poring through government documents has a fountain-of-youth effect."

White House Backups are Incomplete, May Not Contain Some Missing E-mails; Court Filing Says White House Cannot Identify Hard Drives in Use When E-mails Were Lost

Washington D.C., May 6, 2008 - The White House yesterday admitted to a federal magistrate judge that it has no computer back-up tapes with data written before May 23, 2003, and that it cannot track the history of individual hard drives within the White House system that may contain missing e-mails. The White House filing responded to an April 24, 2008, order from Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola of the U.S.

Treasury Wins 2008 "Rosemary Award" as Worst FOIA Agency

Washington DC, March 19, 2008 - As if the sub-prime credit crisis was not enough, the U.S. Treasury Department today won the fourth annual Rosemary Award for the worst performance by a federal agency under the Freedom of Information Act. Given annually by the Emmy- and George Polk Award-winning National Security Archive at George Washington University, the Rosemary recognizes outstandingly bad responsiveness to the public that flouts the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information Act.

Court orders White House to show cause why it should not create forensic copies of all electronic media; court seeks means to protect missing e-mails in response to Archive lawsuit

Washington DC, March 18, 2008 - In an order issued today, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia directed the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to show cause why it should not be ordered to create and preserve a forensic copy of any data storage media in use between March 2003 and October 2005 within the EOP. The order comes in a lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive seeking to force the EOP and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to take steps to preserve and restore missing White House e-mails.

Mixed Signals, Mixed Results:

Washington, D.C., March 16, 2008 - President Bush’s executive order for a “citizen-centered” and “results-oriented” Freedom of Information system did improve customer service at federal agencies, but has failed to make consistent progress on backlogs and has not significantly improved compliance with electronic FOIA requirements, according to the Knight Open Government Survey released today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).