Latest in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
A recent lawsuit claims the FBI is giving those who speak negatively about President Trump special punishment. We’re filing FOIA requests to find out if that’s true.
Last year, one of us filed a “meta-FOIA” request with Benjamin Wittes seeking information on how former CIA officer and then-congressional candidate (now congresswoman) Abigail Spanberger’s unredacted SF-86 form was released in response to a right-wing advocacy group’s FOIA request. We petitioned both the National Archives and Records Administrations (NARA) and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), each of which had played a role in the release.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the NSA released several batches of records concerning the history and nature of the agreement that led to the Five Eyes alliance.
Casting sunlight on how law professors use federal transparency laws.
The most recent results from our FOIA project.
We’re using FOIA to find out whether the acting attorney general has consulted with career ethics experts on his involvement with the Mueller investigation. If not, that could be a major red flag.
Inquiring minds want to know.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from New York Times reporter Charlie Savage, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has declassified its implementation report on Presidential Policy Directive 28: Signals Intelligence Activities (PPD-28). PPD-28 was signed by President Obama in January of 2014 and provides principles guiding “why, whether, when, and how the United States conducts signals intelligence activities.” The report was sent to Congress in early 2017.
On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled to deny the nonprofit group Protect Democracy access to certain documents related to the Trump administration’s legal justification for airstrikes in Syria in April 2017.
It isn’t every day that the Department of Justice acknowledges formally that the president of the United States lied in a speech to Congress. But that’s how I read a letter I received a few days ago from the department.