Home » Posts tagged 'FOIA' (Page 21)
Tag Archives: FOIA
New FOIA Requesting Guide from the National Security Archive
The National Security Archive has released a new guide, Effective FOIA Requesting for Everyone. Its aim is to provide “comprehensive overview of how to obtain documents from federal executive branch agencies.” It is divided into six chapters and all of them are available online in PDF format. Continue reading
Bush War on Terror Memos
ProPublica has a very nice page listing Bush Administration memos that dealt with the "War on Terror." The list is annotated and has links to those that are public and lists those that are still secret.
- The Missing Memos, by Dan Nguyen and Christopher Weaver, ProPublica, January 28, 2009.
The Bush administration’s "war on terror"—including its controversial policies on detentions, interrogations and warrantless wiretapping—was all underpinned by legal memoranda. While some of those memos have been released (primarily as a result of ACLU lawsuits), the former administration chose to keep many others secret, citing security and confidentiality concerns. The decision to release them now lies with President Obama. To help inform the debate—and inject an extra dose of accountability—we’re posting a list of the relevant memos, both public and secret.Continue reading
FOIA and other documents in the Government Attic
governmentattic.org describes itself this way:
governmentattic.org provides electronic copies of hundreds of interesting Federal Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Fascinating historical documents, reports on items in the news, oddities and fun stuff and government bloopers, they're all here. Think of browsing this site as rummaging through the Government's Attic -- hence our name.Bruce Schneier says of one document that has recently show up at governmentattic, "Just declassified by the NSA, this document -- A History of U.S. Communications Security (Volumes I and II); the David G. Boak Lectures, National Security Agency (NSA), 1973 -- is definitely worth reading. The first sections are highly redacted, but the remainder is fascinating." Continue reading
DoE Seeks to Limit Public Interest FOIA Disclosures
Steven Aftergood has the story here: DoE Seeks to Limit Public Interest FOIA Disclosures, Secrecy News, December 15, 2008.
"A proposed new Department of Energy regulation would eliminate the so-called 'public interest' balancing test that encourages DOE officials to release information under the Freedom of Information Act even when it is legally exempt from disclosure if doing so would serve the public interest.... In comments on the proposed regulation submitted by the Federation of American Scientists, we argued that 'there is a widespread and well-founded expectation that the incoming Obama Administration will rescind the Ashcroft FOIA policy and define a more forthcoming disclosure policy. In light of that probable scenario, I would urge DOE to cancel its proposed revision of [the public interest balancing test], or else to suspend action on it for six months while the new Administration prepares new government-wide FOIA guidance.'" Continue reading
Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion
Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion (Update2), By Mark Pittman, Bloomberg, Dec. 12, 2008.
The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.Continue reading
Latest Comments