Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf has an excellent piece on Jason Leopold's FOIA lawsuit to obtain former NSA chief Keith Alexander's financial disclosure statements.
Since moving on from the NSA, Alexander has parlayed his role as one of the nation's top spies into a lucrative consulting career. Like one does these days. However, the NSA has steered a novel course and argued Alexander's financial disclosure statements, which are required by law to reveal potential conflicts of interest, are exempt from disclosure because—brace yourself for government logic—Alexander's identity must be protected.
The law cited by the NSA serves a very real purpose: to shield the identity of intelligence community members. But here the NSA is arguing that the nation's security would be imperiled by revealing the details of how a public figure peddles his expertise for "as much as $1 million a month," according to Bloomberg. Continue>>>
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