FOIA requests – Page 4 – National Freedom of Information Coalition

Battle to control public records requests heats up in Washington

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From Mercer Island Reporter: Those looking for a more transparent government are increasingly relying on public records to make it happen.

They hope the more documents they obtain, the clearer their view of what’s really going on behind closed doors in school districts, city halls and county buildings.

But there are those throughout the public sector convinced some of these Washingtonians are abusing the Public Records Act.

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Major ruling in Knight FOI Fund-supported case

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COLUMBIA, Mo. (August 26, 2013) — In a major ruling in a case supported by the Knight FOI Fund, a Washington DC-based federal district judge has ruled that the Central Intelligence Agency cannot use the CIA Act of 1949 as a catchall rationale for avoiding disclosures under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

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CIA closes office that declassifies historical materials

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From latimes.com: The budget ax has fallen on a CIA office that focused on declassifying historical materials, a move scholars say will mean fewer public disclosures about long-buried intelligence secrets and scandals.

The Historical Collections Division, which has declassified documents on top Soviet spies, a secret CIA airline in the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis and other major operations, has been disbanded. The office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests will take over the work.

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Michigan ACLU denied request for FBI records on race, ethnic data use

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From MLive.com: A federal appeals panel denied a request by the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union for information on the FBI's use of data on race and ethnicity in targeting investigations.

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CIA formally acknowledges its role in 1953 Iranian coup

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From USA Today: The CIA, in recently declassified documents, has formally acknowledged that the spy agency helped to plan and execute the coup in Iran in 1953 that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister who was in the process of nationalizing the country's British-controlled oil industry.

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DOJ: FBI has started to process Michael Hastings documents

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From Jason Leopold at Public Record: The Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicated that the FBI has likely located responsive records pertaining to investigative journalist Michael Hastings, who died in a tragic car accident in Los Angeles in June, and the agency expects to finish processing the records in about three weeks.

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CIA acknowledges existence of Area 51 in newly declassified docs

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From USA Today: After years of government denials, the CIA is acknowledging in newly declassified documents the existence of Area 51, the mysterious site in central Nevada that has spawned top-secret tools, weapons and not a few UFO conspiracies.

George Washington University's National Security Archive obtained a CIA history of the U-2 spy plane program through a [FOIA] request and released it Thursday.

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CIA refuses to acknowledge drone targeted killings

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From Wired: Months after a federal appeals court reinstated a lawsuit seeking Central Intelligence Agency documents outlining the government’s drone targeted killing program, the President Barack Obama administration is again claiming that acknowledging if it has such paperwork could disclose classified secrets concerning whether it even carries out targeted killings.

All the while, a federal appeals court ruled in March that everybody knows the government performs targeted killings.

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EPA may have tried to evade FOIA request, judge says

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From WashingtonPost.com: A federal judge said Wednesday that the Environmental Protection Agency may have tried to evade a Freedom of Information Act request and added that “numerous inconsistencies” in the agency’s court filings “undermine confidence in their truthfulness.”

As a result, Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation, which filed the request for e-mails of current and former top EPA officials, the right to question them in person and in writing.

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