Freedom of Information Act

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FDA Wants FOI Request on Vaccine to Wait—for 55 Years

Experts want to see information used in approving Pfizer's product

(Newser) - The experts who have filed a Freedom of Information request to see government data on the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine might have to hand the issue down to the next generation—at least—of scientists and professors. The Food and Drug Administration has asked a judge to not force the documents'...

Newly Released Files Show What FBI Knew About Mobster

Mobster had beaten an agency informant before being recruited, records detail

(Newser) - Government documents have been released that show the FBI knew what it was getting when it recruited Boston mobster Whitey Bulger as an informant in the 1970s. The 300 pages of records, some of which have to be held upside down to a mirror to be read, were posted in...

Curious What the CIA Knows About UFOs? Here You Go
After 'Pulling
Teeth,' Site Has
All the CIA's
UFO Intel
in case you missed it
Jan 16, 2021 9:42 AM CST

After 'Pulling Teeth,' Site Has All the CIA's UFO Intel

At least that's what CIA tells the Black Vault, which now offers every publicly available file for download

(Newser) - Want to know the Central Intelligence Agency's lowdown on UFOs? If you've got the time and the curiosity, download every single file that's in the public domain, because they're now available for the taking. Motherboard reports that, after years of behind-the-scenes wrangling, declassified-docs repository the Black...

Ukraine Aid Freeze Came From the Top, Emails Show

Site gets a look at unredacted documents

(Newser) - When the Defense Department warned that holding up military aid to Ukraine might be illegal, an OMB official let the Pentagon know where the order was coming from. There was "clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold," Michael Duffy wrote, CNN reports that a new review of...

FBI Tested 'Bigfoot' Hairs, Has Released the Results

Determined Oregon man sent 15 hairs to agency in 1976

(Newser) - An Oregon man has spent his life on a mission—and there are newly released FBI files to prove it. Peter Byrne is now 93, and he's decades into an obsession to find creatures of lore like Bigfoot and the yeti, a fascination born from stories he'd heard...

FBI Stuns Clinton Campaign With New Document Release

Files relate to controversial 2001 pardon

(Newser) - The FBI has followed up its October surprise for Hillary Clinton with another shocker: the release of 129 pages of internal documents related to Bill Clinton's highly controversial pardon of financier Marc Rich. The heavily redacted documents were released Monday and the agency drew attention to them with a...

CIA Office Deletes Huge Torture Report 'by Mistake'

Sen. Dianne Feinstein asks CIA to correct the 'snafu'

(Newser) - The CIA's internal watchdog admits it has destroyed a classified, 6,700-page Senate torture report—but says it was just a mistake, Yahoo News reports. A CIA official privately told the Justice Dept. and the Senate Intelligence committee about it last summer, saying the CIA Office of Inspector General...

Journo Files FOIA Request—for Obama's GoT Screeners

Why should the president get all the advance fun?

(Newser) - Everyone's jealous that President Obama has already received advance screeners of the sixth season of Game of Thrones (the rest of us plebes have to wait till Sunday to start our viewing). But Vanessa Golembewski must really be champing at the bit to get her hands on the episodes,...

SCOTUS Not Interested in Planned Parenthood Case

High court rejects NH anti-abortion group's push for docs related to gov't grant

(Newser) - The Supreme Court has rejected an anti-abortion group's bid to force disclosure of confidential Planned Parenthood and federal government records about a contract for family planning services in New Hampshire. The justices on Monday let stand a ruling that allowed the Health and Human Services Department to withhold some...

Judge Adds Fuel to Clinton Email Controversy

Says Hillary didn't comply with government policy regarding her private account

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton says no classified info was ever kept on her personal email account, but a federal judge said yesterday she didn't comply with government policy by using that account, the New York Times reports. "We wouldn't be here today if the employee had followed government policy,...

CIA Responds to FOIA Request ... on Osama's Porn

Sorry folks, it's classified

(Newser) - What kind of porn might be classified? The stuff watched by Osama bin Laden. A blogger at the men's website BroBible filed a, er, colorful Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA to get the details on the "pornographic material" found among bin Laden's stuff. (The...

Inside the Slow Process of Reviewing Clinton's Email

State Dept. says needs until Jan. 15, 2016

(Newser) - The State Department is looking through the 55,000 pages of email that Hillary Clinton plunked on its doorstep in December—in paper form, in a dozen banker's boxes—and proposed last night in a court filing that the releasable portions see the public light of day in 2016,...

AP Sues State Dept. for Clinton Emails

It seems previous FOIA requests have gone by wayside

(Newser) - The AP filed suit today against the State Department to force the release of emails and documents from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary, after repeated Freedom of Information Act requests—including one from 2010 and others from 2013—have gone unfulfilled. The FOIA requests and lawsuit seek materials related...

Now Online: Air Force UFO Files

John Greenewald's efforts pay off with website culled via Freedom of Info Act

(Newser) - In the latest "one-stop shopping for conspiracy theorists" news, a "UFO enthusiast" has launched a site he says is the first complete, searchable database of the Air Force's declassified UFO files, the Air Force Times reports. John Greenewald has spent almost 20 years reaping the benefits of...

NSA Xmas Gift: Decade's Worth of Declassified Docs

Reports show numerous instances of 'unintentional technical or human error'

(Newser) - While many people were wrapping presents and prepping for holiday dinners, the NSA did its own holiday sharing on Christmas Eve: The agency released 10 years' worth of declassified documents, Mashable reports. The materials, which covered a period from the middle of 2001 through early 2013, are the heavily redacted...

Analysis: Obama's Transparency Push a Flop

Feds cited national security to withhold information a record 8,496 times

(Newser) - The Obama administration pledged to boost transparency in the White House from the get-go, but it hasn't exactly been a promise kept. In virtually every category, the government's efforts to be more open about its activities in 2013 were their worst since Barack Obama first took office, the...

Bush Archives Now Open to Public

Library now taking Freedom of Information Act requests

(Newser) - The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is set to begin accepting Freedom of Information Act requests for records from Bush's presidency. The Dallas library will start taking requests today, which marks five years from the end of Bush's presidency. Access to the records is governed by...

Denials Aside, the CIA Spied on Noam Chomsky

FOIA request reveals secret memo on the MIT professor

(Newser) - The CIA would never keep a file on political dissident Noam Chomsky—right? For years, the agency denied keeping a Chomsky file, but a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI has punctured a hole in that story, Foreign Policy reports. Turns out that a CIA memo to the...

NSA: Search Our Own Emails? Sorry, No Can Do
NSA: Search Our Own
Emails? We Actually Can't
propublica
Jul 23, 2013 2:46 PM CDT

NSA: Search Our Own Emails? We Actually Can't

ProPublica's Freedom of Information Act request gets the brush-off

(Newser) - The NSA's mighty information-gathering powers apparently do not extend to its own employees' inboxes. ProPublica filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the spy agency, asking for all emails between its employees and the National Geographic Channel, which has aired some decidedly NSA-friendly documentaries. The agency refused, saying...

Feds Name Gitmo's 'Indefinite Detainees'

46 inmates can't be tried, transferred, or released

(Newser) - The names of Guantanamo's dozens of "indefinite detainees" deemed too dangerous to release even if the detention center is closed have been disclosed for the first time. In response to a lawsuit from the Miami Herald , the federal government released a list of prisoners including 26 Yemenis, 12...

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