United States and Canada

Government Claims No Records System for Mar-a-Lago Visitors

“There is no system for keeping track of Presidential visitors at Mar-a-Lago,” according to the government’s October 4, 2017, court filing in response to a National Security Archive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. The suit, Doyle v. DHS, brought together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), seeks the Secret Service's White House visitor logs covering Inauguration Day through March 8, along with Secret Service records of presidential visitors at other Trump properties.

FOIA Details Pruitt’s Deep Industry Ties, Costly Security Detail: FRINFORMSUM 10/5/2017

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FOIA Details Pruitt’s Deep Industry Ties, Costly Security Detail   A FOIA request from American Oversight has won the “most detailed look” to date at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt’s schedule. The 320-pages reveal the daily schedule for Pruitt’s first three months in office (February through May); included on the schedule is an […]

Dubious Secrets

Over the years, we've seen countless cases of a government agency or official refusing to declassify a document on national security grounds, only to find out it's already been safely released to the public by another deparment.

The sheer quantity of these "dubious secrets" points up problems of subjectivity, poor communication, and overclassification within the secrecy system. 

FOIA Shows Immigration Judges Reassigned to Border Lack Work While Backlog Grows at Home: FRINFORMSUM 9/28/2017

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FOIA Shows Immigration Judges Reassigned to Border Lack Work While Backlog Grows at Home A FOIA request to the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) shows that a Trump administration initiative to speed up deportations by sending more than 100 of the country’s roughly 300 immigration judges on short-term missions to the U.S.-Mexico […]

Congress Surreptitiously Undermines FOIA, Private Property Threatened by Border Wall, and More: FRINFORMSUM 9/21/2017

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Congress Surreptitiously Undermines FOIA Congress is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and members of congress are under no obligation to make their records public. But congressional communications with the Executive Branch agencies they are tasked with overseeing are subject to FOIA. Justice Department Office of Information Policy guidance makes clear that […]

National Security Agency Tracking of U.S. Citizens – “Questionable Practices” from 1960s & 1970s

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2017 – The National Security Agency’s (NSA) own official history conflated two different constitutionally "questionable practices" involving surveillance of U.S. citizens, according to recent NSA declassifications published today by the National Security Archive, an independent research organization based at The George Washington University. During the mid-1970s, the U.S.

Trump Hides Mar-a-Lago Visitor Records

Washington, D.C., September 15, 2017 - The Department of Homeland Security today released exactly two pages of Mar-a-Lago presidential visitor records in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

FOIA Request Helps Show What Steps NGA Taking to Reduce Overclassification: FRINFORMSUM 9/14/2017

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FOIA Request Helps Show What Steps NGA Taking to Reduce Overclassification The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is going beyond the Executive Order on classification to improve the quality of its classification decisions and reduce overclassification. The Federation of American Scientists’ Steve Aftergood analyzes the changes in the agency’s new classification guide, including three types of […]

Deadline Looms for Govt to Release Mar-a-Lago Presidential Visitor Records in Response to FOIA Suit: FRINFORMSUM 9/7/2017

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Tomorrow Deadline for Mar-a-Lago Records Release Tomorrow is the deadline for the Department of Homeland Security to release all responsive, non-exempt records of presidential visits to Mar-a-Lago in response to a FOIA lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and […]