Tag: FOIA

  • NSA and FBI Duck Dive Dodge Accountabilty, Absolute Figures on Search

    NSA and FBI Duck Dive Dodge Accountabilty, Absolute Figures on Search

    NSA says it has no idea how much US info it collects, but FBI searches for it so much it can’t count how many times.   The blowback against the National Security Agency has long focused on the unpopular Patriot Act surveillance program that allows the NSA to vacuum up billions of US phone records…

  • Newly Released Drone Records Reveal Extensive Military Flights in U.S.

    Newly Released Drone Records Reveal Extensive Military Flights in U.S.

    Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: Today EFF posted several thousand pages of new drone license records and a new map that tracks the location of drone flights across the United States. These records, received as a result of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), come from state and local…

  • Spy Back: How to View Your NSA or FBI File

    Spy Back: How to View Your NSA or FBI File

    Do you know what FOIA is? No? Don’t be alarmed, most Americans don’t. It is better known as the Freedom of Information Act (introduced by Sen. Edward V. Long in 1965 and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966), and is most often used by Americans looking for answers into the deep mysteries…

  • ‘Freedom of Information Act’ Processes Increasingly Managed by Private Companies

    ‘Freedom of Information Act’ Processes Increasingly Managed by Private Companies

    A Bloomberg investigation shows that the federal government is paying a military contractor facing allegations of torture to manage some public records work.  The Freedom of Information Act allows ordinary people to learn about behind the scenes functions of our government. There are a number of limited, discrete exemptions to the law, which allow agencies…

  • Calling out the CIA: Secrecy Killings

    Calling out the CIA: Secrecy Killings

    Today Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Times published a thoughtful columndiscussing the untenable position taken by the government in response to the ACLU’s two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking information about the CIA’s targeted killing drone strike program, including its targeting of U.S. citizens. As Rosenthal explains, “the government is blocking any consideration of these petitions with one…