Free Republic

As most observers predicted at the time, records from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge where Barack Obama served as President of the Board and terrorist William Ayers as head of the action arm of the organization were almost certainly scrubbed; the result of a tip from the University of Illinois to the Obama campaign: The President of the University of Illinois, B. Joseph White, and the University Counsel of the University of Illinois, Thomas Bearrows, contacted Kenneth C. Rolling, the former Executive Director of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) and a professional colleague of Barack Obama for many years, prior to...

NEW YORK The Pentagon would be required to grant journalists access to ceremonies honoring fallen military personnel, under a bill recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The legislation is significant because it would, for the first time since Vietnam, let photojournalists capture the powerful images of flag-draped caskets arriving on American soil during wartime. This week the bill won the endorsement of the National Press Photographers Association. The Fallen Hero Commemoration Act, or H.R. 6662, was introduced July 30 by Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), a member of the House Committee on Armed Services. The bill states: "The...

FREDERICK — During a two-week period in April four years ago, officials at the Army’s lead biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick discovered anthrax spores had escaped carefully guarded suites into the building’s unprotected areas. The breach called into question the ability of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to keep its deadly agents within laboratory walls seven months after the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the anthrax mailings that autumn. The 2002 incident was considered a containment breach because anthrax was found outside a containment suite, which is a group of laboratories and administrative rooms....

A federal judge today sided with the Bush administration in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit related to missing White House e-mails. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who is probably most familiar to Ars readers for her role in the Microsoft antitrust case, held that the White House's Office of Administration was not a federal agency as that term is defined by the FOIA and was therefore not obligated to respond to FOIA requests. The ruling represents a setback for the plaintiff, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which was also behind the White House e-mail lawsuit we covered...

Judge rules for White House in e-mail controversy By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago A federal judge ruled Monday that a White House office that has records about millions of possibly missing e-mails does not have to make them public. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly says the Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, enabling the White House to maintain the secrecy of a lengthy internal paper trail about its problem-plagued e-mail system. The decision came in a lawsuit filed against the administration by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a...

Sitting in Congress is a bill sponsored by 8th District Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Appleton) that would allow the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians to sell its fee lands without further approval from the federal government (see related story), but if you think you're entitled to any documents Kagen might have about the bill - including any correspondence between his office and the tribe - think again. The American people don't have the right to see any of it. That's because, as a sovereign nation, the tribe is not subject to federal or state open records statutes....

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with Cabinet-level agencies and inter-agency departments looking for opposition research to use against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). In early February, there was a sharp uptick in the number of FOIA requests from the DNC with McCain as a specific target. February was about the same time McCain emerged as the front-runner and likely nominee. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with Cabinet-level agencies and inter-agency departments looking for opposition research to use against...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained the official pardon application submitted to the Clinton White House by attorney Jack Quinn December 11, 2000, on behalf of former fugitive Marc Rich, who fled the United States in 1983 to avoid prosecution on racketeering, wire fraud and tax evasion charges. The fugitive Rich was one of about 140 criminals who received pardons from Bill Clinton in the last hours of his administration on January 20, 2001. The pardon application was made available in response to a Judicial...

President Bush is asking Congress to repeal a portion of an open records law he signed five weeks ago, a move that open government advocates say stymies efforts to make government more transparent. An eight-line provision buried in the 1,314-page appendix to the president's spending plan would move a new office for resolving disputes over government records to the very agency that defends other federal agencies wishing to keep government documents shrouded: the Department of Justice. Critics contend that would create a conflict of interest because officials aiming to resolve disputes and those defending the government in such battles would...

DANBURY -- Some were young people, who feared their parents could be deported. Others were parents, concerned about the safety of their children. Still others who attended Wednesday night's mass rally at City Hall had no personal stake in a proposed partnership between Danbury police and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. But they came to voice their opposition to the plan and their support for those who could be affected by it. "This is what being an American is all about, fighting for your rights," said Fernanda Franco, of Bethel, a legal Brazilian immigrant whose rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner"...

Documents released by the Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base Florida, in relation to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests files for documents relating to the military investigation into the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock Troops" article in The New Republic magazine. The following are the never-before published statements of soldiers interviewed in the course of the investigation. Names are redacted per federal privacy laws.

Documents released by the Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base Florida, in relation to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests files for documents relating to the military investigation into the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock Troops" article in The New Republic magazine. The following are the never-before published statements of soldiers interviewed in the course of the investigation. Names are redacted per federal privacy laws.

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush on Monday signed a bill aimed at giving the public and the media greater access to information about what the government is doing. The new law toughens the Freedom of Information Act, the first such makeover to the signature public-access law in a decade. It amounts to a congressional pushback against the Bush administration's movement to greater secrecy since the terrorist attacks of 2001. Bush signed the bill without comment in one of his final decisions of the year. The legislation creates a system for the media and public to track the status of their...

The White House filed a challenge last week to a U.S. District Court ruling that Secret Service visitor logs for the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence are public documents. Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that these records can be released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This was in response to a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan, liberal-leaning nonprofit organization, to obtain information about the visits of nine conservative leaders, including James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values and Wendy...

Dear (RNC donor's name), In 2004, Hillary claimed that all of the records at the Clinton Library would be opened. She said on CNN's Larry King Live, "That's one of the things the library really stands for. It physically stands for openness with all the glass and the light. But he wants it to be a place where people come and really study. And everything's going to be available." Nearly three years after the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library and the ensuing Freedom of Information Act Requests, less than half of one percent of the library's documents are open...

Several Islamic groups in Southern California sued the FBI on Tuesday to force the agency to release more documents about the alleged surveillance of individuals and local mosques following the Sept. 11 attacks. In May 2006, 11 Muslim leaders and community groups sent the FBI a Freedom of Information Act request asking for documents about suspected surveillance of them and sued after the bureau released just four pages, one of them largely blank. The ACLU, which filed the FOIA request and lawsuit, believes the FBI did not turn over all its is withholding information. The civil rights group said in...

...As she spoke, memories of the Clinton years wafted through my head — government by seminar running into the late hours. But as she will tell you (before you even have a chance to ask), she has learned a lot since the early 1990s, and while the conversations may still be endless, they are also more restrained. And it’s true. The plan she unveiled yesterday is much simpler than the one she came up with 14 years ago. Back then, she and her staff were like technocratic engineers, one of her advisers told me, trying to patch every last gap...

Open the First Lady files template_bas template_bas Hillary Clinton should help the National Archives put release of her White House papers on a fast track. August 29, 2007 In asking a federal court to force the National Archives to release papers from Hillary Rodham Clinton's time as first lady, the public interest group Judicial Watch has opened itself to the charge that it's on a fishing expedition. Maybe so, but the group is fishing with a license -- the Freedom of Information Act. That law allows citizens to inspect public documents after deletions are made for privilege or national security....

WASHINGTON - Opening a new front in the Bush administration's battle to keep its records confidential, the Justice Department is contending that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The department's argument is in response to a lawsuit trying to force the office to reveal what it knows about the disappearance of White House e-mails. The Office of Administration provides administrative services, including information technology support, to the Executive Office of the President. Most of the White House is not subject to the FOIA, but certain components within it handle FOIA requests....

Border Patrol — 4 p.m. — Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia holds a hearing in response to Judicial Watch's "Application for Injunctive Relief in Judicial Watch v. Department of Homeland Security, et al. (No. 07-0506.)." Judicial Watch states that U.S. government departments have failed to produce responsive records of communications by U.S. government personnel with Mexican officials concerning the prosecutions of U.S. Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. Location: U.S. District Court, 333 Constitution Ave. NW. Contact:

New York (AP) -- A federal judge has dismissed a New York Times lawsuit against the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice, saying classified documents the newspaper was seeking under the Freedom of Information Act were properly withheld. The Times sued the two departments in federal court in April 2006 over their refusal to hand over documents connected to the government's warrant-free wiretapping program. In a decision filed Thursday, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said the government was justified in not handing over classified material because it fell under exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act, including...

NASA to Use Fortune 1000 Firms to Hit Small Business Goal With New SBA Policy, Says American Small Business League The following is a statement by the American Small Business League: A new Small Business Administration policy set to take effect on June 30th will allow NASA to continue to count contracts to Fortune 1000 firms towards their federally mandated 23 percent small business contracting goal. In February of 2006, NASA lost a federal lawsuit to the American Small Business League, which was filed under the Freedom of Information Act. NASA was forced to disclose information that indicated that they...

Sedition In Durham Mr Nifong is NOT the only guilty official in Durham! It amazes me how much attention the rape hoax received, meanwhile murders go unsolved, and law enforcement and the courts are to blame! It will be 2 years this May that my only brother and best friend was murdered in Durham. The Sheriff's Department and Medical Examiner have been not only abusive and negligent, they have refused to give us information under the FOIA, and after a year was sent one report, and it clearly proves not only shoddy and sloppy work, but murder! Has the world...

The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council will study whether it can restrict access to the list of people with concealed-handgun permits. By Michael Sluss (804) 697-1585 RICHMOND -- A state advisory council will examine the possibility of restricting access to information about Virginians who are licensed to carry concealed handguns, responding to a controversy sparked by The Roanoke Times. The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council on Monday created a subcommittee to study the protection of "personal identifying information." Among other things, the group will consider the merits of allowing public access to a state police database listing the...

IRRESPONSIBILITY It's very unfortunate for gun owners that the Roanoke Times (RT) has acted so irresponsibly with respect to the CHP holder list. The RT's reckless actions have endangered lives, as there are people on that CHP list who are under threat from violent ex-spouses or from criminals they have helped put in jail. I have been returning calls from concerned gun owners and the stories are heartbreaking and intense. One woman's mother wakens at the slightest sound in the middle of the night and she calls the police and her daughter. She is living in constant fear that the...

First Amendment rights collided with Second Amendment rights in the recent brouhaha. Open records on gun permits It didn't take long for Sunshine Week to turn stormy. At 9:15 last Sunday morning, just a few hours after The Roanoke Times was dropped on doorsteps and shoved into paper boxes across the region, Scot Shippee fired the first shot in what would become the newspaper's biggest Internet controversy. In an online discussion forum, Shippee blasted the paper for posting on its Web site a database that included the names and addresses of everyone in Virginia licensed to carry a concealed handgun....

The panel is expected to form a work group to examine whether the General Assembly should restrict public access to concealed handgun information. By Laurence Hammack 981-3239 A state senator who heads an open records council is calling for a study of whether the identities of Virginians who have permits to carry concealed handguns should remain public. Sen. Edd Houck, a Spotsylvania County Democrat who chairs the state's Freedom of Information Council, made the request in the wake of controversy generated by The Roanoke Times. Earlier this week, the newspaper published and then pulled from its Web site a database...

I am starting to get more intel on the Fredericksburg Freelance-Star. Turns out they have four radio stations in the area and even a phone book business. Oh, and FLS's radio stations have some competition from a local AM station. ;-) The AM station isn't aiding criminals and endangering the lives of law-abiding permit holders. This is getting better all the time. VCDL will have a booth at the Fredericksburg gun show this weekend - stop by and say hello. **Also let me know if you would be interested in helping VCDL picket the Freelance-Star's customers.** Here is another story...

BILL BOLLING TIMES-DISPATCH GUEST COLUMNIST Today marks the beginning of one of the most important, yet underappreciated, weeks of the year: Sunshine Week. While issues such as transportation, health care, and education rightfully grab headlines 51 weeks of the year, public knowledge and understanding of these issues would not be possible without open government and freedom of information. Our Founding Fathers understood that only an open government could effectively meet the needs of those it governed. However, as Virginia's population grew, so did the size of government, which made it more difficult to maintain transparency in government agencies, the elections...

NEW YORK Though laws in every state say government records and meetings must be open to all, reality often falls far short: Laws are sporadically enforced, penalties for failure to comply are mild and violators almost always walk away with nothing more than a reprimand, an Associated Press survey of all 50 states has found. Even in the handful of states that monitor such cases, when citizens appeal over lack of access to information, the government usually wins - and keeps public business secret. Why does it matter? Advocates for open government say public trust is at the heart of...

Social Security Agreement with Mexico Released After 3-1/2 Year Freedom of Information Act Battle January 4, 2007 (Washington, DC) – After numerous refusals over three and a half years, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has released the first known public copy of the U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement. The government made the disclosure in response to lawsuits filed under the Freedom of Information Act by TREA Senior Citizens League, a 1.2 million member nonpartisan seniors advocacy group. The Totalization Agreement could allow millions of illegal Mexican workers to draw billions of dollars from the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered the Secret Service to produce – or at least identify – two years of log entries of visitors to Vice President Dick Cheney's White House office and residence by the end of this week. U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina also ordered the release of visitor logs for 12 of Cheney's senior staff members, including former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was indicted on multiple charges related to the investigation into the identification of former undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. In a 25-page written opinion, Urbina granted a preliminary injunction Thursday...

The Department of Transportation, acting through a Security and Prosperity Partnership "working group," is preparing in 2007 to issue North American biometric border passes to Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. "trusted travelers" according to documents released to WND columnist and author Jerome R. Corsi under a Freedom of Information Act request. "The FOIA documents show the organizational chart and the composition of a 'shadow Department of Transportation' which includes formal membership from Mexico and Canada's Departments of Transportation," asserts Corsi. "SPP has in effect created a fully-functioning trilateral Department of Transportation which will dictate policy to Mary Peters as soon as...

U.S. Government Working Groups & Business Leaders Seek to “Harmonize” Regulations with Canada and Mexico (Washington, DC) -- Judicial Watch, the public interest organization that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law, today released records obtained under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce concerning the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.” On March 23, 2005, heads of government Vincente Fox, George W. Bush, and Paul Martin launched the North American partnership at a meeting in Waco, Texas, with the expressed goal...

Perhaps the most important story of the 21th century is happening away from the public eye. The first-step plan implementation is the Trans-Texas Corridor(TTC), a super highway slated to begin construction in 2007. On September 30, in a kickoff protest across 70-77 counties, many Texans will step into the sunlight, make their way to their county seats and lay a "cupful of soil" from their land on the courthouse steps. "Hands Across the Corridor" is their cry. (indytexans.org) Also, Waller County citizens will caravan to the home of the cannon symbol in Gonzales, TX, long known as the "Lexington" of...

<p>CARACAS, Venezuela -- The Associated Press filed a request under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act last year seeking documents from the U.S. Agency for International Development detailing its funding of non-governmental organizations in Venezuela.</p> <p>The AP sought USAID contracts for grants to groups in Venezuela since January 2004. About nine months after the AP's request, USAID released 132 grant contracts, totaling some 1,600 pages, for 2004 and 2005.</p>

If there is one message that the small group of Washington, D.C. interns can carry with them after leaving the “How to Fight Corruption in Washington” seminar at Judicial Watch, it is that “no one is above the law!” The adamant slogan of the conservative, non-partisan educational foundation for government accountability was the central theme of the July 20 event exclusively for interns, which featured Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, Director of Litigation Paul Orfanedes and Director of Investigations and Research Chris Farrell. This educational program highlighted “the value of independent watchdog groups in the pursuit of transparency and accountability...

There are two misconceptions held by many Americans. The first is that communism ceased to be a threat when the Soviet Union imploded. The second is that the New Left of the Sixties collapsed and disappeared as well. “The Sixties are dead,” wrote columnist George Will (Slamming the Doors, Newsweek, Mar. 25, 1991) Because the New Left lacked cohesion it fell apart as a political movement. However, its revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace’ activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and ‘gay’ rights groups....

While visiting relatives in Davie over the holiday, I read Jimmy Carter's July 4 Other Views column, Our nation needs fewer secrets, about the Freedom Of Information Act. The U.S. government is the most transparent on the planet -- by light years. Carter's accolades for some of the most oppressive regimes is pure wishful thinking and blind assertion. As someone who spent a military career in service to my country for four years under his tenure, I am insulted and infuriated by his self-serving claims of his exploits on behalf of tin-horn governments. All the while he exposed military secrets...

After missing a deadline, the U.S. Department of Commerce finally has granted a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain complete disclosure of a congressionally unauthorized plan to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that critics say could lead to a EU-style alliance in North America. The plan is being implemented through an office within the Department of Commerce called the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," under the direction of Geri Word, who is listed as working in the agency's North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, office.As WorldNetDaily previously reported, the White House has established...

I am going to submit a request to the CIA Inspector General under the Freedom of Information Act on Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. If there is information already in the public domain on these subjects, I would appreciate you notifying me of the source. I will request: All written information on the official purpose of the mission of Joseph Wilson to Niger, who recommended it, who requested it, who signed off on it, who approved it. All information on the security classification of the mission, the type of final report required, restrictions on release of the information to any...

From August 1996 until October 1997, the FBI prefaced nearly every Flight 800 news update with the assertion that its agents were intensively scrutinizing the evidence to determine whether the initial explosion was a bomb, a missile or the result of a mechanical failure, specifically in the fuel tank. Six years of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI has now established that the most precise characterization of the explosion was provided by the victims themselves. Because the reports of many witnesses described a missile-like object rising from the surface, the FBI swarmed to Long Island and took...

The Able Danger blog has news from a FOIA request filed by Scott Malone of NavySeals.com and Christopher Law of PublicEdCenter.org that has produced an interesting response from the Pentagon. When they demanded the release of all information regarding the Able Danger project, the DoD rejected the request after a bit of bureaucratic misdirection. However, they acknowledged the existence of over 9500 pages of documentation -- apparently the same paperwork that they told Congress no longer existed: "In two possibly related developments in the past week, the Pentagon denied access to almost 10,000 pages of classified documents relating to a...

Six groups, including the Anaheim-based Council on American Islamic Relations in Southern California, filed a Freedom of Information Act request Monday asking about suspected law enforcement monitoring of Islamic religious institutions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed the request on behalf of CAIR, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, area mosques and six leaders in the Muslim community. Four from Orange County include: Muzammil Siddiqi, imam of the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove. Hussam Ayloush, executive director at CAIR. Sabiha Khan, CAIR spokeswoman. Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of...

Lloyd Chapman, President of the American Small Business League, has filed suit in Federal court against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in order to obtain the names of firms to which NASA has awarded small business contracts. Efforts by Chapman to obtain the information through FOIA were largely ignored by NASA personnel—no written response was ever received—however, NASA did acknowledge receipt of the requests by telephone. “I believe NASA is falsifying their small business reports to Congress and I believe that they are allowing their contractors to falsify their small business reports....

The release of the names of over 500 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, after the Department of Defense complied with a Freedom of Information Act request by the Associated Press was ordered by a federal judge, is yet another blow to American intelligence efforts. In essence, the Department of Defense 's efforts to protect the families of detainees, who cooperate, from retaliation, has been set back. In addition to that, as the names get named, it will become much easier for al Qaeda to figure out what the United States probably knows, giving the terrorist organization a huge counter-intelligence coup. In...

New Hampshire’s Ag Committee is attempting to clamp down on people’s right to know what the government is up to with HB 1316 which exempts NAIS from right to know laws like the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “This bill exempts records of the National Animal Identification System from the right-to-know law in the event such system is established in New Hampshire.”While on the one hand big producers might cheer saying that this protects their NAIS records from competitors, realize that this is a horribly dangerous precedence. If we are unable to know what the government is doing then...

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2006 – DoD has released 317 "unredacted" records on detainees being held at the U.S. facility in U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The records, containing about 5,000 pages, are being released as part of an Associated Press Freedom of Information Act litigation decided in late January. A federal judge in New York ordered DoD release records of combatant status review tribunals and administrative review board summaries to the Associated Press by March 3. Those documents were originally provided to AP, but with names and identifying information redacted for privacy reasons, as part of a Freedom of...

A federal judge dealt a setback to the Bush administration on its warrantless surveillance program, ordering the Justice Department on Thursday to release documents about the highly classified effort within 20 days or compile a list of what it is withholding. U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy said a private group will suffer irreparable harm if the documents it has been seeking since December are not processed promptly under the Freedom of Information Act. The Justice Department failed to meet the time restraints under FOIA and failed to make a case that it was impractical to deal quickly with the request...

Starting today, researchers can request any of the millions of records on Bill Clinton's presidency. Jan. 20 marks the fifth anniversary of Clinton's exit from office and is the day the Clinton Presidential Library's records are open to Freedom of Information Act requests. Archivists at the library expect to receive many requests to see some of the 80 million pages of documents stored in the archives. But library director David Alsobrook warns researchers requests may take months or years. Some of the documents will not be open for requests because of privacy and national security reasons. But under the Presidential...