Free Republic

'We should ... set up a stand-alone PC in the Secretary's office, connected to the internet (but not through our system) to enable her to check her emails from her desk' (Washington, DC) - Judicial Watch announced today that it recently received records from the Department of State disclosing plans by senior State Department officials to set up a "stand-alone PC" so that Clinton could check her emails in an office "across the hall" through a separate, non-State Department computer network system. Referencing the special Clinton computer system, Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, writes Clinton Chief of...

The Justice Department was sued Wednesday by a privacy group seeking information on the FBI recruitment of Best Buy employees to search consumer computers for child pornography during repairs — a practice that came to light in court documents in a recent case in Santa Ana, California. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Trump administration’s Justice Department, demanding access to records about any FBI training and payment to Geek Squad workers to search customer computers without a court warrant. At issue isn’t the criminality of child pornography or efforts to stop the...

JW Seeks Docs on Obama White House Spying Scandal Mueller Helped Purge Anti-Terrorism Training Material Offensive to Muslims The Seth Rich Controversy Honoring the Fallen Warriors on Memorial Day JW Seeks Docs on Obama White House Spying Scandal With the news this week of the unprecedented spying on Americans by the National Security Agency under President Obama’s direction, it has become even more critical that we get to the truth about any Obama administration surveillance of Donald Trump and his campaign and the subsequent illegal leaking of classified information in an effort to undermine the Trump administration. We filed...

The U.S. government spends billions of dollars to “resettle” foreign nationals and transparency on how the money is spent depends on the agency involved. Judicial Watch has been investigating it for years, specifically the huge amount of taxpayer dollars that go to “voluntary agencies”, known as VOLAGs, to provide a wide range of services for the new arrivals. Throughout the ongoing probe Judicial Watch has found a striking difference on how government lawyers use an exemption, officially known as (b)(4), to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to withhold records. All the cases involve public funds being used to resettle...

Obama Final Travel Tally: Nearly $100 Million JW Sues for FBI Records –and Payments – Relating to ‘Trump Dossier’ Government Yanks Report Blasting DHS for Catching Less than 1% of Visa Overstays We Probe Obama White House Influence Over FCC Attempt to Regulate Internet Obama Final Travel Tally: Nearly $100 Million There may be no better way to keep on eye on our leaders’ penchant for pretending to royalty than to tally the cost of their travel and accommodations. Our nation has granted its presidents exquisite transport because we need for our leaders to be efficient and safe. However,...

Note: I know this article is a little older, but it is breaking news because of the new developments going on in his case. The Federal Judge, that is very strict against Pro Se filers that don't have an Attorney, has granted Brian's requests in his complaint and seems to be working towards Brian possibly being able to prove in Federal Court that the U.S. Attorney Office has engaged in possibly criminal behavior of obstruction of justice.WASHINGTON - April 27, 2017 - PRLog -- Brian D. Hill, formerly of USWGO Alternative News, has decided to sue the U.S. Department of...

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is suing the Justice Department for emails that could reveal what former acting Attorney General Sally Yates knew about alleged connections between Russia and the Trump administration. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit Friday under the Freedom of Information Act, Politico reported, when Yates already was scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate on alleged connections between President Donald Trump’s campaign and transition team and Russia.

Judicial Watch today announced a court hearing will be held on Monday, May 1, 2017, regarding Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking emails “relating to official United States Government business sent to or from” former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and three other top Homeland Security officials who used “non-‘.gov’” email addresses

Deep State Watch – JW Sues EPA for Records from Encrypted App We Warn 11 States to Clean Voter Registration Lists or Face a Lawsuit JW Sue the ATF for Records on AR-15 Ammo ‘Armor-Piercing’ Ban Gorsuch Confirmation a Victory for Constitutional Government Deep State Watch – JW Sues EPA for Records from Encrypted App The administrative deep state – the legions of unelected, entrenched bureaucrats in Washington – thinks it doesn’t have to answer to an elected president, the rule of law, or the American people. We are now seeking to uncover the truth about the particularly notorious...

Full title: Judicial Watch Sues EPA for Communications Records of Officials Who May Have Used Cell Phone Message Encryption App to Thwart Government Oversight Suit seeks to determine whether officials used software app known as “Signal” to secretly send and receive official messages (Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch today announced it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for communications sent or received by EPA officials who may have used the cell phone encryption application “Signal” to thwart government oversight and transparency. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ( Judicial...

We continue to undercover the details of the Obama IRS’s arbitrary and capricious behavior toward those presumed to be “enemies” of President Obama. Last week we released 695 pages of new documents containing admissions by IRS officials that the agency used “inappropriate political labels” to screen the tax-exempt applications of conservative organizations. Other records reveal that the IRS was going to require 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations to restrict their alleged political activities if they opted for “expedited consideration” of their tax-exempt applications. The documents were produced after a revelation by the IRS that it had located “an additional 6,924 documents of...

Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland bent over backward to protect White House visitor logs from disclosure, transparency advocates say, leading to their concern about his approach to the law. The Obama administration has disclosed some White House visitor records as a matter of policy since 2009, but in 2013 the White House won a major appeals decision from Garland that disclosure is not legally necessary under the Freedom of Information Act.

The FBI has been bad about processing FoIA requests for years now. It’s about time somebody did it, even if it’s the goofy cat-video website Buzzfeed. I’m talking about suing the Federal Bureau of Investigation which is apparently violating federal law by failing to process Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) requests in a timely manner. In this case Buzzfeed wants the FBI file for the late Andrew Breitbart and hasn’t been getting it.

JW Testifies to House Oversight Committee, Visits WH New Clinton Emails Reveal More Mishandling of Classified Information, Favors for Donors Protecting Election Integrity in North Carolina Supreme Court Battle JW Testifies to House Oversight Committee, Visits WH It was my privilege to testify last week on behalf of Judicial Watch before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which was meeting to hear testimony on several bills that would improve government transparency. The complete hearing is available here . You can read all of my prepared remarks here . But let me share with you a few key...

We hear it all the time from politicians: They are finally going to stop the “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government. In states with more corruption, like Pennsylvania, New York, or Illinois, calls to clean up government are frequent as well. The problem is that these promises rarely come to fruition. This week—Sunshine Week—is a perfect time to stop waiting for someone else to fix these problems. Let’s look to citizens, and a push for more open government, to get the job done. As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant of all.

The government watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking all records its has on the June 27, 2016 meeting between President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch in her airplane, a meeting that occurred while the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, a potential national security crime. The airplane meeting took place on the tarmac at the Phoenix Harbor International Airport, several days before Hillary Clinton was interviewed by the FBI. Several months after the gathering, Lynch told the media that...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data that also showed poor performance in other categories measuring transparency in government. For a second consecutive year, the Obama administration set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldn’t find a single page of files that were requested. And it set records for outright denial of access to files,...

An Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data finds the Obama administration in its final year spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act. The Obama administration also set a record -- for a second consecutive year -- for times federal employees told citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldn't find a single page of files that were requested.

The IRS has told a federal court that they've recently identified almost 7,000 more documents that could contain information on how the agency targeted the tax-exempt applications of Tea Party organizations or other conservative political groups starting back in 2010, according to a court document. But IRS in the document would not commit to a timeline for releasing the documents. The revelation of thousands of unreleased documents was made in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that specializes in filing, and in many instances litigating, FOIA requests. For Judicial Watch President...

California Supreme Court Says Emails And Texts on Officials' Private Accounts Are Public RecordsGovernment employees in California cannot keep the public from seeing their work-related emails and texts sent on personal devices and through private accounts, the state's Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday, closing a loophole that justices said could have allowed the "most sensitive and potentially damning" communications to be shielded. With the ruling, California joins a growing list of states that treat public business done through private accounts as public records. "This ruling is a model for giving government transparency laws meaning in the digital age," said Matthew...