IMPEACHMENT NOW! Before they close the records....
tejek,
Tar Bush & Oil Slick Dick know that the lies are catching up to them. So what to do? Close the record, hide the truth and cover-up....
gwu.edu
For Immediate Release:
June 11, 2003
For more information contact:
Tom Blanton 202/994-7000
Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000
SPY AGENCIES ABUSE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION EXEMPTIONS,
BUT CONGRESS MAY GRANT NEW ONE TO INTERCEPTS AGENCY
Proposed FOIA Exemption Would Provide National Security Agency With Virtually Unchecked Power to Keep Records Secret
Washington, D.C., June 11, 2003 - The Congress is poised to give the National Security Agency a free pass from complying with the Freedom of Information Act for any NSA "operational" files, even though NSA has failed to demonstrate a need for the exemption and the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office are abusing similar provisions previously granted by Congress.
The proposed FY 2004 Defense and Intelligence Authorization Acts pending in Congress each include a provision that would, for the first time in the Freedom of Information Act's (FOIA) 37-year history, exempt the operational files of the National Security Agency from the FOIA. These proposed new FOIA exemptions have moved through the legislative process with little inquiry into whether they are needed and with little concern about the three different explanations that have been offered by the National Security Agency to three different audiences. See NSA's Three Justifications.
gwu.edu
The ease with which the proposal has passed through the congressional committees is due in large part to the fact that three other intelligence agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), already have similar exemptions from the FOIA. Yet the NSA proposal is potentially broader in both its purpose and its application. See Side By Side Comparison of Operational File Exemptions; May 16, 2003 Letter to NSA General Counsel.
More troubling still, in recent months both the CIA and the NRO have applied their FOIA exemptions well beyond the bounds that were authorized by Congress. The rationale for the exemptions is that so-called operational files - which, in the case of the NRO, are limited to records that describe scientific and technical means of surveillance - include information that would not ever be releasable under the FOIA. With no consideration for these limitations, the NRO has refused to search for records that were released with only partial redaction in 1992 to an FOIA requester and that discuss a wide range of historical and organizational matters:
<CONTINUES..........> |
