Tag: foia

U.S. Government Monitoring Pregnant Moms’ Social Media Posts

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) premier law enforcement agency monitors expecting parents’ online posts about their pregnancy and reproductive health issues, according to internal emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the online privacy activist group, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

The U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), the DHS agency that conducts criminal investigations and enforces U.S. immigration laws, is one of a handful of government agencies that use a software tracking tool called SocialNet.

SocialNet pulls citizens’ online data from a host of websites, including BabyCenter, a reference and pregnancy tracking site where new and expecting parents can post information about their health and pregnancy experiences.

Eva Galperin — cybersecurity director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a leading nonprofit defending civil liberties in the digital world — said the revelation is “concerning.”

“When people post about their pregnancies to BabyCenter, they’re usually doing it without the expectation that ICE or the local police are checking up on the status of their pregnancy,” Galperin told The Defender.

“ICE could potentially be reading information about your reproductive health and about your pregnancy or your children,” she said, adding that this is particularly concerning due to the current political climate surrounding pregnancy and abortion.

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US F-22 Raptor ‘Shot Down’ A UFO & Not A Chinese Spy Balloon Over Northern Canada In Feb – Reports

In an unexpected twist, a new report suggests that an object initially believed to be a Chinese balloon, downed by an F-22 fighter jet in February over the Yukon territory in northern Canada, may belong to the category of ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’ or ‘UAP.’ 

The UAP is the official term used for what is more commonly referred to as “unidentified flying objects” or “UFOs.” In the last few months, the Pentagon and American lawmakers have accelerated their investigations into what they call ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’ or ‘UAP. 

On September 6, CTV News, based in Canada, reported that in February, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received a classified memo on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).” 

Based on information obtained through a freedom of information request, the report revealed that an unidentified object was detected and shot down over northern Canada’s Yukon Territory on February 11.

The incident occurred shortly after an F-22 aircraft downed a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on February 4. 

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U.S. Navy Confirms They Have Visuals of “Near Misses” With UAP; All Remain Classified

In the 2021 UAP report published by ODNI, there were 11 “near misses” that were referenced. The Black Vault filed numerous cases to get these in 2021, as at that time, nothing was known about them.

The case files of the 11 “near misses” were eventually released and listed as the Range Fouler reports (see: Range Fouler Debrief Forms and Reports)

But one of the cases filed by The Black Vault also went after the photos/videos related to those 11 cases.

That Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) was denied, as a review by the FOIA office (also The Black Vault’s request) showed that the requested visual(s) were 100% classified across the board.

So, the MDR was denied based on that review. It is unclear if all 11 had imagery, or just 1. Regardless, these would definitely provide a close-up look at the encounters, if they are ever released.

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NASA UAP / UFO Related Internal Communications

According to NASA, “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is responsible for unique scientific and technological achievements in human spaceflight, aeronautics, space science, and space applications that have had widespread impacts on our nation and the world. Forged in response to early Soviet space achievements, NASA was built on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and other government organizations, as the locus of U.S. civil aerospace research and development.”

The following is a large archive of internal NASA related UAP / UFO communications, consisting primarily of e-mails, along with their attachments.

The cases are broken down below, along with links to the documents released.

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Tracking Orwellian Change – The Aristocratic Takeover of ‘Transparency’

“Transparency” was one of America’s great postwar reforms. In 1955, a Democratic congressman named John Moss from California — who served in the Navy in World War II, was nominated for office by both Democrats and Republicans, and was never defeated in any election for public office — introduced legislation that would become one of the great triumphs of late-stage American democracy.

The Freedom of Information Act took a tortuous path to becoming law, opposed from the start by nearly every major government agency and for years struggling to gain co-sponsors despite broad public support.

In a supreme irony, one of Moss’s first Republican allies was a young Illinois congressman named Donald Rumsfeld. After a series of final tweaks it eventually passed the House 307-0 in 1966, when it landed on the desk of Lyndon Johnson, who didn’t like the bill, either. Johnson signed it, but decided not to hold a public ceremony, electing instead to issue a public statement crafted by none other than Bill Moyers, which concluded, “I signed this measure with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society.”

The Freedom of Information Act gave reporters and citizens alike extraordinary power to investigate once-impenetrable executive agencies that conduct the business of government. FOIA requests gave windows into the affairs of the Hoover-led FBI, the Iran-Contra scandal, and the “Afghan logs” story made public after a bitter fight put up by the National Security Archive and the Washington Post. The irony alert here was this last FOIA lawsuit ultimately revealed behaviors unflattering to none other than Donald Rumsfeld.

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New MKULTRA Files Reveal Terrifying Experiments On Black Americans

In a groundbreaking investigation, renowned anthropologist Orisanmi Burton has blown the lid off a dark chapter in CIA history. Classified Agency files, recently obtained through Freedom of Information laws, expose shocking ties between the infamous MKULTRA program and nightmarish experiments on prisoners of color within the United States.

Burton’s findings expose MKULTRA’s sinister mission to develop psychological warfare and behavioral manipulation tactics specifically aimed at people of color under the guise of “counterinsurgency.” Unbelievably, these barbaric trials were conducted during a turbulent era when numerous U.S. government agencies relentlessly sought to crush the civil rights movement, and prisons brimmed with political radicalism.

This disturbing revelation puts the CIA’s actions into sharp focus, revealing a ruthless bid to quell Black resistance both on the streets and behind bars. But it doesn’t stop there. Burton’s disclosures raise urgent and profound questions about the far-reaching impact of these operations—both in the past and, unsettlingly, even today.

Among the most haunting questions is whether the Agency actively pursued a race-specific mind control weapon—an idea that strikes at the very core of ethical and moral boundaries.

As the nation grapples with this revelation, one thing is certain: Burton’s exposé demands answers and accountability for the harrowing atrocities committed in the name of national security. The truth must be unveiled, and justice served for those who suffered under the relentless grip of MKULTRA’s clandestine horrors.

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Investigating The Pro-Censorship UK Group Expanding Across The US

America First Legal (AFL) have announced its investigation into a UK-based group known as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

AFL, a non-profit often described as “an alternative to ACLU,” is starting the probe into CCDH – which it refers to as a pro-censorship group that is a party to anti-free speech collusion with the government – by filing several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

We obtained an example of one of the FOIAs for you here.

They are addressed to the US Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of State, and the goal is to obtain any communications they may have had with CCDH, headed by Imran Ahmed.

The basis for looking into the group’s activities in the US is that although based in the UK, it has expanded its “censorship encouraging,” as AFL put it, work to the US as a 501(c) non-profit.

As far as CCDH is concerned, the group is a non-profit and an NGO (non-governmental organization) with nothing but noble intentions – fighting online hate and disinformation.

Ahmed’s professional profile gives a good idea of what exactly CCDH means by that. As per the organization itself, Ahmed is an “authority on social and psychological malignancies on social media, such as identity-based hate, extremism, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.”

As is often the case with those that like to add a layer of opaqueness to their work, “the organization of the organization” here is rather complicated: there are ties with top Labour Party officials, the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a “merger” with another online disinformation crusader called Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN).

Naturally, Covid lockdown opponents were a prominent target, but when it comes specifically to the US, CCDH put not only those critics based in that country, but also Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in its crosshairs, as deplatforming targets.

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‘Accidental’ death of Rolling Stones guitarist called into question by witness statement

After Brian Jones was found dead in his swimming pool in 1969, the authorities quickly decided that the Rolling Stones star had drowned accidentally.

But questions have lingered over the case in the years since, and now a previously unseen witness statement has cast renewed doubt on the police investigation.

Jones was found dead at his home in Hartfield, East Sussex on July 2 1969, just a few weeks after it was announced he was leaving the Rolling Stones. He was 27 years old.

Five days later, the coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure, saying Jones drowned “whilst under the influence of alcohol and drugs”.

Two weeks after Jones died, Joan Fitzsimons, 29, was brutally attacked. A local cab driver, she had been at Jones’s house on the night he died and was a girlfriend of Frank Thorogood, a builder-cum-minder for Jones who was allegedly a suspect in the fatal drowning.

Before the attack, she had told friends in a pub that she was planning on telling the true story of Jones’s death to the national newspapers.

In the witness statement, given to officers investigating the assault on Fitzsimons, her brother, John Russell, described how she was “frightened” of Thorogood and that she believed there was more to Jones’s death than the official verdict.

Sussex Police denied there was any link between the attack on Fitzsimons and Jones’s death.

Just before 10pm on July 26 1969, Fitzsimons was found unconscious in the back of her lime-green Ford Zephyr, four miles outside Chichester, blinded in both eyes, with a fractured skull and three of her front teeth missing.

The statement that Russell gave to Sussex Police on July 30 1969 was placed inside the National Archives, with an order that it remain closed until 2041, but has now been released under a Freedom of Information request.

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Secret Service declines to honor records request for White House cocaine docs

The U.S. Secret Service on Tuesday declined to honor a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for communications related to its investigation of the cocaine found at the White House, saying that to release those materials would compromise the investigation.

Bloomberg investigative reporter Jason Leopold posted the response from the Secret Service to his request, in which the agency stated that “disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”

The rest of the letter outlined Leopold’s options to challenge that determination but offered no other explanation for the agency’s refusal.

Reports emerged last week that cocaine had been discovered at the White House. Both preliminary testing and subsequent tests have confirmed the white powder to be cocaine. The discovery sparked an evacuation of the premises and has led to intense media scrutiny of the affair.

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Why does the government keep obstructing UFO transparency efforts?

It’s been nearly 27 years since I submitted my first Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA , request on UFOs . I was 15 years old at the time. That request unearthed a four-page Defense Intelligence Agency document detailing a 1976 event in which multiple UFOs shut off the communications and instrumentation panels of two separate Iranian F-4 Phantom jets. The advanced capabilities of these UFOs sparked my interest, and through the FOIA, I quickly discovered the incident was not an isolated one. I learned that there was much more to discover within official files.

My website, The Black Vault , showcases thousands of UFO files I’ve received from the government. The documents, overall, hint at a mysterious phenomenon the U.S. military and government have struggled to identify adequately for decades. Indeed, they appear to have often kept the public in the dark using various tactics to block legally or at least severely prohibit accessing some of these records that date back to the 1940s.

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