Tag: foia

Federal Judge Rules Inmate Death Records Can Remain Secret Because They Could Embarrass Prison Officials

In response to a public records lawsuit filed by the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason, a federal judge has ruled the U.S. government can hide findings about whether people who died in federal prison received adequate medical care, partly out of fear that those records could be used to criticize prison officials.

U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Christopher R. Cooper issued an opinion in August that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was largely not required to disclose redacted information from mortality reviews of in-custody deaths in two federal women’s prisons that have been the subject of numerous accusations of medical neglect.

In addition to finding that the mortality reviews were part of the BOP’s decision-making process, Cooper wrote that the BOP had successfully demonstrated that releasing the records would result in foreseeable harm to the agency. The judge wrote that a declaration from a BOP official credibly established that the mortality reviews could be used to “criticize” or “ridicule” the agency. 

“And, as described above, she notes that the members of the Mortality Review Committee would be ‘deter[red] . . . from acknowledging mistakes’ if they feared those mistakes would be publicized,” Cooper continued.

Reason Foundation, represented by the law office of Deborah Golden, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit last year against the BOP seeking mortality reviews of in-custody deaths at FCI Aliceville, a federal women’s prison in Alabama, and FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Texas that is the only medical center for incarcerated women in the BOP system.

Whenever a federal inmate dies, a committee reviews the circumstances and whether BOP policies were violated. The committee then gives recommendations on how care could have been improved. That information could reveal whether the BOP is aware of medical neglect within its walls and how bad the problem is.

Reason reported in 2020 on allegations of fatal medical neglect inside FCI Aliceville. Numerous current and former inmates, as well as their families, said in interviews, desperate letters, and lawsuits that women inside FCI Aliceville faced disastrous delays in health care. They described monthslong waits for doctor appointments and routine procedures, skepticism and retaliation from staff, and terrible pain and fear.

Seeking to learn more, Reason filed a FOIA request in May 2020 for inmate mortality reviews at FCI Aliceville, as well as FMC Carswell. 

When the BOP finally released mortality reviews from FMC Carswell three years later, it redacted any information that would indicate if there was substandard care, such as the review committee’s findings on the timeliness and appropriateness of care; problems encountered during the medical emergency; whether there was adequate documentation in the patient’s medical files; and whether the patient received appropriate care per the BOP’s policies.

The BOP withheld that information under exemption b(5) of the FOIA, which protects “predecisional” or deliberative communications between officials. The National Security Archive dubbed it the “withhold it because you want to” exemption.

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FOIA Files: How Academics Identified “Misinformation” Around COVID-19

Last month, Racket received a new series of disclosures from the University of Washington. This latest production clocks in at 836 pages, and it’s almost too dense to adequately summarize here. For that reason, we’ve divided the revelations into three categories: (1) communications that broadly concern UW’s crusade against “misinformation” and “disinformation,” (2) communications that concern UW’s relationships with government actors, and (3) communications that concern UW’s analysis of data from social media platforms. The most pertinent communications are summarized in this article. As usual, you can read the unabridged documents in the Racket FOIA Library.

Most of the emails regarding “misinformation” and “disinformation” pertain to COVID-19. On March 20, 2020, just days after states had started implementing lockdown orders, UW professor Jevin West emailed his peers an update on the school’s Center for an Informed Public. According to West, the CIP had put together a collection of 100 million COVID-related tweets, with much of the Center’s research centered around social media companies’ efforts to combat COVID “misinformation.” West credits co-author and biology professor Carl Bergstrom with popularizing the “flattening the curve” strategy in venues like the World Economic Forum.

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The Military Tried To Hide Evidence of a Massacre. A Lawsuit Just Exposed It.

The Haditha massacre was one of the worst U.S. actions during the Iraq War. After a roadside bomb killed a Marine in the town of Haditha in November 2005, the rest of his squad shot dead 24 unarmed Iraqi men, women, and children, many of them inside their own homes. The Marine Corps then lied about it, claiming that the victims were all killed by the bomb or by running gun battles with insurgents.

Only dogged reporting by Time Magazine forced the military to open an investigation. No one was ever jailed for the killings or the coverup. Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the commander of the squad, pleaded guilty to one count of dereliction of duty and was demoted.

The military avoided a public relations disaster, Gen. Michael Hagee would later brag, because graphic photos of the massacre were never published. Until now.

In the Dark, a true crime podcast published by The New Yorker, dedicated its latest season to re-investigating the Haditha massacre. The producers filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the U.S. military’s files on the incident, then sued when the military refused to hand them over.

Officials claimed they were withholding photos of the massacre out of respect for the victims’ families. Two survivors, Khalid Salman Raseef and Khalid Jamal, then went around Haditha collecting signatures for a petition to release the photos. They won the support of 17 relatives of the victims.

The military gave in. On Tuesday, with permission from the survivors, The New Yorker published several unredacted crime scene photos taken by investigators and by Lance Cpl. Ryan Briones and Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, two Marines who arrived shortly after the massacre.

The FOIA files also included a recording of a 2014 interview between Hagee and a Marine Corps historian, meant for internal use. The massacre “could have been horrific for the Marine Corps if we did not handle that correctly. Another My Lai. Or another Abu Ghraib,” Hagee claims, referring to the My Lai massacre, which helped turn American opinion against the Vietnam War, and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where U.S. soldiers and CIA officers were photographed torturing and sexually assaulting inmates.

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FBI Will “Neither Confirm Nor Deny” The Existence Of Bitcoin-Creator Satoshi’s Records

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reportedly responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from a journalist implying that Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto was a “third party individual” for whom it could neither confirm nor deny it had records.

According to an Aug. 13 X post by investigative journalist Dave Troy, the FBI issued a “Glomar response” to his request for information on Satoshi —- neither confirming nor denying the law enforcement agency had records identifying the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator.

Troy said he intended to appeal the FOIA response but claimed the FBI had made an “interesting assertion” by implying Satoshi was a “third party individual.”

“I submitted as a broad general subject request, with full context, so it is the bureau and not me that is asserting that this is an individual,” said Troy. “[M]y intent is not to establish the identity behind the pseudonym, but rather to get what info the bureau may have on the subject. If that helps establish identity somehow, fine, but that’s not my primary question.”

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Tapes confirm The Dossier’s reporting on President Biden’s Las Vegas medical emergency that preceded his departure from Dem nomination

Thanks to the great FOIA work of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, we now have the audio tapes that confirm The Dossier’s exclusive reporting on President Biden’s undisclosed medical emergency that took place during his July 15-17 trip to Las Vegas, Nevada.

The audio from the Las Vegas Metro Police Department’s protective detail for President Biden on July 17 provides stunning detail about the mystery incident, which occurred that afternoon following a campaign stop at a Mexican restaurant.

Jennifer Van Laar, who also reported on the incident, verifying with independent police sources (shortly after The Dossier published our report), published the tapes over at Red State.

“For everyone on the radio, right now POTUS is 421 . He's being seen so we're just kinda waiting to see how this is shaping out,” one of the dispatchers said over police radio. “So, for everybody's knowledge, he's 421 right now. We're just trying to figure out what's going on, and we're gonna go from there.”

Another dispatcher announced over the police radio that “Secret Service is requesting a code 3 response.”

In emergency response terminology, code 3 indicates a critical and urgent situation requiring an immediate response and the use of lights and sirens.

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Unreleased FBI Documents Shed Light on Lt. Col. Philip Corso’s Controversial Claims

The FBI has released a collection of documents pertaining to Lt. Col. Philip J. Corso, a prominent figure in the UFO community known for his claims about recovered alien technology. These documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by The Black Vault in 2019, reveal Corso’s interactions with the FBI and other government entities, many of which appear to be previously unreleased.

Corso, who served in the U.S. Army for over twenty years primarily in intelligence roles, gained notoriety with the publication of his book, The Day After Roswell. In it, Corso claimed he had direct knowledge about the recovery and analysis of extraterrestrial technology from the Roswell incident, which he alleged was reverse-engineered to advance American technology. Despite his fame in the UFO community, the newly released FBI files focus on his broader interactions with the government but make no mention of his UFO stories.

What a portion of these documents do deal with is a 1964-1965 request to perform a name check on Corso. A name check is a thorough search conducted by the FBI to investigate an individual’s background, ensuring there are no red flags or derogatory information that might affect their suitability for certain roles or positions. This process is particularly crucial for individuals being considered for sensitive government positions or committee memberships.

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Utah Attorney Catches FBI Deception In OKC Bomb Records Case

Last month, the Justice Department asked a judge to pause a lawsuit seeking records about the FBI’s involvement with the Oklahoma City bombing. But in doing so, the DOJ and the FBI made statements so misleading they merit sanctions, according to the plaintiff in that case, Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue.

The deception spotted by Trentadue stems from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit he filed against the FBI in February, seeking records about Roger Edwin Moore, who was a CIA asset, an FBI informant and a business associate to OKC bomber Tim McVeigh; as well as for records about the Aryan Republican Army, a neo-Nazi bank-robbery gang also involved in the attack.

Trentadue filed the lawsuit after waiting nine years for the FBI to process his FOIA request for those records. Despite that long wait, the FBI then asked a federal judge for another nearly 12 years to release the records he seeks.

Then, last month the bureau represented to a federal judge that many of the records Trentadue wants are already on the FBI’s website. But according to Trentadue, that’s a lie.

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ODNI Issues Rare GLOMAR Response to FOIA Request on Five Eyes Alliance UAP-Related Emails

In a recent FOIA release profiled on The Black Vault, researcher Grant Lavac discovered an email referencing the UAP Caucus Working Group. Within this email, a long list of redactions hid every recipient of the message, except one: Brian D. Fishpaugh. This revelation prompted a targeted FOIA request by The Black Vault aimed at uncovering any potential communication related to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) within Fishpaugh’s email records.

Fishpaugh, who serves as the Deputy National Intelligence Manager for Aviation (NIM-A) within the ODNI, became the focal point of FOIA case DF-2024-00285. The request, filed on June 18, 2024, by The Black Vault, sought emails from Fishpaugh’s inbox that contained various UAP and UFO related keywords, along with those mentioning named individuals (which included alleged “UFO whistleblowers”) connected to the topic.

The objective was to uncover any communication that could shed light on the collaboration and research efforts within the Five Eyes alliance regarding UAPs, or the UAP issue as a whole.

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FBI File: Bacteriological Warfare

This FBI file relates to bacteriological warfare. It contains investigative information gathered over several decades. Significant portions of the file have been redacted or entirely withheld due to security or privacy concerns, using exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Reports detail the use of bacteriological weapons in the Korean War, allegedly by U.S. forces, as claimed by various organizations in China and North Korea. Chinese trade unions and women’s organizations made appeals to international bodies to denounce and act against these actions .

Some sections include accounts of individuals suspected of being involved in subversive activities or espionage. For instance, John T. Brady alleged bacteriological warfare conducted in Illinois, raising concerns about potential German agents during World War II. Further investigation found Brady had a neurotic obsession with disease and that his claims were largely unfounded .

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Watchdog sues Treasury Dept. for records on foreign purchases of US farmland

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit has been filed by the watchdog Judicial Watch against the Department of Treasury for records of communication between the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the purchase of US farmland by foreign entities.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the Treasury Department failed to respond to an April 10, 2024, FOIA request for:

  • Any and all records of communications between the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture concerning, regarding, or relating to the purchase of U.S. agricultural real estate by foreign entities.  

On January 19, 2024, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report which found significant gaps in information collection and timely information sharing between the Committee on Foreign Investment and other government agencies, including the USDA, concerning foreign investment in U.S. agricultural land.

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