Tag: foia

‘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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Intellipedia Off-Limits: NSA’s FOIA About-Face And Its Impact On Transparency

The National Security Agency (NSA) has recently changed its approach to handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to the internal collaborative platform, Intellipedia, which is used to share knowledge across and within the Intelligence Community (IC). Despite having released a long list of articles and category pages that reside within that system for well more than the last decade, the NSA is now issuing what’s known as a “Glomar response” to these requests, a response that refuses to confirm or deny the existence of any relevant documents. This has significant implications for transparency, as Intellipedia has been a valuable resource in the past for understanding the IC’s explorations and interests.

Intellipedia, similar to the concept of Wikipedia, is a system utilized by the IC that allows for the sharing of information among various intelligence agencies. The platform’s pages range from Unclassified to Top Secret, and any affiliate within the IC who obtains an account can create, edit, and update them.

Intellipedia is a project of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Intelligence Community Enterprise Services (ICES) office headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland. The NSA handles all FOIA requests relating to it as it serves as the “executive agent” of Intelink, an internal data sharing and collaboration site in which Intellipedia is a part.

In 2017, after a successful FOIA appeal, The Black Vault discovered that Intellipedia had 50,233 content pages within the Unclassified version; 114,502 content pages in the Secret version; and 124,815 content pages in the Top Secret version; millions of additional pages within those three systems that includes other wiki pages, talk pages, and redirects; and finally, the three systems hold more than 600,000 uploaded files for download. Those statistics have likely increased drastically since they were revealed in 2017.

Those millions of pages and files have now been locked out of even being acknowledged, let alone released by the NSA, even though in the past, a large amount of information from Intellipedia has been released in response to FOIA requests and published by The Black Vault. These previously released documents have provided invaluable insight into the IC’s focus and have offered countless useful leads for subsequent FOIA requests.

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DHS Producing Videos Teaching Citizens How To Identify “Radicalized” Conservatives

America First Legal (AFL) has obtained documents through FOIA request from the Department of Homeland Security which outline a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style video series that DHS intended to release to the public.  The videos were meant to depict different scenarios in which citizens might encounter potentially “radicalized” individuals.  Citizens are then asked to choose what they think should be done about the encounter. 

Most of the scripted scenarios showcase people with conservative beliefs and values as the radicalized threat.  For example, the DHS targeted “suburban Moms” with pro-life beliefs.

The series also targeted “old high school friends” who believe in “conspiracies” as examples of radicalized citizens in need of bystander intervention.

The video scripts, written under the DHS’s Office of Terrorism and Violence Prevention, was part of an internalized memo circulated on January 29th, 2021, only eight days after Joe Biden entered the White House.  The program seems to have been developed in tandem with the “Disinformation Governance Board” which was eventually scrapped due to public opposition.  It reveals an ongoing and disturbing trend within the Federal Government to implement authoritarian measures across the country, first using covid as an excuse, then using the January 6th protests as a rationale.

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The Worst Atrocity in the History of the World Has Been Confirmed

The World Health Organization estimates that (worldwide) there have been 763,740,140 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,908,554 deaths as of April 19, 2023.

This does not include additional components of the excess mortality during the COVIDcrisis being documented by many in western nations, for which scientists and the various governments seems to not know what the causative agent is and no government seems to want to investigate… Although most will agree privately that these deaths are also related to COVID-19 “public health” policies in some way or another. These include deaths from lockdowns (famine, suicide, violence, alcohol and drug abuse), long COVID, vaccine deaths, lack of medical care for cancer and other diseases, etc. All told, the estimate for total deaths from the COVIDcrisis is probably around ten million people or more. Ten million people is a very big number. It is hard to even fathom.

For comparison, the largest natural disaster (excluding famine) of the 20th century was the Chinese Yangtze River Floods in 1931, which killed 3.7 million people both directly and indirectly, with many people dying from poor sanitation and diseases. In 1958, the Chinese Yellow River Flood killed around a million people, although estimates widely vary. Other floods, cyclones, earthquakes all killed countless people. But none did so with as much devastation to human life as was done by the SARS-CoV-2-WIV virus.

But we also know this was not a natural disaster, this disaster was man made.

A list of genocides on Wikipedia shows that there have been no single human atrocities in the history of mankind that have come close to the deaths caused from the COVIDcrisis.

How do we “know this”? Because we have the receipts thanks to Judicial Watch, as well as the Congressional investigations – still ongoing.

This week, Judicial Watch received 552 pages from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). These documents include the initial grant application, biosketches, budgets and annual reports to the NIH from EcoHealth Alliance. They describe the specific aims of the project, which include creating mutant viruses SARS (and MERS viruses) “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”

I spent the afternoon reading these documents and the 552 pages are a gold mine of information. But the specific aim 3 of the contract is particularly important. It reads in full:

Specific Aim 3: Testing predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. We will test our models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments in cell culture and humanized mice. With bat-CoVs that we’ve isolated or sequenced, and using live virus or pseudovirus infection in cells of different origin or expressing different receptor molecules, we will assess potential for each isolated virus and those with receptor binding site sequence, to spill over. We will do this by sequencing the spike (or other receptor binding/fusion) protein genes from all our bat-CoVs, creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use ACE2, CD26/DPP4 (MERS-CoV receptor) or other potential CoV receptors. We will then use receptor-mutant pseudovirus binding assays, in vitro studies in bat, primate, human and other species’ cell lines, and with humanized mice where particularly interesting viruses are identified phylogenetically, or isolated. These tests will provide public health-relevant data, and also iteratively improve our predictive model to better target bat species and CoVs during our field studies to obtain bat-CoV strains of the greatest interest for understanding the mechanisms of cross-species transmission.

Later, they write (page 195):

we will assess potential for each isolated virus and those with receptor binding site sequence, to spill over. We will do this by sequencing the spike (or other receptor binding/fusion) protein genes from all our bat-CoVs, creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use ACE2, CD26/DPP4 (MERS-CoV receptor) or other potential CoV receptors.

It is important to understand that, although these quotes are technical and well beyond many to understand, the bottom line is that this project was and is gain of function research. In contrast to Dr. Fauci’s sworn testimony to Congress.

It is important to pull out these sections highlighting the gain of function research conducted that led to the deaths of millions of people. This is the only way I know of to make scientists, the courts and policy makers aware that this is not a conspiracy theory. This is real. That these deaths were caused by manslaughter.

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Florida to investigate whether taxpayer dollars were used to purchase crack pipes for drug addicts – AG sues Biden admin for ignoring public records requests

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced a lawsuit on Thursday against the Biden administration after it ignored Freedom of Information Act requests seeking proof that taxpayer dollars were not used to purchase crack pipes for safe smoking kits provided to drug addicts.

A $30 million federal grant program, announced by President Biden in February 2022, was used to reimburse local governments that provided addicts with safe smoking kits. The program was touted as a harm reduction effort that advanced safer drug use and racial equity.

Some of the smoking kits found in Baltimore, Boston, New York, Richmond, and Washington, D.C., reportedly contained crack pipes and other drug-related paraphernalia; however, the Biden administration has maintained that crack pipes were not provided to drug addicts in taxpayer-funded kits.

A press release this week by Moody stated that Florida plans to investigate the controversy after Biden’s Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services ignored a February 2022 FOIA request.

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Here is the FBI’s Contract to Buy Mass Internet Data

The Federal Bureau of Investigation paid tens of thousands of dollars on internet data, known as “netflow” data, collected in bulk by a private company, according to internal FBI documents obtained by Motherboard.

The documents provide more insight into the often overlooked trade of internet data. Motherboard has previously reported the U.S. Army’s and FBI’s purchase of such data. These new documents show the purchase was for the FBI’s Cyber Division, which investigates hackers in the worlds of cybercrime and national security.

“Commercially provided net flow information/data—2 months of service,” the internal document reads. Motherboard obtained the file through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI.

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DHS heavily redacted Disinformation Board emails despite claiming agency had nothing to hide

When the existence of the Disinformation Governance Board burst into public view, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there was nothing sinister to hide and claimed the office was rooted in “best practices.”

A year later, Mayorkas’ department is refusing to let Americans see most of the legal justifications and talking points it created to defend the now-disbanded board from “blowback,” FOIA documents showed. 

More than 100 pages of internal communication between the board’s former executive director, Nina Jankowicz, and her staff were released with heavy redactions to the conservative nonprofit Citizens United. 

What little is visible makes clear that DHS underestimated the negative reaction the board would provoke and was scrambling to find ways to keep the story from being pushed by “hostile” news outlets.

In the FOIA emails, Jankowicz cited “blowback and abuse” after certain media outlets began describing the board as the “Ministry of Truth” as word spread about its formation. 

“There is a fair possibility this could end up on a hostile TV network in the coming days,” she wrote.

Some of the communications show the board’s responses to direct questions posed in a letter from Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), such as what language in the Constitution allows DHS to create such a board and hire staff for it.

Other questions included which parts of DHS would be “responsible for monitoring and collecting data” on misinformation and what “specific actions” DHS intended to take to “counter misinformation.” Each answer was redacted by the department. 

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FOIA emails may be ‘breadcrumbs’ leading to government-Twitter election censorship collusion

Summer 2022 emails between participants in a federal misinformation subcommittee, recently turned over in response to public records requests, are prompting renewed calls for Congress to investigate the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s role in shaping what Americans can see.

They apparently show a Twitter executive fired by Elon Musk last fall strategizing with a leader in the CISA-blessed Election Integrity Partnership on how to overcome internal objections to their plans for the Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation Subcommittee, part of CISA’s Cybersecurity Advisory Committee.

An agency under the Department of Homeland Security that touts itself as the “quarterback for the federal cybersecurity team,” CISA has become a lightning rod for public anger as it has sought to carve itself a role as stealth arbiter of domestic political debate about election security through a network of corporate and nonprofit information control surrogates.

“We may have discovered breadcrumbs showing the close relationship between one of the government’s ordained censorship captains and her Big Tech ally who, as we’ve learned from the Twitter Files, executed government-ordered censorship,” the Functional Government Initiative, which made the initial public records request, told Just the News.

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