Tag: secrecy

‘We’ll Leave No Stones Unturned’: Last Living Member of The Monkees Sues the FBI to Get Full, Unredacted File on the Iconic Rock Band

The last surviving member of The Monkees is suing the FBI for full access to the agency’s file on the legendary rock ‘n’ roll band.

George Michael Dolenz, Jr., better known by his stage name, Micky Dolenz, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday.

The litigation comes over a decade after the FBI’s partial file on the band was released and posted on the agency’s website in 2011.

“The television show “‘The Monkees’ is,” the popular group’s file reads before a section of redacted text in the document dated July 26, 1967.

The Los Angeles-based rock band’s file appears to be contained in a broader case file regarding the “Radio-TV Industry” in “the Hollywood area” based on an informant’s impressions. The information on The Monkees is specifically slotted under the title: “Additional Activities Denouncing the U.S. Policy in the War in Vietnam.”

“This series, which has been quite successful, features four young men who dress as ‘beatnik types’ and is geared primarily to the teenage market,” the file says. “During recent weeks, the four stars of the show have been making public appearance tours throughout the U.S.”

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Fort Worth Parents Charged Over $1,200 To See Curriculum Book Lists

Two Fort Worth, Texas, moms were charged more than $1,200 to see the public school district’s K-12 curriculum book lists, and now one mom has filed a complaint.

On August 8, Kristina Denapolis, whose daughter is in 8th grade, filed a public records request with the Fort Worth Independent School District for copies of the book lists for kindergarten through 12th grade.

She was told the request would cost an eye-popping $1,267.50 to fill.

Another Fort Worth mom, Jenny Crossland, was trying to decide where to send her daughter to kindergarten and filed the same public records request for K-12 book lists. She was given the same answer — the request would cost $1,267.50 and take 84.5 hours of labor.

On Thursday, Denapolis, who is an attorney, filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s office, asking that it investigate the charge, which she said is “not reasonable,” and order the district to reduce it.

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US government finally unseals long-hidden rulings on mass surveillance

The US government has finally released previously classified rulings from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which have revealed how the secretive court interprets the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a law that allows mass surveillance of foreigners.

FISC was created by Congress in 1978 to act as a warrant court that approved the surveillance of individual foreign targets. However, after 9/11, the court’s role expanded and it started approving mass surveillance programs, some of which illegally collected data of foreigners and US citizens.

In 2015, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act, which required the government to make public all significant rulings by the FISC. However, the executive branch argued that the USA Freedom Act did not apply to FISC rulings issued before the passing of the law in 2015.

Due to this lack of transparency, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued under the Freedom of Information Act to force the government to disclose all significant FISC rulings. The lawsuit resulted in the government releasing more than 70 FISC rulings that were previously kept secret.

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Classified 1990 UFO photograph has surfaced 32 years on

A photo taken by two men who spotted a strange object above Scotland in 1990 has finally been published.On August 4th of that year, two young chefs had been walking in the Cairngorms National Park near Perth when they spotted a strange diamond-shaped object in the sky nearby.

Terrified, the men hid behind some bushes to observe the mysterious craft.

A short time later, they heard the sound of an RAF jet approaching. The plane seemed to change course and circle the UFO for a time before returning to its original course.

Keen to take a photograph, one of the men aimed their camera at the sky and took a few snaps.

A few seconds later, the object flew upwards into the heavens and was gone.Convinced that they had seen a UFO, the men passed their best photograph along to a local newspaper, however it was promptly handed over to the Ministry of Defense and was never published.

The image would stay classified, in fact, for over 30 years until it turned out that retired RAF officer Craig Lindsay had broken protocol by stashing a copy of it inside his desk.

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DOJ Opposes Release Of Underlying Affidavit For FBI Mar-A-Lago Raid

The Department of Justice has opposed the release of the underlying FBI affidavit used to justify last week’s raid on Mar-a-Lago because they claim “it would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” according to Politico‘s Kyle Cheney.

“The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation,” the DOJ said in a Monday court filing.

Trump and other Republicans stepped up calls on Sunday for the release of the affidavit after a search warrant released last week indicated that Trump had 11 sets of classified documents at his home – which he told journalist John Solomon were declassified before they were taken out of the White House. The DOJ convinced a judge that they had probable cause to conduct the search due to potential violations of the Espionage Act – which have nothing to do with classification issues.

That said, the DOJ says it intends to unseal additional documents related to the raid.

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Congress Is Not Allowed To Know About TOP SECRET Gain Of Function Research Committee

Appearing on Fox News to discuss the first ever Senate hearing on gain of function research, Rand Paul revealed that there is a committee that is supposed to oversee such experimentation with potentially lethal viruses, but that it is above the oversight of Congress.

Paul noted that according to scientists who testified on Capitol Hill yesterday, “the committee that is supposed to review these viruses is secret.”

“We don’t know the names. We don’t know that they ever meet, and we don’t have any records of their meetings,” the Senator reiterated, adding “It’s top-secret. Congress is not allowed to know. So whether the committee actually exists, we’re uncertain.”

“We do know that they’ve met three times and there are thousands of gain-of-function research proposals. They’ve only met three times, they’ve only reviewed three projects,” Paul continued.

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Mystery solved: DOJ secretly thwarted release of Russia documents declassified by Trump

In the final hours of the Trump presidency, the U.S. Justice Department raised privacy concerns to thwart the release of hundreds of pages of documents that Donald Trump had declassified to expose FBI abuses during the Russia collusion probe, and the agency then defied a subsequent order to release the materials after redactions were made, according to interviews and documents.

The previously untold story of how highly anticipated declassified material never became public is contained in a memo obtained by Just the News from the National Archives that was written by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows just hours before Trump left office on noon of Jan. 20, 2021.

Meadows’ memo confirmed prior reporting by Just the News that Trump on Jan. 19, 2021 declassified a binder of hundreds of pages of sensitive FBI documents that show how the bureau used informants and FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign and misled both a federal court and Congress about flaws in the evidence they offered to get approval for the investigation.

The declassified documents included transcripts of intercepts made by the FBI of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the final FISA warrant approved by an intelligence court, and the tasking orders and debriefings of the two main confidential human sources, Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the bureau used to investigate whether Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

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Mysteries & Dark Conspiracies of The Vatican’s Forbidden Archives

Secretive places closed off to the world invite rumour, intrigue, and mystery. These are places where anything could be lurking within their halls, and they attract conspiracy theories like moths to a flame, fluttering about bashing up against them but never gaining access and never finding the answers they seek. One such place that has long been a wellspring of strange theories and speculation lies squarely within Vatican City, and besides being one of the most forbidden places in the world is also one of the most mysterious.

Comprised of approximately 53 miles of labyrinthine aisles of shelving harbouring rows upon countless rows of texts, books, and scrolls ranging from the more modern to fragile, time-worn manuscripts reaching back 12 centuries into the shadows of time, the Vatican Archives, officially known as the Archivum Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum, was originally constructed in 1612 by Pope Paul V and is a truly a huge treasure trove of information collected by the Church over hundreds of years. This vast repository of knowledge holds state papers, Holy See paperwork, papal correspondence and personal letters, and countless historical records, documents and texts accumulated by the Vatican from every corner of the known world that date back to the 8th century, all housed within a massive, carefully climate-controlled structure adjacent to the Vatican Library that is designed more like a fortress than a library, replete with impenetrable underground bunkers and with only one known heavily guarded entrance.

The list of known contents of the archives is far too long to completely cover here, but includes a wealth of historical documents including handwritten letters to the Pope from such important figures such as Mary Queen of Scotts asking for a pardon before her execution, King Henry VIII, Michelangelo asking to be paid for his work on the Sistine Chapel, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Grand Empress Dowager Helena Wang of China in the 17th century, one written on birch bark by the Canadian Ojibwe tribe in 1887, and many, many others. Here there are official edicts by Popes through the centuries, including excommunications such as that of German religious heretic and founder of Lutheranism Martin Luther, official papal decrees such as the one made in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI that split the entire known world among Spain and Portugal, as well as personal communications from popes throughout history. Here one can also find such gems as a nearly 200-foot long scroll containing details of the trials of the Knights Templar for heresy and blasphemy dating to 1307, as well as a handwritten transcript detailing the trial of astronomer Galileo Galilei in the 17th century, as well as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which states that Mary was conceived without sin, scrawled out on a piece of parchment dating to 1854.

The Vatican Archives are often referred to as the Vatican Secret Archives, mostly due to a mistranslation of the Latin words secretum, which is actually closer in meaning to “personal” or “private” rather than “secret” or “confidential” as many think, but it could also have to do with the archive’s history of strict inaccessibility and reclusiveness from the outside world. They had been for centuries practically completely forbidden and closed off from nearly everyone, even Church officials, with not even Cardinals allowed access to their treasure trove of information, and it was not until 1881 that Pope Leo XIII allowed limited access to outsiders, yet this does little to dispel the secrecy surrounding the archives and it is still no small feat to enter this inner sanctum of all of the Vatican’s knowledge.

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University Of Delaware Continues Fight To Shield Biden Documents From Public Review

After a setback before the Delaware Supreme Court, the University of Delaware is continuing its dogged effort to prevent the public from seeing the senatorial papers of President Joe Biden. The continued litigation, at public cost, has been criticized as an effort to shield President Biden from potentially embarrassing material from being accessed by the media or public interest groups.

For a research institution, it is a curious role to prevent access to documents but clearly a role supported by President Biden and his family.

What is particularly troubling is the reason being claimed by the university.

We have previously discussed these documents and their potential significance to inquiries ranging from sexual harassment complaints to foreign dealings. The university insists that, so long as it does not use public funds for the maintenance of the Biden documents, it is immune from the Freedom of Information Act. By using private funds, it is arguing that it can keep the material locked away from public review.

A Superior Court decision held that the papers were not subject to FOIA based on dismissive and clearly inadequate filings by the university. The Delaware Supreme Court has now sent the matter back to the lower court for additional review. It has held that the university must still show that it is immune from public disclosure laws and must potentially conduct searches of its records requested by Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Supreme Court specifically found the earlier representations of Jennifer M. Becnel-Guzzo, Esq., University FOIA Coordinator to be insufficient to carry the burden under the law. It also noted that it was not made under oath. Accordingly, Delaware Superior Court Judge Mary Johnston ordered the university to submit evidence that archives Biden gave the school in 2012 are not subject to a public records request and consequently public access.

Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act states that “’Public body,’ ‘public record’ and ‘meeting’ shall not include activities of the University of Delaware and Delaware State University, except that the Board of Trustees of both universities shall be ‘public bodies,’ university documents relating to the expenditure of public funds shall be “public records.”

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Afghanistan Watchdog: Biden Admin ‘Unreasonably Refusing to Provide Information’

John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), wrote a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, and the heads of several congressional committees on Wednesday complaining that the Biden administration abruptly stopped cooperating with his investigations after he issued a report critical of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“It is my duty to report that the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are unreasonably refusing to provide information and assistance requested by SIGAR,” Sopko wrote, citing the relevant laws requiring those agencies to cooperate.

Sopko documented a “repeated and continuing refusal to provide information and assistance requested by my office,” especially on three sensitive matters: the swift collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan after President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal of military forces in August 2021, compliance with “laws and regulations prohibiting the transfer of funds to the Taliban,” and humanitarian aid for the Afghan people.

Sopko pointed out that Congress clearly and unambiguously required the State Department and USAID to cooperate with his investigations when his office was established, and three previous administrations have done as Congress directed.

“It is shocking that State and USAID officials are choosing at this particular juncture to violate the law, obstruct SIGAR’s oversight work, and refuse to cooperate with our oversight requests,” he wrote.

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