rssJustice Dept., CIA Decline Our FOIA Request About Killing U.S. Citizens
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 12:36 pm
- 29 Comments
Descend for a moment, won’t you, into a bureaucratic labyrinth with me, in pursuit of constitutional rights and government transparency.
In April, anonymous administration officials claimed to reporters that they possessed the right to kill an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, because of Awlaki’s apparent connections to al-Qaeda. There was no due process involved, as the Constitution entitles an American citizen at the risk of losing his life at the hands of the government; he could simply be targeted for death. Not knowing why such an act was legal, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request on April 7 with the Justice Department and the CIA, the two agencies most likely to make an assessment of the killing’s legality — Justice because that’s probably a job for its Office of Legal Counsel; CIA because it would probably be the agency asked to kill an American citizen believed to be part of al-Qaeda. (And because Awlaki is in Yemen, where the CIA has launched missiles at non-citizen al-Qaeda targets in the past.)
Today I got my answer: No. That wasn’t unexpected. The path the agencies took to to reject — sort of — my FOIA request, however, was. I’ll explain.
First, the CIA. I received a letter from CIA’s information and privacy coordinator, Delores M. Nelson, reminding me that the agency’s mandate deals with “foreign intelligence — not domestic — matters.” And that apparently causes an administrative problem with addressing my request. Nelson:
Our records are not configured in a way that would allow us to perform a search reasonably calculated to lead to responsive records. Therefore, we must decline to process your request.
So I’m not being denied on any substantive ground. The CIA just doesn’t know how to search for any record it may possess about the legality of killing an American citizen, just weeks after public confirmation appears that this is an active issue in internal counterterrorism deliberations focusing on an area of historic CIA counterterrorism operations. This is quite the non-responsive search tool.
Then there’s the Justice Department. My request went to its National Security Division and not the Office of Legal Counsel, for reasons that mystify me. But Arnetta James, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts initiatives coordinator at the division, wrote to tell me that the division doesn’t handle the information that interests me. Reasonable! But instead of forwarding my request to OLC, she sent it to the Defense Department’s Freedom of Information Policy Office. Someone there, I’m assured, will get back to me.
While I won’t complain — I suppose it stands to reason that the Defense Department could be tasked with killing al-Awlaki and accordingly it has a legal equity here — I’m going to try to re-file explicitly through the Office of Legal Counsel, which I still presume is the branch of government most likely to handle this rather remarkable constitutional assertion. I’ll commiserate with my editors and figure out how to respond to CIA as well.
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29 Comments
Pingback posted May 10, 2010 @ 1:06 pm
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Comment posted May 10, 2010 @ 8:17 pm
In all fairness, it does appear OLC's function is simply to insist that, “when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”
Actual legal justifications without glaring contradictions/illegality/nonsense- not so much.
Comment posted May 10, 2010 @ 8:53 pm
Agreed. Is it possible that over time the OLC has become staffed by inept and/or spineless bureaucrats? The office has gone from watchdog to servant.
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Pingback posted July 16, 2010 @ 12:27 pm
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Pingback posted August 17, 2010 @ 2:42 pm
[...] This is the story of how the Justice Department and the CIA get out of FOIA requests. [...]
Comment posted October 7, 2010 @ 6:01 pm
I Have Fallen and They Won't Let Me Get Up!
Many people have fallen and CAN get up. This is a case where a woman has fallen and CANNOT get up despite her being able to excel (See three resumes at: http://appeals4justice.zoomshare.com/files/Resumes.pdf
You could say several of her homes were burned in hate crimes. You could say her two Jewish sons were assassinated by murderers who have been allowed to run scott free. You could say that she suffered disparate treatment including widespread discriminations out of control. You can say the theft of her $100k rightfully inherited trust fund was authorized to displace her and to alter her lifestyle of productivity in order to accuse her of being pestiferous so she'll be exposed to arbitrary arrests and invasions of violent, unmerciful, vigilante justice.
During the political tempest of the Holocaust, Jews complained bitterly about their torturers. They complained bitterly about the Vatican and other who could not institute “hate crime protection”. Yet, the Jews CANNOT save even one Jew (a single mother of two Jewish sons) from destruction.
________________________________________________________
Your Honor, I Call Your Honor To The Stand!
Hate Crimes Prevention Act? Patriot Act? Human Trafficking? Violence Against Women Act? Fair Labor Standards Act? The Federal government has stood by as officials who approve torture and degrading treatment have stood above the law, escaping even investigation into their actions.
This case presents a painful conflict between human rights, civil and political rights; economic, social, and cultural rights; racial discrimination; children's rights; women's rights; and torture. Respectively, these cases have been ignored too long!
The impunity for potential human rights abuses harms our national values, and our interests. HOW AND WHEN will Oregon rule on promoting equality for women?
http://judiciary.zoomshare.com/files/REAL_PETITION_FOR_REVIEW2.pdf (12 pages)
http://judiciary.zoomshare.com/files/TORTURE.pdf (40 PAGES)
________________________________________________________
HOW AND WHEN WILL THE INTERNATIONAL COURTS RULE?
http://judiciary.zoomshare.com/files/OBSTRUCTION.pdf
http://www.judiciary.zoomshare.com/files/Predator_Clause.pdf
http://judiciary.zoomshare.com/files/International_Petition.pdf (43 pages)
http://appeals4justice.zoomshare.com/files/Appellants_Brief.pdf
The Defendants and other U.S. reps in the case concerning Kini Cosma of Equestrian Travel Mall and Legal Services at http://judiciary.zoomshare.com are unwilling to confront the climate of abuse and the unfair pattern of unreasonableness. There have been no informal attempts to seek a resolution to the inherent bigotry and hatred adding up to assassination.
It is time the active participants be brought to justice in the European Court of Justice, the Inter-American Commission on Human Right (Organization of American States in Washington, DC), the International Criminal Court or any other Court recognizing the importance of these matters.
___________________________________
Human Subject Experimentation Survey
Help Equestrian Travel Mall and Legal Services protect women being committed to insane asylums in America for asserting their legal rights by taking this short survey. Thanx Kini http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGVWNWN6Qmt5TkdrYm15VlNSaDBvRHc6MQ
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Pingback posted May 21, 2011 @ 9:45 am
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