McClatchy reported late last week that a Justice Department document asserts “the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. without any formal legal process or court oversight.”
In January 2010, McClatchy Newspapers petitioned the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for a copy More…
In an era where the word “transparency” is a favorite bell to ring, a Congressional committee chair has asked federal agencies to provide a complete list of names of every person that has made a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
The New York Times reports More…
I reported earlier that Arlington, Va., is giving up on its efforts to opt out of Secure Communities, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that allows ICE to check immigration status using fingerprints collected for criminal background checks. After meeting with ICE officials on Friday, Arlington’s county manager More…
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, announced today that is has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice to try to get at the government’s reason for suing Arizona over its SB 1070 immigration law. The law’s most controversial provisions, including instructing local law enforcement More…
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University-based organization responsible for much of the non-partisan data analysis on immigration enforcement, is accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials of purposefully withholding information on immigrant detainees. After TRAC requested detailed information on the enforcement process through the Freedom of Information Act, More…
President Obama’s “ethics czar,” is going to Europe as an ambassador — and it’s causing anxiety among government watchdog groups who admire the work accomplished under his watch. Norman Eisen, who founded a government oversight group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington before joining the administration, instituted More…
The number of immigrants in detention in the United States has more than doubled since 1999, according to a new report from a government data research organization released Wednesday. The report, based primarily on information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the Immigration More…
The Supreme Court today threw out a ruling of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that had ordered the government to disclose photographs of detainees being abused by U.S. officials. The ruling was widely expected, given that Congress had recently changed the Freedom of Information Act More…
Marcy Wheeler at Firedoglake has an interesting take today on the most recent summary of classified documents that the government turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union Friday, as part of its response to the organization’s Freedom of Information Act requests about the More…
R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Billy Bragg and David Byrne don’t like to think of music as torture, or part of any “enhanced interrogation techniques.” But declassified government documents show that at least some music — notably, Metallica, Britney Spears and some unidentified rap music, according to a 2004 Defense Department report More…
rss