![]() “This is essentially a secret letter to the judge from the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division.” “We can’t even read most of the FBI’s argument to support this contention, because the FBI submitted it in the form of an ex parte, in camera declaration,” Shapiro said. It’s an argument that Shapiro finds interesting and would very much like to hear in detail, but he can’t. Shapiro boasts the unusual distinction among graduate students of having his dissertation work challenged in court on the creative grounds that it constitutes a dangerous “mosaic” of individually legal parts that, were it released, could “significantly and irreparably damage national security”, in the words of the FBI. There is little love lost between Shapiro and the government. Shapiro and Light sued alongside Jeffrey Stein and nonprofit group Truthout, who were represented by Kel McClanahan of co-litigant group National Security Counselors. “The FBI’s exercise of its statutory authority to exclude documents from Foia’s reach is not the kind of ‘technique’ or ‘procedure’” to which the necessary exemption refers, wrote Moss. “It is only arguing that by withholding all search slips, even those not protected by Foia, it can amass a haystack in which to hide the search slips that are protected (emphasis his).” “ concedes that the vast majority of are not protected at all,” he wrote. ![]() Moss agreed that even if individual documents were protected by that Foia exemption, the entire categories of document the FBI withholds were emphatically not. The plaintiffs provided examples of each kind of document obtained by Foia before the FBI adopted its policy of nondisclosure. The main argument the FBI made was that the documents detail law enforcement techniques and procedures that are not generally known to the public – an established exemption from Foia. “This results in the outrageous state of affairs in which the leading federal law enforcement agency in the country is in routine and often flagrant violation of federal law.” “The FBI does nearly everything within its power to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act,” Shapiro said. Case processing notes, which provide further detail of individual searches.Case evaluations of the analysts supposedly looking for the records in question, which could detail whether an individual analyst has a history of errors or overapplication of the nine Foia exemptions.“Search slips,” which document the efforts of analysts to find files requested.There are at least three categories of records the FBI simply refuses to part with: “As the plaintiffs correctly observe, dissatisfied Foia requesters are often required to take the government at its word in Foia litigation, where the government has access to the disputed records and knowledge of how a search and response was conducted,” wrote Moss in a 63-page opinion. In doing so, they said, it had stretched the law to breaking point by including harmless documents in the broad categories of material it refuses to hand over or discuss. Shapiro and his fellow plaintiffs contended that the government often acts in bad faith and was trying to shield itself from scrutiny as broadly as possible. The bureau shot down requests for information so regularly and thoroughly – sometimes saying that records were unavailable, sometimes that they didn’t exist, sometimes that it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of records – that Shapiro and his co-plaintiffs asked for more information about the process by which they had been so often refused.Īnd those requests for clarifying information were categorically denied on the grounds that any information about the FBI’s reasons for denying previous Foia requests were by their very nature secret. ![]() Shapiro has, with his attorney Jeffrey Light, provided documents obtained using Foia requests in the past.
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