FOIANate
@foianate.bsky.social
FOIA Director at Washington Post. Lawyer. Fellow at @NSArchive. Author of Revealing Records column. Wrote book on 1983 Able Archer Nuclear War Scare.
Got some emails to and from Mayor Bowser on the RFK stadium deal. Alas, the city cites the deliberative process privilege (😡)to withhold almost all. You can see the players involved though. DC Council should really pass legislation to roll back this exemption.
The Trump Presidential Library says it can't find any DMs sent by the president who tweeted more than 25,000 times. His administration opted not to enable the setting which would have preserved them. Free link below.
Trump tweeted 25,000 times during his first term. The Trump Presidential Library says it has no record of any Direct Messages he sent. Free link: wapo.st/4dMAs5N
Trump library says no Twitter DMs can be found, despite evidence he sent them
Records show that Trump's first administration opted not to save DMs in its library archives, raising questions about compliance with the Presidential Records Act.
washingtonpost.com
Actual last slide from a US Marshals Service powerpoint used to train and prepare the Marshals on how to protect the homes of Supreme Court justices. Released in response to a FOIA I filed.
Payday lost a major grant worth 1/3 of our budget as a result of Trump's cut to non-profits. Can u donate today to keep Payday alive after 10 years & 1,500 articles published? paydayreport.com/payday-to-lo...
Payday to Lose Grant Worth ⅓ of Our Budget Due to Trump Cuts
Payday Report now offering media trainings to unions and community groups interested in building their own independent media.
paydayreport.com
In April, 2019, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook to publicly stated that "Iran is responsible for the deaths of at least 608 American service members" to justify the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. We didn't know it at the time, but DOD "non-concurred."
The Post won a precedent-setting, Maryland public records lawsuit and appeal that will make it easier for all to get police disciplinary records. 👍👍 Free link: wapo.st/4em0mh8
Public has right to officer names in police use-of-force records, Md. court rules
The Appellate Court of Maryland ruled that Anton’s Law, the state’s historic police transparency measure, requires law enforcement agencies to release the names of officers who use physical force agai...
wapo.st
@foianate.bsky.social featured in the Able Archer segment of S2:E1 of SECRETS DECLASSIFIED WITH DAVID DUCHOVNY.
It looks like Iran is applying lessons learned during the "rigged" Millennium Challenge war game. @foianate.bsky.social nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/2024-11...
“Rigged” War Game Exposed U.S. Vulnerability to Low-Tech Warfare
Washington, D.C., November 1, 2024 - A recently declassified “after-action” report from a 2002 war game “triggered internal warnings that the U.S. military was vulnerable to low-tech warfare,” accordi...
nsarchive.gwu.edu
Nick Harkaway@nickharkaway.com · 5mo agoSo - astonishingly - Iran has been paying attention to history, notably the Millennium Challenge exercise, which was originally an Iran war game, and in which US Marine Col. Paul van Riper, playing the baddies, handed an invading US force its hat with both its ears in it BY DOING THIS.
Took DOD more than 15 years process this FOIA, but got some more Able Archer 83 dox. 👍👍
Speaking at DC Open Government Coalition Event today at 530 at MLK Library at Gallery Place on "Whose Information Is It Anyway?" Be there or be square!
Attorneys for at least 13 agencies and departments have explicitly stated in 26 FOIA lawsuits that the downsizings were the reasons for failures to meet FOIA deadlines, reports @foianate.bsky.social. www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...
Did Trump’s cuts slow access to public records? We found 26 cases that say yes.
Lawyers’ pleas for extensions reveal post-DOGE staffing woes at federal agencies’ Freedom of Information Act offices.
washingtonpost.com
For #SunshineWeek, the National Security Archive’s Annual FOIA Audit found that federal agencies’ use of “clarification of scope” letters undermines the rights of FOIA requesters. Read our investigation here: nsarchive.gwu.edu/foia-audit/f... @nsarchive.bsky.social
Clarify or Close: Agency “Scope” Letters Undermine Rights of FOIA Requesters
Washington, D.C., March 16, 2026 – In 2025, the Department of Energy gave the National Security Archive 3 business days to clarify a Freedom of Information Request that had generated nearly 100,000 pa...
nsarchive.gwu.edu
Happy #sunshineweek! Here are some gems from our investigation into 339 court dockets showing that government lawyers explicitly blamed the Trump staffing cuts for FOIA delays at at least 13 agencies. Free link below.
Turns out government lawyers will reveal #FOIA failings to courts that agencies otherwise try not to publicly mention. Like not being able to process a FOIA for emails because they can't figure out how to use Microsoft Outlook. My latest Revealing Records column. Free link below
@foianate.bsky.social gets Sunshine Week started off right with a blistering FOIA investigation!
Did Trump cuts slow access to public records? We found 26 cases that say yes.
Lawyers’ pleas for extensions reveal post-DOGE staffing woes at federal agencies’ Freedom of Information Act offices.
washingtonpost.com
A man wrote an email to a government official. DHS told Google to give them his records using an administrative subpoena, bypassing the courts. Free link: wapo.st/4rtfCw8
Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon
Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has weaponized administrative subpoenas to attack free speech, according to privacy and civil rights groups.
wapo.st
Is your head coach's girlfriend filing FOIA requests on your school's top comms official a good look? Asking for a friend
SHAFR Executive Director @rimmerma.bsky.social quoted in this piece about the recent disappearance of FRUS records.
FOIANate@foianate.bsky.social · 9mo agoFree link: wapo.st/4hUdZUA
Getting to the bottom of why the State Department quietly deleted 15 pages of history on the risk of inadvertent nuclear war. Free link below.
According to author @foianate.bsky.social, the State Department told him in July it had deleted the documents after he used the Freedom of Information Act (and then sued the CIA) to obtain a copy of a one key record that had been transcribed but not reproduced in the 2021 FRUS volume.
Nothing to see here (literally!). Just the US State Department secretly deleting 15 pages of declassified official documents published in 2021 in the Foreign Relations of the United States series about a 1983 NATO nuclear weapons exercise that unexpectedly increased the risk of a nuclear war.
Analysis | State Department deleted records about risk of inadvertent nuclear war
Key historical records about the incident during the Reagan administration, known as the Able Archer 83 War Scare, were removed without explanation.
wapo.st