Govt. Takes 11 Years to Respond to Records Request

[Silent_Bob]

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/04/govt-takes-11-years-to-respond-to-records-request/

The U.S. government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, is renowned for violating federal transparency laws and blowing off or unscrupulously delaying records requests, but this is a bit much.

Judicial Watch recently got an official rejection letter involving a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that dates back to 2002! It almost seems like a joke, but it's not. As part of a broad investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, JW submitted FOIA requests to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) in September 2002.

It's quite common for federal agencies as well as the White House to flip the finger at FOIA requests that could expose wrongdoing or shed a negative light. In fact, JW often must file lawsuits to get "public" records that should not require litigation to obtain. In this particular case, it took the DIA and NSA a whopping 11 years to determine that the information falls under the "release authority" of a different agency—the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

This means that the NCIS must now take the time to consider the records request, which requires a "classification review," according to the 11-year-old response JW got recently from the Navy. "Your request has been placed in our complex queue. At this time we are unable to provide you an approximate completion date." Reading between the lines, this means that no one should hold their breath since there appears to be no intention of furnishing the records.

At least the Navy's letter, laughable as it is, offers an apology for taking 11 years to respond. "We apologize for the delay in processing your request." Again, it's not uncommon to get the run-around during the FOIA process and lawsuits are par for the course, but this shatters all records. Perhaps this one should be framed.

These types of obstacles don't stop JW from rooting out government corruption, however. When it comes to 9/11 JW has been a leader in exposing much of what the mainstream media has failed to report. Earlier this year, for instance, JW obtained documents from the State Department indicating that the FBI knew days after the 9/11 attacks that Anwar al-Aulaqi, assassinated by a U.S. drone in Yemen in 2011, had purchased airplane tickets for three of the terrorist hijackers.

This is relevant because al-Aulaqi, who was born in the U.S., was detained and released by authorities at least twice and had been invited to dine at the Pentagon. Yet the feds knew he had purchased airline tickets for the following 9/11 hijackers: Mohammed Atta, America West Airlines, 08/13/2001, for a flight from Washington, DC, to Las Vegas, Nevada, to Miami, Florida; S. Suqami, Southwest Airlines, 07/10/2001, for a flight from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Orlando, Florida; Al-Sheri, National Airlines, 08/01/2001, for a flight from San Francisco, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada, to Miami, Florida.

[WithoutAPaddle]

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/04/govt-takes-11-years-to-respond-to-records-request/...Judicial Watch recently got an official rejection letter involving a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that dates back to 2002! It almost seems like a joke, but it's not. As part of a broad investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, JW submitted FOIA requests to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) in September 2002.

It's quite common for federal agencies as well as the White House to flip the finger at FOIA requests that could expose wrongdoing or shed a negative light. In fact, JW often must file lawsuits to get "public" records that should not require litigation to obtain. In this particular case, it took the DIA and NSA a whopping 11 years to determine that the information falls under the "release authority" of a different agency—the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

Did Judicial Watch resubmit the request or follow up in any way in the last decade?  Judicial Watch does itself no favors when it uses a crass characterization like "flip the finger".

...the feds knew he had purchased airline tickets for the following 9/11 hijackers: Mohammed Atta, America West Airlines, 08/13/2001, for a flight from Washington, DC, to Las Vegas, Nevada, to Miami, Florida;...

One night back in about 2007, when I was staying at the Valencia Motel in North Laurel, Maryland, there was an incident in the parking lot that dragged on for about two hours that involved an ambulance, a local police car and two state police cars.  When I didn't see any report of it in the newspapers, I Googled the motel's name and while there was no report of that recent incident, I discovered that it was the motel that about half of the highjackers had stayed at and used as the launching platform for their mission.

That motel really got hurt by the publicity that its connection to the highjacking brought it.  It is one of those places where there are always half a dozen guest cars in the parking lot with no license plates on them, which is common for guests who have outstanding warrants or judgements against them and don't want to be found, and the last thing those guests wanted was a bunch of reporters snooping around. so its occupancy dropped off for the next few months until it had receded back into obscurity