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How FOIA Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. We've got guest producer Matt
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: over here that makes this Stuff you Should Know Sunshine Edition.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: The storms are gone. Well. Plus they say sunshine is
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the greatest disaffectmant that really Yeah, you shine a light
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in the dark corners and it reveals truth, gotcha. Plus
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: you know people are less shady in the sunlight. So
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: this is part episode two of our recording session of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: uh Freshly being without Power Irma going through Atlanta dead cats.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: All right, and I'm going on vacation. Oh good, tomorrow good.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So if anyone wants to meet me at the Isle
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of Palm, South Carolina, build a time machine, right, go
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: back a few weeks and you'll find me drinking Gin
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and Tonics on the beach. Nice songs, child, Oh really, Wow,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you're vacationing vacation, not frustratingly running around trying to get
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: sand out of sunscreen off a small child. That's a
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: losing proposition. Yeah, man, can't wait. Good, We'll enjoy yourself.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: We were originally going to Folly Beach, but it was damaged.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: The house was, but this one was not, so they
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: moved us. I've never been to island Palm is it
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: shaped like a palm like in Dubai. No, it's just
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: one of Charleston's. Uh. I don't know what they call him,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: low country border islands. Maybe that's what they call him.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Now right next to Sullivan's Island and James Island and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Folly Beach are all kind of right there, great area.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Charleston's amazing. Yeah, we're gonna go in for dinner and
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: stuff and trying to throw a little money at their economy.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: But I think they had some really bad flooding. So
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: everyone all right there. I thinks like three or six
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: ft storm surge that was there on the outskirts. They
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: were not even in the past in the end. Not
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: good stuff, not good. Well, I'm glad Charleston made it,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad you're going to Charleston. Man, I can't wait.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna eat so much seafood. Yeah, alright, so Chuck,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: as I was saying, sunshine is the greatest disinfectant. Let's hope. Um,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: there's actually something called Sunshine Week. Have you heard about that. No,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: it's a week that celebrates openness in government. It's as
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: simple as that. It's the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the Press. It's their thing, and they're trying to shine
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a light on the idea of shining a light on government, right,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and that existed until this year. It's still right. No. Actually,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: it's funny like the last guy gets a lot of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: credit and praise for being open, but in retrospect, supposedly
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: it was very much a lot of smoking mirrors. Yeah, yeah,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: there was. It was not a very open administration either. Well,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: you know what they say, politics is politics? Who says that?
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Is that? I love palm saying yeah the politics? Politics?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Have another crawfish past the frog wrest? Is there a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: frog in that? No, that's just like a low country boil. Yeah,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I love low country boil. I'm gonna make that. I
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: think you should my own self. I think you should
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: bring something back here for me. Yeah, I don't know
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: if I guess it would keep. It depends, you know.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I want to be like, here's a week old frog
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: morps to I'd probably still eat it. I know you would. So. Um,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the idea of of government giving up its secrets. Right,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: it's actually fairly new here in the States. Um, there's
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: a a time not too long ago where if you
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: wanted classified information or any information for um, the federal government,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: they you had really no way to ask for it.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And even if you could figure out who to ask
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: for it from, they would say no. And then you
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: would you'd say, well, what next, nothing next, man, go
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: back to sleep. Citizen, that was your role to just
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: shut up and stop asking questions. And thankfully for those
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of us who believe that government should be way more
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: transparent than it is. Uh, there was a guy named
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Representative John Moss from California. He was a congressman back
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: in the sixties, and he became concerned that, um, not Congress,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: but the federal government, the executive branch, was getting a
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: little too opaque. And specifically, there was a report that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: he asked for that concerned, UM, the firing of some
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: civil servants, ostensibly because their loyalty to the administration had
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: been questioned, and so they got fired, and he wanted
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to look into it, and the federal agency he requested
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the documents from said no. And he was a congressman,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: yes he was, So he said, I'll be back, yeah,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Arnold style. And then this was but thirteen or so
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: years after UM, the American Society of Newspaper Editors published
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a study about secrecy in the government and basically said
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: what you said, which is citizens have no access to records,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: no recourse if they're denied records. That was the nine three.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Kind of surprising to me. It was that early that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: they were kind of ringing the bell for this. But
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I think the Cold War, like almost immediately the development
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: of the bomb and the Cold War really drove this,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: this desire to keep everything secret, and the federal government,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the executive branch, keeps everything secret by classifying everything. There's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: this kind of mentality that is classify everything when in doubt,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: classify it because not only does it it it obscures
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: what you're doing from say, like your enemy, it also
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: obscures what you're doing from your citizen right, so you
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: can't be questioned, you can't be criticized, you can't be
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: exposed as incompetent. If no one knows what you're doing,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: they can't see that if you're doing it poorly, and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that they could actually do it better, or know somebody
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: who could do it better, or it could elect somebody
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: who could do it better. And as the way that
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you do that is to just classify everything, keep it
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a secret. Yeah. I've always had the feeling that if
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the federal government in the United States had its drugs,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: they would operate in complete isolated secrecy. Yeah. Well they're
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: trying like you wouldn't even have press conferences, right, Like
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: they would just shut it down and say don't don't you.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Let's worry about anything we have it coverage. Just go
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: about your day, go about your business. Uh So Moss
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: went to uh fellow Democratic President Phil Democrat President Lyndon
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Johnson and said, you know, I think we uh should
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: change the way we're doing things here, and Johnson said,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know about that. That's pretty good, John Johnson.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: We should. He's very interesting, Uh, I think, conflicted dude.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: We should do a show on him at some point,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: very ambitious domestic policies like he wanted to be FDR
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: like the Second Coming, didn't know a lot about foreign policy.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Oh that's not good. No, he's a very interesting dude. Anyway,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: He's a domestic He was a domestic guy. Had I
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: never realized that he didn't know about was not his specialty.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I think he wanted to do great things for this country,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: um in his heart right, but uh, I don't know.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. I think ever since I saw the Cranston
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: play in New York. What's it called all the Way?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I think, and they made it too. I didn't see
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the movie version, but I saw the play all the Way.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: That's what's called I think. So I think that's like
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a tawdry John Ritter film or something like that. That's
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: let's go all the way? Okay, uh oh man, I
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: missed John Ritter, sure he was the best. Uh So anyway,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Johnson said, I don't know about that. All the all
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the federal departments and agency said, I definitely don't know
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: about that. Bad idea, but it was the bell had
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: been wrong in the House. And this is something that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: is kind of fun to look back on when these days,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: how things are, how they are, how divisive they are.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Back in the House about a three hundred and seven
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: to zero to pass the Moss Freedom of Information Act,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the fo I A and UH John and signed it,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and uh didn't have a big press conference when he
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: signed it, like they do a lot of big laws
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and bills. He signed it in secrecy. Yeah, he did, like, oh,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: we'll sign it, but maybe people don't know about it.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I won't go we don't have to we have to
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: go around shooting our mouths off about it. But he
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: did say, no one should be able to pull the
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: injury to the public interest. I signed this measure with
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a deep sense of pride that the United States is
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: an open society. Uh, but no one heard that, right,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the doors are shut, correct? So yeah, he signed it
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: in secrecy, which is a little weird, and also opened
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the door for like, you know that that second part
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: of the first sentences decisions which can be revealed without
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: injury to the public interest, there's a big caveat attached
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to that openness, right exactly. Don't forget we have ways
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: around this. Yeah. Um, And you said that it was
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: hardening to hear that Congress unanimously passed the four Act, right,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit, right, This is what it is. This
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: is not the only time Congress has come together unanimously
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: in defense of FOIA. In two thousand four, team, which
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about later, they did with John Bayner as
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the um at the helm of the House in Obama
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: in the White House, and that the Congress divided as
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: much as it's ever been. The House came together unanimously
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: in in for this Foya Act or Amendment A. There
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: was also a time when Gerald Ford was president where
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Congress overrode a veto of his as far as FOYA.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: So FOIA is this one thing because for for those
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: of you who don't know, it only pertains to documents
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: in the control of the executive branch of the federal government,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: just the executive branch, just the White House. So any
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: secrets the president's administration is keeping, that's what it's pertaining to. Okay.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So Congress very frequently comes together and it's like, no,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: we want you to share this information with everybody, including us,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and they look like the good guys too for coming
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: to the aid for open and honest and transparent government.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And just to clarify, Chuck, like, it's not just like
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the White House. There's tons of agencies, federal agencies that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: fall under the executive branch, including like the FBI or
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the CDC or the UM. There just basically any agency,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: if any federal agencies probably under the purview of the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the executive branch, so therefore FOYA would apply to it
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: as well. That's very nice to point that out, because
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: you confused even me off. Sorry about that. Uh So this, uh,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I think this this bears reading this quote. There's a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: journalist named John Wiener or Winer who he um tried
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: for fourteen years to get John Lennon's FBI files through
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: f o i A quests, and he very succinctly wrote this,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: and it kind of sums it up to me. The
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: basic issue was that government officials everywhere like secrecy by
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: keeping the public from learning what they have done, they
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: hope to avoid criticism, hinder the opposition, and maintain power
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: over citizens. And they're elected representatives. Classified files and official
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: secrets lie at the heart of the modern government bureaucracy.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Of such a hard time with that word. It's almost impossible,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: is spell to I don't even try, uh and permit
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the under undemocratic use of power to go unrecognized and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: unchallenged by citizens. And he was just trying to get
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: John Lennon's files. That's how riled the peacock. You know,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: you don't want to rale up a journalists, but that's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: who this pertains to for the most part, I should
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: say not entirely, but yeah, for the most part is
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: accurate journalists. Journalists are the ones who are supposed to
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: be reporting on the goings on of the government, especially
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: when it comes to exposing wrongdoing, corruption, waste, all this off.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: That's one of the main roles of the media, right yea,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: journalists and more and more now activists, thankfully, citizen activists right.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why citizen activists have gotten
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: in on this is because the journalists aren't doing it enough. Yeah. Um,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: but the early on the journalists were largely in support
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: of FOYA. The Congress was like, sure, why not, it
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: will probably make the president who we don't like, look bad.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: And um. Now we have as of the sixty six Act,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: the Freedom of Information Act, right yeah, which officially, uh,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, people know what this is. This is the
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: ability of a of a citizen of the world. Very
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: important there. You don't have to just be an American
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: citizen to request records of an executive branch like you said,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: government agency. Uh. And along with that Act originally nineteen
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: sixty six said these are available to the public with
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: nine exemptions, which will go over later. Um that protect
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the agency under certain circumstances. And if you were denied,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: there is also now a process in place to appeal
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that denied right. Very important and so when LBJ signed
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: it into law, it was basically like, yeah, I guess
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: just go along with it, but if you don't feel
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: like it, you don't have to write right. Um. That's
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: kind of went for a while, Yeah until Watergate. The
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Watergate scandal really change people's relationship with government big time.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: That changed government's relationship to government. Yeah. And one of
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the things that happened was there was an update to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: FOYA and a strengthening of FOYA UM so that there
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: were like greater sanctions if you didn't follow through on
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: on supplying the requested information. It was harder to just
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: say no to deny it. Yeah, they had a specific
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: time frame finally, like you couldn't just say yeah, we'll
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: get to it, right. So, Uh, Congress puts uh this
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: FOI amendments or updates on Gerald Ford's desk to sign,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and uh, He's like now, well he looked around the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: room and said what should I do? Right? And the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: two people that piped up where Donald ROMs felt his
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: chief of staff and Antonin Scalia, who was the chief
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: legal counsel for the Justice Department, and they both said,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: don't sign it. Yeah. And apparently at least this article
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: says that Rumsfeld early on was a supporter of FOI right,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I think in the very easily manipulated version. Yeah. But
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: when it when it came time to right, he said no,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: don't And so Ford argued that it was unconstitutional, and
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Congress said, you're wrong, and we're overriding your v two.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: That does not happened. Yeah, you say too too, that
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen very often that a veto is overridden. I
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: don't have ever done one on vitos should because I
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: have no idea how often it happens. But I guarantee
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: you it's not often. All right, So let's take a break. Um,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: we're just getting heat it up here on this one. Uh.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And as you'll see in the coming segments for your
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: changes gets more teeth and less teeth over the years,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: depending on whose office. And we'll be right back with
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. All right, Ronnie, he's here. That's so, like
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I promised, over the years, Foia has um had more
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: teeth and less teeth depending on who is running the show. Um,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: probably not so. Surprisingly, when Ronald Reagan got into office
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: in two or in nineteen two, he created he made
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: it much tougher to uh, to get information, made it
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: easier for agencies to withhold stuff. Um, Bill Clinton comes along,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: relaxes things, right, it kind of goes like that in
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: our country. Well, Reagan also one of his things was, um,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: he definitely helps spearhead that classify everything mentality under his administration, Yeah,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: he said print, he said, manufacturer as many classified rubber
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: stamps as you can. Every office needs about a hundred
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: of them. And I think, especially during the Cold War,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the Soviets served as a real boogeyman for keeping citizens
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: in the dark. We don't want the Rooskies to find out.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: So no, yeah, we we don't trust you with this
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: because you might hand it over to the Rooskies. Yeah,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: that was what they say. And they said Rooskys too,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: they did so. Like I said, Clinton comes wrong along.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And there were a few, um, a few big events
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: in his administration. But hold and think about it. When
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Clinton comes along, no more uss are well true, Yeah,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: no more boogeyman. Right, good times, man, let's part. Uh
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: did you like? Yeah, that was good. It was not
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I think together we do the perfect book. Glinton um
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: he during an administration had a bunch of big um
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: but had a big impact on FOYA. We're calling it
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: for you, right, Yeah, Freedom of Information Act. It's a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: perfect acronym because it takes all words into account for you. Yeah,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and it's not fake. No, one just like cooked up
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: some weird word to throw in there to make it
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: a word. So the release an archiving of Cold War
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: previously classified Cold War documents was a big one. And
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: then a really big see change is when Clinton said,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: you know, get with it and digitize all this stuff,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: like this is the future. We don't need everything on paper.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Documents make it easier, uh to file and store the stuff.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: He and make it easier to distribute this stuff under
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: FOY And it was and also uh they extended that timeline.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think we initially said it was ten days. Yeah,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: you had ten days to respond to a fourier request
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: as a forficer um and then that was extended to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: twenty days. Although it says in here that that wasn't
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: so much of a big deal. Just gave him a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: little more time. Basically no, because an agency that's not
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: frequently contacted for FOY information and is not running a backlog,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: it is probably going to do it in about ten
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: days anyway, right, An agency that is running a backlog
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: is still not going to get in touch with you
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: within ten days or twenty days. So it really had
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: no effect, but it is on the book still to
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: this day. They have twenty days to respond to you
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: before you can appeal their lack of response. So UM
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: George Bush H George W. Bush comes along, of course,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and UH titans restrictions again. After September eleven. That was
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the perfect time to tighten the belt on FOY UH
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: again because the boogeyman is back USA Patriot Act. So
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: after September eleven, UM he ordered or you know, the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: administration ordered thousands of documents and data removed from websites
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: agency websites, things like airport UH safety data, things like
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: pipeline maps, environmental data. I gotta tell you I don't
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: disagree with all of that. This is a double edged sword,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you know, this, this this topic itself is to unpack
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: this thing fully Like it's hard to make an argument
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: for full transparency or full secrecy. Sure, Yeah, I don't
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: think I would argue for full transparency. I think just
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: by definition we would have to get so far away
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: from being like the world's police and doving like military everywhere,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and like being interventionist and adventuroust and all just basically
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: completely changed the complexion of the modern United States. To
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: be able to be fully transparent, you can't. And even
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: then it might be kind of like Norway can be
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: fully transparent, but even still, like can they like maybe
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: somebody be like, well, I'm I want to practice being
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: a terrorist, So I'm gonna start on Norway because they
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: publish all their pipeline information. Yeah, so maybe I'll just
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: go see what happens when I blow that up. Or
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the great wooden shoes scandal of the U was that
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Norway or the Netherlands. I don't think they wear wooden
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: shoes in Norway. Oh, I just I just think they
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: all wear wooden shoes all over the place. They don't.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: We have listeners there, man, they're gonna hear you, I know,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: but they know we're kidding, right, I don't know the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Australians thought we were serious about drinking fosters down there, really, Yeah,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: didn't you see how many emails we got there were
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: like gently correcting us that no one actually really drinks
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: fosters in Australia's um. Bush Also what he made a
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: move to do was limit access to records of former presidents,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: which was sort of a big move. UM. And then
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: in the Intelligence Authorization Act of two thousand two wanted
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to limit requests by foreign governments or international organizations. So again, okay,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I don't really disagree with all of it. One of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the only things that Bush did too was UM he
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: expanded who could get cheap or free access to for you? Yeah, UM, journalists.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I think as part of the UM Watergate expansion or
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: maybe the Clinton expansion, journalists were offered um, expedited and cheap,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: if not free for you UM requests. Yeah, we should
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: point out you have to pay for this stuff. No
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: journalists get a break. They say that, and apparently there's
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: not a there's not a standard fee. It's just that
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: as part of the law, an agency can recover costs
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: associated directly associated with the search, right, UM, So it
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: could be eleven dollars an hour, it could be two
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars an hour. Depending journalists get faster expedited service
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: as paper at least, and then they get their fees
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: waved or else pay a reduced fee. And then what
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Bush did with the changes to FOYA under his watch
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: were UM to expand who qualifies as a journalists. It
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: now included independent investigative journalists bloggers UM, and then public
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: interest groups. Apparently it always been included in that too.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I just like thinking of w saying the word blogger,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: like I get the feeling that he didn't even know
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: what that was. Intelligence. He just always struck me as like,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I know he got made fun of for intelligence, but
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's because of intelligence. I think he's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the dude though that would sit down at a computer
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and just kind of be like, how how do I
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: work this thing? You know, just sort of old school roots.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: He he didn't know what a blogger was. Maybe come on,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: maybe not or a vlogger. I agree with you, he
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: definitely didn't know it a vlogger or at any rate.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: It was the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. It
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: was a good thing that UM and of course Harry
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Reid is who introduced the bill. But UM, see that's
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Congress is like, we don't like this president.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: We're gonna make them look bad and force a foy
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: some new Foya stuff on him. And then all it
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: does is just point the point. It shines a light
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: on just how secretive the government is. And then Congress
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: looks good by trying to pull pull back the curtains.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: That's right. Then Obama gets on his h But hold on,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but that's not to say that even if
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Congress is doing it cynically, that it's a bad thing.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: It's actually a very good thing. Yes, it's just I
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: don't think that Congress is riding to the rescue of
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the American people. I think that their motive is probably
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: to make the president look bad. Yeah, I hear you.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: So then Obama mounts his horse and rides into the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: White House. Um. Not great would that have been if
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he literally did that like Ronald Reagan? You probably did? Um.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, he very first day in office,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: he said, here's a memo, We're going to be the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: most transparent government that's in American history. And everyone went, yes,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: that's awesome, and he went you think people bought that?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: He's like, oh my gosh, they did. Yeah, he said
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: that he wanted to die. He wrote a memo, like
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: you said, the first day in off very first day,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and he said that federal agencies agencies should adopt a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: presumption in favor of disclosure, so lean toward releasing it
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: rather than against it, which is a big difference. And
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: he actually had Eric Holder, Um who was running the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: d o J for him. I guess that makes him
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: as an attorney general, right, Eric Holder was Attorney general
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Whenney and he said, figure out how to codify this,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and he did. They came up with UM guidelines for
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the federal agencies to become more transparent. Yeah, and a
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: lot of it this that wasn't two thousand nine By
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the time rolled around. The exact opposite was going on. Yeah.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Two thousands and sixteen is when the Foyer Improvement Act
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: was was put through and UM foisted onto Obama. Yeah,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: this was the one that supposedly just kind of reinstated
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of what it was supposed to do to
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: begin with that had been shirked over the years from
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: what I understand, Yeah, Um, it was also an attempt
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: to take that codified presumption of disc of disclosure UM
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that the DJ come up with and put it into law,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: like make it part of the Foyer Act. And a
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: FOIA request revealed lobbying by the Obama administration, tense lobbying
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: by the Obama administration to prevent that that that codification,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that that an administration had come up with, to prevent
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: that from becoming part of FOIL law. And at the
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: same time they're talking about how they're the most transparent
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: administration ever, but they're also behind the scenes lobbying against it. Um.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: And the thing that caught everyone's attention, or at least
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the people who filed these Foyer requests to get this
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: information UM, is that in two thousand fourteen, Congress, well,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the House passed a bill that had this in it
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: four d and ten to nothing, unanimously passed it, and
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: then it was never brought up for a final vote.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: John Bayner never called for a final vote, was just
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: allowed to die. That's pretty suspicious. So when they finally
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: got to the bottom of it, they saw that the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: d o J and the Obama administration and then later
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: on the FTC, the Trade Commission, and the Securities and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Exchange Commission, we're all very much lobbying against the expand
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: mentioned because one of the things that um that it
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: serves as an exemption to FOY requests is anything that
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: has to do with the financial system or the agencies
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: that regulate them. So the FTC and the SEC can
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: do whatever they want and keep all their documents secret
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and no one can do anything about it. Well, the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen four Act would have expanded that,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: but that got lobbied out. It is quite disheartening. I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: mean it's but yeah, like the Obama administration being the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: most transparent administration of all time is just such bullocks.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: It's just completely untrue. And yet it's it's a myth
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: that that was perpetuated by that administration that still stands today.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: They used the Espionage Act more than all the other
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: presidents before them combined since the Espionage Act was was created,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and I think the beginning of the twentieth century um
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: to to prosecute journalists sources. You just didn't go after
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: journalists or their sources. The Obama administration was the first
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: one to do that. So there's a lot wrong with
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the idea that was the most transparent. Ever. Should we
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: take a break, I think all right, we will be
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: back in boy it's still like we're still feel like
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: we're heating up here. I got a lot to cover.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: We'll be back with how you can file one of
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: these things right for this Alright, So, as said before,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: you can be a foreign national, you can be US citizen,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: if you want to file a FOIA request. You can
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: be a corporation, can be a news outlet. Uh most
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: well probably most times your journalists. Uh and we already
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: kind of went over the fees. But um, what you
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: do is if you want to request documents, yeah, just
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: fill this out and triplicate, get it back to US
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: UH to request documents, you appeal um too directly to
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: that agency that holds the documents. Well that's just for
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: your own so you don't waste time. Well yeah, you
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: want to find out who to send it to. Yeah,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and um no, I think you legally have to go
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to that agency and to the through the FOI office,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and then you have to do both. I'm not mistaken,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: maybe not, but it's a good idea. Well, each agency
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: has its own FOY office, right Okay, So uh, well
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: yeah that that bears pointing out, like that's part of
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the FOI Act and all the improvements over the years
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: is there is somebody at every office that heads us up,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: at least one person, and it's it's got to be
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: on their website. There's got to be clear directions on
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: how to do this right. And most of the federal
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: agencies will have a very easy form that you can
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: fill out on there for you, the easy forma what
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: what what did we do to your face? Only that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you want to know exactly? Um, that you just fill
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: out these different fields and and you can submit a
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: FOIA request like that. Yeah, depending on what you're after,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: we'll determine how long this takes or if you get
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: a response at all. Initially, Uh, they say it's first come,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: first serve. Uh. If you're depends on what you're looking
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: for and who the agency is. Quite honestly, if you're
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: looking for a few pages of a document from the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Forestry Service, you might get that thing turned around pretty quick.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: They will bring it to your house that day if
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you were looking at you with a smile and then
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: a little rather little horse away. Everyone's riding horses. Um.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for six hundred pages from the CIA,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: good luck, It'll take a little while. You will undoubtedly
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: end up in federal court probably finally complaint. Yeah, because
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: in that case, FOI requests very frequently turned into Foyer lawsuits.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: It just happens, umsonal No, not at all, But that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: does suck when it does happen, because that gets a
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: lot more expensive. Yeah. This one reporter, Charles Orstein, tried
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: to appeal the Department of Defense for a story he
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: was doing on drug companies paying doctors. Took three and
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: a half years to get the final verdict, which was
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: a denial. Yeah, so how about that. So here's the process.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: You file a Foyer request, You wait twenty days, hopefully
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: within that time they respond to you. If they don't
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: respond to you, you can appeal based on their lack
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: of response, or if they respond to you and say no,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you can appeal the denial after twenty days. Following that,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: you can then go take it to federal court. And
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: you can also, and this gets a little funny, Uh,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: you can also file a Foyer request about your Foyer requests. Yeah,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: if it was denied. If it was denied, and then
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: that's when this one reporter is like, that's where it
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: gets really depressing when you see sort of the beckheind
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the curtain process of this stuff, right. So there there,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: we came across some tips from George Washington University's National
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Security Archive for filing for your requests. Yeah there, It's
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: pretty straightforward, but it's good to know. Like one of
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the ones that stood out to me was like, don't
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: don't be an aggressive jerk to the FOY officer. In
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of cases, the FOY officer might even see
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: things your way, but they might be the only person
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: at their agency who does. They might work at an
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: agency who thinks that FOYA is stupid and UM is
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: a threaten to national security, and they have to go
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: and convince their colleagues who they have to work with,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to give them those files to give to you. And
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: it's They're probably not the most popular person at their
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: their office, so ticking them off if not the best idea.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: So treat them with courtesy, with respect, be direct, don't
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: include tons of supporting UM in information and emails. Do
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: you want to give them as much information as you
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: can but succinct. Yeah, And you also don't want your
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: request to be too broad. Although I think there's a
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: lot of FOIA journalists who would disagree with this, But
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: apparently the broader your request, the more difficult it makes, it,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the more likely it is to be denied and say
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: this is what I'm looking for specifically. Yeah, and the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: more likely it is to um overlap with other agencies,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: which is just going to complicate things further. Um They say,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: don't include a lot of narratives, even if you think
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: your story is important, like like if you if you
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: send a request that starts with dear sir, I'm an
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: anarchist from Boise, Idaho, and I think whatever when I
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: was a boy not not a good way to get started. Right.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Leave out some of those details. Try and be succinct,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: try and be to the point. A lot of this
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: is common sense stuff. Well a lot of it is.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: One of the common sense things that I would not
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: have thought to to do first is to look to
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: see if this information is already out there. That is
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: hu huge, and I would not have thought that either.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of declassified information that exists a lot
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: of time on these agency websites. They have it a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: lot of times. I mean it saysn't here, and this
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: is very true. I've done it. Congress has a just
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: tons and tons of material about public policy, online that
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you can find, so it might already be out there you. UM,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: you can also contact, like if there's a public interest
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: group or something like that that's focused on your topic,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: they might have access to it. I read that, UM
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: an article about a woman in Oregon who um the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: intercept wrote an article and I can't I think it's
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: called the Poison Papers or something. This woman has been
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: fighting chemical companies because of what they were doing in
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: her backyard for decades and has like a hundred thousand
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: pages of internal documents and memos and stuff from lawsuits
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: that they're now scanning and digitizing and putting onto the web. Um.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: But UM, she would be a great person to go
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: to for those specific art for those YEA, for those sources,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I bet you. At this point, unless it's something very
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: specifically related to you personally or your family, someone has
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: probably either asked about it and gotten it and it exists,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: or asked and been denied. Yeah. And the other thing
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: is apparently I think the two thou sixteen amendments UM
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: said that you if if a document has been requested
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: three or more times, they have to release it to
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the public, like it's just released after that and then
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: some UM agencies will maintain a fo your reading room
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: on their site which will have all the documents that
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: have been publicly released through for you. Yeah. I thought
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: three was a pretty heartening number. Actually, I could have
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: if it would have said three hundred, I would not
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: have been surprised. So the fact that said three, I
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: was like, all right, that's legit. It's a magic number.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of um, a lot of loophole
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: to this, right, Oh yeah, And I mean also you've
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: got to step back here and think about what you're doing, Like,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: you are asking someone in the government to do research
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: for you that you could probably do better if only
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: you had the access to the stuff that they had access.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: And the whole reason you're having to ask them in
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the first place is because the government is unjustly keeping
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: things in secret that it shouldn't be. Yeah, it's a
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: little or welling in to say the least. It is okay,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of loopholes associated with this that
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: will keep government agency from from approving your request every time. Yeah,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: And the first thing they point out in our article,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: which is bears repeating, is you are asking for something
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: you were not guaranteed anything. This is a request that
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: you're submitting things that you definitely cannot do or get
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: physical objects, uh, like you can't request uh like evidence
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: from the JFK shooting to be sent to your house,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: send me the magic poet. Uh. Private information about an individual,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: which gets so hinky. That's over the years they've gone
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: back and forth on uh really at the basis of it.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And we'll get to uh these some of these landmark
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: court rulings that decided these things. But whether or not
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the public interest outweighs privacy rights, which is a big thing. Uh.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: And then information that's covered under the nine exemptions that
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: I think we kind of have to read through these, right,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I think, all right, go ahead. The first one is
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: any information that's classified for national security purposes. Okay, pretty straightforward. Uh.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: And then you've got records that are only about an
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: agency's personnel, rules and practices. I did not get that one,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: which makes it seem super shady to me, probably so
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: like no, no break room rules, see a break room rules?
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Shall what are you doing in the break room? I
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: hadn't even thought about that. Clean up your coffee? Uh.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Information that's prohibited from being released because of another statute
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: that just seems like a very long way of saying
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: kind of anything we'd think of um doc mints that
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: protect trade secrets or contain information that could damage a
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: company's business, Like you can't petition Coca Cola for their
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: secret formula or you know, anything that would show that
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the telecoms were working with the n s A for
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: the Prism project or something like, and that Coca Cola obviously,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: but petition the government for Coca Cola. UM number five
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: is the most used one. Apparently, it's so frequently used.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: It's called the I'm withholding because I want to clause.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: It's it's basically any any documents that contain personal opinions, recommendations,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: or conclusionments, right, And it's it's ostensibly meant to protect
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: legal documents, so attorney client privilege, and to promote a
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: m a tone of frankness among inner agency and intra
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: agency communications. Basically, if you are emailing your colleague and
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you're worried about somebody reading it on the outside, you're
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: not gonna be as open and frank. And it's kind
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: of freeze free speech within the agency. It's so broad,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: so vague and everything falls under it that UM A
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: number five is is the exemption most frequently used. Like
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: all they really needed is number five. Basically, UM personal
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: privacy UM things like social security numbers, phone numbers, addresses,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. UM. Law enforcement documents that could interfere
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: with law enforcement deprived person of the fair trial invasion
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: of privacy again reveal identities of confidential sources, law enforcement techniques,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: or procedures for investigations or prosecutions, or anything that endangers
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: that person's life or safety. Uh, this one is the
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: one that drives me up the wall. Information related to
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: agencies that are responsible for regulating financial institutions see previous
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: rant right. Documents that protect information related to geological or
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: geophysical data, including maps, makes sense to me that one does.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: So those are the nine. I don't know if those
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I mean there are originally nine. Are those the original
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: nine or those just been tweaked over the years. I
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: believe those are the original nine and they're still in use.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: All right. So UM, there's this really good point made
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: by a journalist named Philip eel ile E I l Um,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: and he says that if you are a an editor
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: who is being approached for the story about how another
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: journalist is being stonewalled in their foyer request that you
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: kind of have an obligation to tell other people about
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: it because if you don't, he says, quote, you're not
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: being neutral, you're helping the government keep taxpayers in the dark.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: And so that combined with you know, going up against
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the government and then a light being shined on it
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: when the government doesn't cooperate and follow the letter of
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the law just means like you might as well not
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: have for you that it's just basically a roll of
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the dice whether you're going to get it or not,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: rather than predictable under the terms of the law. Right,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: So don't don't file a FO your request get denied
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and then just say all right, right, or if you
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: go to another publication and you're at that publication, don't
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: just be like this is boring, no one cares about that.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: You need to write about it. People need to talk
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: about it. And if if stonewalling is going on, from
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: FO your requests all right. So we promised a couple
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: of landmark court rulings. Um, this first one is good
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: ninety six philipp E v. The c I A. I
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: think usually when you're v. The C I A, we
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: know which way that's gonna work, right, probably not in
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Philippe's favor. Uh. And that's what happened in this case.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: So this was the very famous everyone's heard the phrase
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: we can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: existence of X. This is where that came from. Uh.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: And the original case was the UH there was a
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Soviet submarine sunk off the coat sot Hawaii, and the
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: CIA said, who should we partner with to build a
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: ship to go look for this thing? Howard Hughes, of course,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: we need to do an episode just on that. On
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Howard Hughes that, yeah, totally uh. And that ship was
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: called the Glomar Explorer and UM to salvage the submarine.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: So there was a rolling Stone reporter file the Foyer request,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: and the CIA very famously said, we cannot confirm. Uh.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: We refused to confirm or deny any such a document.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: And he went, what does that even mean? Like no
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: one's ever ever even said that before? And the CIA went, Hey,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: nice work. I think we flu mixed everybody did, uh,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: And it did work. So eventually it went to federal
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: appeals Court and they said CIA wins uh. And now
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: that is known as the Glomar response that you hear
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: over and over and over. That's where it's origin. Like
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: pretty neat. Um. There's another one that was pretty big.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: It actually came into play pretty quickly after it was ruled,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I guess so. Two thousand and sixteen, the US Court
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: of Appeals said that if you have work related federal
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: agency emails and a personal account, you can't get around
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: a Foyer request. Who would do that? And that was
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: used for a long time, including most famously by Hillary Clinton,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: who um, her whole email scandal came out of a
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Foyer request. There were a whole bunch of people who
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: had filed Foyer requests dating as far back as two
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: thousand twelve. I think the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: in Washington crew filed one of the first ones UM,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: and the State Department just kept losing them or said
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: they weren't aware of any four requests or whatever. And
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: then a Foyer reporter, he's a self styled Foyer terrorist,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I believe, addresses himself. I think so. UM. Jason Leopold
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: filed a Foyer request UM for Clinton stuff as well,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: and then was in talks I believe with the State
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Department for getting that for your request fulfilled, and it
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: led to the existence of Clinton's server in her home
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: that she was keeping State Department secrets on or using
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: for State Department official email. He eventually had a sue
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: I think even oh yeah, yeah, right, almost out of
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: the gate. Um. But that's a That's another point too,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: is that, like again, a lot of these things quickly
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: become foil lawsuits. Which if you're a journalist with a
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: big organization that's willing to spend money on foil lawsuits,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: that's great. But if you're just an independent journalist or
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: a responsible citizens group or something like that, you might
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: not have the money to go to court. And the
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: government knows that. So a lot of a lot of
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Foyer requests just die upon denial because the person doesn't
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: have the resources to take the government to court over it. Yeah,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Jason Leopold bears mentioning for sure, because he is uh,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: he's Mr Foya, Dr Foya. Um. He has probably filed
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: more fo your lawsuits than anyone. In fact, it says
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: so um, anyone more more than anyone except for The
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: New York Times. Over the years in the fifteen years.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: He's been the entire New York Times. Yeah. Uh. And
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: he worked for Advice for many, many years and now
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: works for BuzzFeed. And um was inducted into the National
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Freedom of Information Hall of Fame, which I've never heard of.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: But that's adorable. And he's the one who, ah, well,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: he sued for Clinton's emails. He Um, he's the one
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: that got information on Guantanamo. He's the one that got
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: information on U n s A and and Snowdon Snowdon's revelations. Yeah,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: he has like a knack for thinking of what to
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: ask for. So like he asked for the drafts of
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the talking points for the n s A after this
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: emails or the Snowden revelations came through, Which is to
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: say he's a great researcher. He's a great researcher's mind.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: He's about as good as they come as far as
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: researchers go. Yeah, we should put him on staff. I'm
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: sure he'd take us up on it right away. We'd
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: be like, we need to look into crayons. You got
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: anything else? Nope? Okay, Well, if you want to know
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: more about FO, you you know what, send a FO
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: your request that's the best way to get acquainted. Figure
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: it out, go do it, let us know how it
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: turned out. Uh, since I said for your request in
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: there somewhere, it's time for listener mail. I think this
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: is anonymous. I never heard back from this this person,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: but it's a good one because we got a legit
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: um psychopath. Yeah, I think this one's probably anonymous. Yeah. Sorry,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just looking to see now did not You're back? Um?
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Hello guys, love your show. Um. I've always wanted a
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: reason to write, but I'm endlessly learning and entertained by
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: your show. I felt compelled to write as a high
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: functioning psychopath. I found a young age after many lock
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: up fires, block ups, fires, arrest trouble, et cetera. I
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: know I didn't act or react like normis or normal people.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: I realized at thirteen I had to learn to play
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: nice with others I would be locked up. Became a
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: student of human behavior. Cry when other's cry, show shocked
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: when others do. I'm a successful, in good family man. Uh,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: father of two college age kids, one of which is
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: a psychopath. And that was a very odd conversation. Yes,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: something is missing in my brain, though I don't count
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: this as bad. I've been in so many emergency situations, avalanches,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: swift water rescue, medical emergencies. I've heard people say the
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: training takes over and it feels more like taking off
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: the mask. Norm's panic and run. I just hit the switch.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: I do agree, however, that people like this should be
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: avoided if at all possible, especially if they haven't learned
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: to play well with others. It's a little scared recent. Uh,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: some of us on the spectrum are safe and dare
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I say necessary, some of us can learn and care
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: and learn to care and feel. I have learned through
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: much trouble and strife that I can care through twenty
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: years of A and N A so very interesting revealing email. Yeah,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: it sounds like a pretty thrilling life too. Yeah. And
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: you know, we heard from another psychopath and I think
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: they've come to terms with the fact that their brain
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: is different. And I would still like to function in
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the society, so I have learned to do so or
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: they'll lock me up, right, And we talked about the spectrum,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's just fascinating to me. That was
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: a good episode. Yeah, despite our weird pronunciations. Well, thanks
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: a lot anonymous for writing in We appreciate you, um
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: and UH. If you want to get in touch with
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: this anonymous or otherwise, you can tweak to us at
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: also hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. You can hang out with me on Twitter too,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: by the way, at josh um Clark. Send us an
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: email this stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: and it's always hanging out with us at our home
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com