7.9 KiB
| title | aliases | created | updated | category | tags | summary | start | location | |||||||||||
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| Freedom of Information Act |
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2026-05-17 | 2026-10-05 | Intelligence Scandal |
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The 1966 federal disclosure statute, strengthened over a presidential veto in 1974, through which the Glomar Explorer, UFO, Stargate and Contra drug records reached the public. | 1966-07-04 | United States |
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. section 552, gives the public a statutory right to request records of the executive branch, subject to nine exemptions. In this vault it matters as the mechanism by which several record sets became public: the 1947 and 1950 FBI flying disc files, the CIA's Stargate Project collection, the CIA's UFO files and portions of the Contra drug record.
The 1974 Amendments and the Ford Veto
The House passed H.R. 12471, the amendments to the Act, on March 14, 1974, 383 to 8, and the Senate passed it on May 30, 1974, 64 to 17. After a conference, the Senate approved the conference version by voice vote on October 1 and the House by 392 to 2 on October 7. President Gerald Ford vetoed the bill on October 17, 1974. His veto message raised three objections: that judicial in camera review of classified material risked exposing "military and intelligence secrets," that the investigatory files exemption would burden law enforcement, and that the administrative deadlines were unrealistic. On November 20 the House overrode the veto 371 to 31 and on November 21 the Senate overrode it 65 to 27.1
The National Security Archive's compilation of the White House record includes a September 25, 1974, memorandum from Ken Cole to Ford stating "There is little question that the legislation is bad on the merits, the real question is whether opposing it is important enough to face the political consequences"; a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum of September 26 describing a call from Antonin Scalia, then head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, urging the agency to lobby a White House staffer directly; and handwritten notes of a September 30 staff meeting presided over by Donald Rumsfeld, with Dick Cheney as deputy chief of staff, that devote much of the discussion to leaks.1
Phillippi v. CIA and the Glomar Response
In March 1975 news organizations reported that the vessel Hughes Glomar Explorer, publicly listed as a research ship owned and operated by the Summa Corporation, was owned and operated by the United States government (see Project Azorian). The journalist Harriet Ann Phillippi requested all Central Intelligence Agency records of its contacts with the media about the ship. The agency answered that the existence or nonexistence of such records was itself information pertaining to intelligence sources and methods protected by the National Security Act of 1947, and invoked FOIA exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3). The district court upheld the refusal and denied her request for a Vaughn index. On November 16, 1976, the D.C. Circuit reversed and remanded, requiring the agency to supply as detailed a public affidavit as possible, and rejecting the Government's reliance on an affidavit by Brent Scowcroft, then Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, filed in another case. Judge MacKinnon dissented on the ground that the CIA's statute controlled. The agency's refusal to confirm or deny became known as a "Glomar response."2
Ground Saucer Watch and the CIA
On January 1, 1979, the New York Times reported that Ground Saucer Watch, an Arizona organization headed by the aerospace engineer William Spaulding, said it had obtained 1,000 pages of CIA documents in a Freedom of Information suit showing agency surveillance of UFOs since 1949, although the agency had said its interest ended in 1952. The article quoted an agency memorandum of August 1, 1952, urging "that no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public"; an October 2, 1952, report to the Director of Central Intelligence recommending that the National Security Council be advised of "the implications of the flying saucer problem" and that the Psychological Strategy Board be consulted on a public information policy to "minimize concern and possible panic"; and a November 1975 document advising against acknowledging any pattern in sightings. Spaulding stated that the documents described a 1976 incident in Iran in which two F-4 fighters pursued a large object that released smaller craft, and that he held sworn statements from retired Air Force colonels that two objects had crashed and been recovered, one in New Mexico in 1948 and one near Kingman, Arizona, in 1953. The group was awaiting a federal judge's ruling on 57 further items, including motion picture film and landing residue.3
FBI and CIA Releases in the Vault's Files
The FBI's copy of the March 22, 1950, "Hottel" memorandum circulates under a cover sheet of the Bureau's Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts Section.4 The CIA's Stargate files carry release stamps from the agency's review, for example "Approved For Release 2001/04/02" on the Project 8501 file concerning the kidnapped DEA agent Enrique Camarena, which bears redaction codes such as "SG1A" and "SG1J" where text was withheld, and classification markings reading "Declassify On: OADR."5 A House Select Committee on Assassinations record on the FBI's Crisman file shows a "Date of Last Review" of February 17, 1998, under the JFK records process.6
The Contra Record
Gary Webb wrote that his FOIA requests to multiple federal agencies produced thousands of pages about Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, including DEA reports, CIA cables, FBI files and court documents, and that the records confirmed federal agencies had known of the Blandon-Meneses network for years without prosecuting or disrupting it. Webb also wrote that the DEA stated under the Freedom of Information Act that it had no reports from Celerino Castillo about drug trafficking at Ilopango Airbase, and that the Justice Department Inspector General found and quoted such reports. Webb is the sole source for these passages; the Inspector General's published report describes Castillo's reports on the pilots Grasheim and others but does not mention a FOIA response.7
Footnotes
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National Security Archive, "Veto Battle 30 Years Ago Set Freedom of Information Norms," Electronic Briefing Book No. 142, edited by Dan Lopez, Thomas Blanton, Meredith Fuchs and Barbara Elias (November 23, 2004), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB142/ ↩︎
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Phillippi v. Central Intelligence Agency, 546 F.2d 1009 (D.C. Cir. 1976), argued April 19, decided November 16, amended November 24, 1976, https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/546/546.F2d.1009.76-1004.html ↩︎
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"C.I.A. Papers Detail U.F.O. Surveillance," New York Times, January 1, 1979, as reproduced at https://ufology.patrickgross.org/htm/nytcia79.htm ↩︎
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Federal Bureau of Investigation, memorandum of March 22, 1950, FOIA/Privacy Acts Section cover sheet "Guy Hottel (3-22-1950)," https://archive.org/details/GuyHottel ↩︎
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Memorandum for Record, "Project 8501," March 18, 1985, CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750015-5, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750015-5 ↩︎
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HSCA Outside Contact Report 008624, NARA record 180-10085-10264, JFK Assassination System Identification Form, https://archive.org/details/crisman_fbifile ↩︎
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Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 1, and Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends." Compare U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy (December 1997), Chapter X, https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/9712/ch10p2.htm ↩︎