The Memory Hole was a website edited by Russ Kick; it was launched on July 10, 2002, with its last post on May 11, 2009, [1] with a successor website appearing in June 2016. Before being hacked in June 2009, [2] the site was devoted to preserving and publishing material that is in danger of being lost, hard to find, or not widely known. Topics include government files, corporate memos, court documents, police reports and eyewitness statements, Congressional testimony, reports from various sources, maps, patents, web pages, photographs, video, sound recordings, news articles, and books. The name is a tribute to the "memory hole" from George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four , a slot into which government officials deposit politically inconvenient documents and records for destruction. [3]
One of the most noticeable actions was the publication of several hundred photos depicting the coffins of U.S. soldiers fallen in Iraq. These were obtained by Kick by filing a request based on the Freedom of Information Act. The photos sparked a controversy regarding the publication of war photos, public opinion and the behavior of the U.S. government. [4]
The website is the 2005 winner of the Project on Government Oversight's "Beyond the Headlines" Award. [5]
A successor website, The Memory Hole 2, was launched by Kick on June 16, 2016.
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The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an "independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also tasked with increasing public access to those documents which make up the National Archive. NARA is officially responsible for maintaining and publishing the legally authentic and authoritative copies of acts of Congress, presidential directives, and federal regulations. NARA also transmits votes of the Electoral College to Congress. It also examines Electoral College and Constitutional amendment ratification documents for prima facie legal sufficiency and an authenticating signature.
Freedom of information in the United States results from freedom of information legislation at the federal level and in the fifty states.
Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments and, where applicable, by state and local governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatisfaction with the secrecy surrounding government policy development and decision making. In recent years Access to Information Act has also been used. They establish a "right-to-know" legal process by which requests may be made for government-held information, to be received freely or at minimal cost, barring standard exceptions. Also variously referred to as open records, or sunshine laws, governments are typically bound by a duty to publish and promote openness. In many countries there are constitutional guarantees for the right of access to information, but these are usually unused if specific support legislation does not exist. Additionally, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 has a target to ensure public access to information and the protection of fundamental freedoms as a means to ensure accountable, inclusive and just institutions.
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is an independent nonprofit research center in Washington, D.C. EPIC's mission is to focus public attention on emerging privacy and related human rights issues. EPIC works to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values, and to promote the Public Voice in decisions concerning the future of the Internet.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, is a federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government upon request. The act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and includes nine exemptions that define categories of information not subject to disclosure. The act was intended to make U.S. government agencies' functions more transparent so that the American public could more easily identify problems in government functioning and put pressure on Congress, agency officials, and the president to address them. The FOIA has been changed repeatedly by both the legislative and executive branches.
The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive is an investigative journalism center, open government advocate, international affairs research institute, and the largest repository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government. The National Security Archive has spurred the declassification of more than 10 million pages of government documents by being the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), filing a total of more than 50,000 FOIA and declassification requests in its over 30 years of history.
Russell Charles Kick III was an American writer, editor, and publisher.
Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential and generally pertain to the conduct of government.
In United States law, the term Glomar response, also known as Glomarization or Glomar denial, refers to a response to a request for information that will "neither confirm nor deny" (NCND) the existence of the information sought. For example, in response to a request for police reports relating to a certain individual, the police agency may respond with the following: "We can neither confirm nor deny that our agency has any records matching your request."
Jason Arthur Leopold is an American senior investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News. He was previously an investigative reporter for Al Jazeera America and Vice News. He worked at Truthout as a senior editor and reporter, a position he left after three years on February 19, 2008, to co-found the web-based political magazine The Public Record, Leopold's profile page on The Public Record now says he is Editor-at-Large. Leopold returned to Truthout as Deputy Managing Editor in October 2009 and was made lead investigative reporter in 2012 before leaving Truthout in May 2013. He makes extensive use of the Freedom of Information Act to research stories.
Mark S. Zaid is an American attorney, based in Washington, D.C., with a practice focused on national security law, freedom of speech constitutional claims, and government accountability.
John Emerson Moss was an American politician of the Democratic Party, noted for his championing of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) through multiple sessions of the United States House of Representatives where he served from 1953 to 1978.
Investigative Data Warehouse (IDW) is a searchable database operated by the FBI. It was created in 2004. Much of the nature and scope of the database is classified. The database is a centralization of multiple federal and state databases, including criminal records from various law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and public records databases. According to Michael Morehart's testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services in 2006, the "IDW is a centralized, web-enabled, closed system repository for intelligence and investigative data. This system, maintained by the FBI, allows appropriately trained and authorized personnel throughout the country to query for information of relevance to investigative and intelligence matters."
The Center for Effective Government, formerly OMB Watch, was a think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. It was focused on government transparency. Founded in 1983, the organization ceased operations in 2016, folding its work into the Project On Government Oversight.
The Joint Staff Information Management Division (IMD) is one of two divisions which make up the Joint Staff Secretariat (SJS) of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff currently located in the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia (USA). The other division is called Actions Division (AD) which manages the daily workflow of the staff.
Ryan Noah Shapiro is a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Doctoral Program in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS), a U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) researcher, and an advocate for animal rights.
MuckRock is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which assists anyone in filing governmental requests for information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other public record laws around the United States, then publishes the returned information on its website and encourages journalism around it.
The FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act of 2014 is a bill that would amend the Freedom of Information Act in order to make it easier and faster to request and receive information. The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to create a single FOIA website for people to use to make FOIA requests and check on the status of their request. The bill would also create a Chief FOIA Officers Council charged with reviewing compliance and recommending improvements. This bill would also require the federal agency to release the information it disclosed to the person who requested it publicly afterwards.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 ILCS 140/1 et seq., is an Illinois statute that grants to all persons the right to copy and inspect public records in the state. The law applies to executive and legislative bodies of state government, units of local government, and other entities defined as "public bodies". All records related to governmental business are presumed to be open for inspection by the public, except for information specifically exempted from disclosure by law. The statute is modeled after the federal Freedom of Information Act and serves a similar purpose as freedom of information legislation in the other U.S. states.
Emma Best is an American investigative reporter who gained national attention with their work for WikiLeaks and activist Julian Assange. Best is known for prolific filing of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on behalf of MuckRock and co-founding the whistleblower site Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) which resulted in Best being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security and temporarily banned from filing FOIA requests.