A federal appeals court last week overturned (pdf) a lower court ruling that the CIA had won in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit involving JFK assassination records, and ordered CIA to continue processing the request.
The case involves records sought by journalist Jefferson Morley that he believes will provide new insight into the assassination.
“This decision, if the CIA respects it, will shed new light on one of the murkiest areas of the Kennedy assassination story: the CIA intelligence collection operations that picked up on Lee Harvey Oswald in the weeks before JFK went to Dallas,” Mr. Morley said.
FOIA decisions against the CIA are relatively rare. The latest decision does not immediately imply any new release of records, but requires the CIA to perform a new search and to provide further justification for its opposition to disclosure.
See “CIA Loses Case at DC Circuit” in The FOIA Blog, December 7.
Mr. Morley recently presented his views of the JFK assassination in “The Man Who Didn’t Talk” in Playboy.
Datasets and variables that do not align with Administration priorities, or might reflect poorly on Administration policy impacts, seem to be especially in the cross-hairs.
One month of a government shutdown is in the books, but how many more months will (or can) it go? Congress is paralyzed, but there are a few spasms of activity around healthcare and the prospects of a continuing resolution to punt this fight out until January or later.
At a period where the federal government is undergoing significant changes in how it hires, buys, collects and organizes data, and delivers, deeper exploration of trust in these facets as worthwhile.
Moving postsecondary education data collection to the states is the best way to ensure that the U.S. Department of Education can meet its legislative mandates in an era of constrained federal resources.