The Obama Administration, that came to power with the promise of historic transparency, has reversed course and begun censoring more public records than at any time since President Barack Obama took office. The U.S. government, led by the Pentagon and CIA, censored or withheld for reasons of national security the files that the public requested [...]

As the pieces of the Aaron Swartz case slowly come together it seems one government agency may be unwilling to comply with the law. Jason Leopold, the Lead Investigative Reporter at Truthout, was denied a Freedom Of Information Act request by the Secret Service. The reason given for the denial? The Aaron Swartz case is [...]

When I heard the news of Aaron Swartz’s suicide I was deeply saddened or more accurately profoundly irritated. Why had the government – or should I say U.S Attorney Carmen Ortiz – wasted so much time and resources destroying someone over such an inconsequential act? Downloading too many free articles warranted this kind of crackdown? [...]

More revelations from the Occupy FOIA request. An identified [redacted] of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors in Houston, Texas, if deemed necessary. An identified [redacted] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin, Texas. [Redacted] planned to [...]

The ACLU has been attempting to get information from the government on its drone program, filing FOIA requests that have so far been denied. This is the subject of two lawsuits in Washington and New York. The government filed its brief in the case before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals today, and it includes [...]

Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been waging a lonely battle to make public information about the Justice Department’s interpretation of the Patriot Act, which they claim violates civil liberties in as-yet undisclosed ways. They tried to force this into the public sphere on the Senate floor. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein promised hearings [...]

I remember the gradual inflation of numbers during the BP oil disaster. First BP would say that 1,000 barrels a day was being released, when 5,000, then 10,000, and so on, never quite reaching the actual figure of 53,000 barrels a day. The government would generally back up BP’s estimates, and only changed when they [...]

The New York Times sued the Justice Department over their reticence to turn over a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel detailing the argument for how the US government can legally assassinate an American citizen. The Times has previously reported on the memo, which justified the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, but that report from [...]

According to new data from the Transitional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, fewer immigrants deported by the Obama Administration in Fiscal Year 2011 had criminal charges then the deportees in 2010. So just as the Administration was ensuring the immigrant rights community that they were focusing their attentions on criminals (often, “violent criminals”), less [...]

William Cronon is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Earlier this week he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the history of the labor movement in Wisconsin, and Scott Walker’s radical departure from that. He also recently started a blog, where he has tried to piece out [...]

The CIA have added Anwar al-Awlaki, the American citizen implicated in both the Nidal Hassan Fort Hood shooting and the failed underwear bombing on Christmas Day, to a capture-or-kill list of terrorist threats. Awlaki, born in New Mexico, required a special government review through the National Security Council to place him on the list, by [...]