NSA Invokes “National Defense” and the Espionage Act on Mandela FOIA request

[Ichingcarpenter]

NSA Invokes “National Defense” and the Espionage Act to Stonewall MIT Student’s FOIA Request on Nelson Mandela.



[WASHINGTON, DC] Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) PhD candidate Ryan Shapiro filed a lawsuit this morning against the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Defense Intelligence Agency over the spy agencies’ failure to comply with his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records on anti-apartheid activist and South African President, Nelson Mandela. Shapiro’s requests seek, among other records, documents pertaining to the U.S intelligence community’s role in Mandela’s 1962 arrest and Mandela’s placement on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008. Shapiro is already suing the Central Intelligence Agency over this same failure. Shapiro wants to know why the NSA, FBI, DIA, and CIA viewed Mandela as a threat to American security, and what actions the Agency took to thwart Mandela’s efforts to secure racial justice and democracy in South Africa.

snip


Two Key Features of Shapiro’s Lawsuit & Broader Pro-Transparency Effort:1) Despite longstanding public knowledge of definite (if undefined) U.S. intelligence assistance to apartheid South Africa in general, and likely involvement in Mandela’s 1962 arrest in particular, much of the U.S. and world press has paid distressingly little attention to these issues. Even in the wake of Mandela’s death, these issues, including the fact that Mandela remained on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008, have for the most part remained ignored or discounted. In addition to beginning to fill these massive holes in public knowledge of U.S. intelligence operations, Shapiro’s FOIA efforts will bring much-needed attention to these vital topics, as well as to the U.S. intelligence community’s continued outrageous aversion to transparency.2) The Freedom of Information Act is broken. The Department of Justice and the CIA continue to prevent the FOIA release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA torture program, despite the Senate Committee’s call for the report’s release. And as the Associated Press reported last week, despite entering office promising to be “the most transparent administration in history,” the Obama administration cites “national security” to censor and deny FOIA releases “more than ever.” The failures of the NSA, FBI, DIA, and CIA to comply with Shapiro’s FOIA requests for records on Nelson Mandela are further glaring examples of this anti-transparency trend. For this reason, Shapiro is not only turning to the courts to force agency compliance with his FOIA requests, he is also turning to the American people to address the ongoing crisis of secrecy more broadly. To this end, Shapiro is urging all persons with access to unreleased records pertaining to illegal, unconstitutional, or immoral government activities to return those records to their rightful owners, the American people. As Shapiro is quoted below, “See something, leak something.”


snip
Regarding the crisis of secrecy more broadly »“Democracy cannot meaningfully exist without an informed citizenry, and such a citizenry is impossible without broad public access to information about the operations of government. Secrecy is a cancer on the body of democracy. The Bush administration initiated a disastrous welter of anti-transparency initiatives, yet the Obama administration has been, if anything, worse. Despite entering office promising unprecedented openness, the Obama administration has provided just the opposite, including bringing more Espionage Act prosecutions of whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined, and invoking “national security” to deny FOIA requests “more than ever.” FOIA is broken, and this sad reality is just one component among many of the ongoing crisis of secrecy we now face.


http://www.sparrowmedia.net/2014/03/nsa-national-defense-espionage-act-mit-foia-nelson-mandela/


I guess they're worried that if word gets out that racists and imperialists were directing US foreign policy 50 years ago then the terrorists win?!

[JimDandy]

1. Wow... Mandela was on US terror watch list until 2008!

No words.

[Jefferson23]

2. Recommend. n/t

[bobthedrummer]

3. K&R + Cheney Watch link

Cheney Watch
http://cheneywatch.org

[Scuba]

4. Always invoking national security. Can't they get a new category of "national embarrassment"?

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. "FOIA superhero,"

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Ryan Shapiro, who is called the "FOIA superhero," best known for requesting FBI documents related to animal rights activism, which the agency has dubbed the nation’s "number one domestic terrorism threat." The documents have been used in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights that challenged the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a 2006 law targeting activists whose protest actions lead to a "loss of profits" for industry. One FBI file Shapiro obtained in 2003 details how animal rights activists used undercover investigations to document repeated animal welfare violations. The agent who authored the report said the activists, quote, "illegally entered buildings" in order to document conditions in a slaughterhouse, and concludes there is, quote, "a reasonable indication" they "violated the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act," unquote.

Ryan Shapiro, can you explain how these activists, who go in undercover to document what’s happening in slaughterhouses or on factory farms, are equated with terrorists?

RYAN SHAPIRO: I can try. So, in 2004, the FBI designated the animal rights and environmental movements the leading domestic terror threats in the country, despite the fact that neither of these movements have ever physically injured a single person ever in this country, and then, not long thereafter, as you said, the passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, this pernicious piece of post-9/11 legislation, explicitly targeting animal rights and environment activists as terrorists. People have been prosecuted under the AETA, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, as terrorists under federal law, facing federal felonies for writing anti-animal-experimentation slogans on the sidewalk in chalk. And in this particular document, yeah, this is the FBI looking at animal rights activists who have gone undercover on a factory farm, and the FBI’s response to the horrific conditions on this farm, and the actions uncovering them, is to consider bringing felony terrorism charges against these activists. These are activists who are exposing animals confined in cages so small they can’t stand up, turn around or spread their wings, just horrific conditions which are the absolute norm on factory farms. And the FBI is considering bringing terrorism charges against these activists.

And I wanted to know why. And so, I have about 600 FOIA requests currently in motion with the FBI pertaining to the FBI’s campaigns against the animal rights movement. And the FBI—and I’ve sued the FBI, because they’ve stopped complying with my requests. And the FBI is now arguing in court that those FOIA requests themselves are threats to national security. Keep in mind, they’re not arguing that releasing the documents would be a threat to national security. They’re arguing that having to decide now whether or not they will release the documents—they want a seven-year delay so they can think about whether or not to release the documents; otherwise, it will constitute a threat to national security. Further, they argued the threat to national security is so severe that they can’t even tell us why. The FBI’s primary support for this radical and crazy argument, they’ve submitted to the court in the form of an ex parte in camera declaration—so, again, a secret letter from the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI to the judge about what a threat to national security complying with my FOIA requests—or even deciding whether or not to comply with my FOIA requests—

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/25/why_did_the_fbi_label_ryan

[Scuba]

6. What a load of crap.