The Awesome Power of FOIA

The Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, allows citizens to request government documents. It’s not perfect – there’s often a long wait, agencies can fog up their responses, and classified documents are generally not available  – but a surprising amount of journalism can be done with these documents. Some journalists, like Jason Leopold, specialize in FOIA revelations. Judd Legum and @NuclearAnthro (Martin Preiffer) also make good use of FOIA.

Phrasing a request is important, so it makes sense for a news organization to have a specialized group, often including lawyers. The Washington Post recently announced the formation of such a group, with Nate Jones as its director. Jones gives us an example of his groundbreaking journalism via FOIA.

When Barack Obama’s White House released the picture of Obama and others watching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, when Obama told the nation that we’re not going to spike the football at this death, Jones wondered what else was going on at the White House that day. It took some time – Presidential documents aren’t released until the end of a president’s term – but Jones was willing to wait.

At last – success! The damning photo at the top of this post! BARACK OBAMA LAUGHED – LAUGHED, I TELL YOU – at a meme of himself. That very day that he told us not to spike the football. In the relative privacy of the White House, he laughed. Ah, the hypocrisy!

Jones tells us that he didn’t get ALL the official photos that were taken that day, and he has a request in for more. What terrible revelations will they offer?

If the Washington Post wanted to get serious about a FOIA unit, I can think of a great many more documents they might request.

• Relating to government contracts with SpaceX
• Investigations into Tesla cars and how the company is run
• SEC investigations of Elon Musk
• Operations of various federal agencies under Trump, including Jared Kushner’s activities in and around the State Department
• Payroll for the Trump White House, including Javanka
• Documents relating to Jared’s security clearance
• Information about Sara Huckabee Sanders’s podium and friends

That’s just for two people we need to know more about. I am not a FOIA expert, and some of this may not be available. I’m sure you can think of more government information it might be good to surface.

This is the meme in the photo.