FAS Wins FOIA Lawsuit Over NRO Budget Documents-Judge Walton

[babylonsister]

of Fitz fame presiding.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

FAS Wins FOIA Lawsuit Over NRO Budget Documents

In a rare victory for public access to intelligence agency records, a federal court yesterday ordered (pdf) the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to process its FY 2006 budget request for release under the Freedom of Information Act.

Judge Reggie B. Walton of the D.C. District Court granted a motion filed by the Federation of American Scientists to compel the NRO to comply with the FOIA.

FAS had requested disclosure of unclassified portions of the NRO budget request. Such records have been released to FAS in the past.

But the NRO, the agency which develops U.S. intelligence satellites, rejected the request with the novel claim that the budget documents were exempt from the FOIA under the exemption for highly sensitive "operational files."

Operational files at the NRO are those records that "document the means by which foreign intelligence or counterintelligence is collected through scientific and technical systems." Such files are exempt from search and review under the FOIA pursuant to 50 U.S.C. 432a.

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