| Since I launched FOIA Files nine months ago, I’ve liberated more than 6,000 pages of documents on a wide-range of issues and shared them with the public. (If you missed any of the previous 35 editions you can find them here.) All of the documents government agencies release to me are partially redacted. I believe most of those redactions are unjustified, which is why I often appeal the withholdings. But every now and then the vast swaths of black ink become a stunning work of art worthy of being displayed in an art gallery. I got some really good ones this year that I’m going to exhibit. Last year, I filed a request with the Department of Justice and FBI for documents pertaining to President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified records that was the subject of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation. Remember when Hur released the report and wrote that Biden was an "elderly man with a poor memory”? That seems like a lifetime ago. The DOJ had fought the release of the documents because of the ongoing investigation, but when it ended in February the records started to trickle in. I wrote about the interview that FBI agents and prosecutors conducted with Biden’s ghostwriter in a special edition of FOIA Files earlier this year. Last month, the DOJ turned over another transcript of an interview conducted with the “PBC scheduler,” whose name was redacted under a privacy exemption. PBC is short for Penn Biden Center, where some of the classified documents from Biden’s tenure as vice president were stored. The 197-page transcript is almost entirely redacted, rendering it nearly indecipherable. But when I got to page 57 I knew I had something special. Gesundheit! Here’s another piece of FOIA artwork courtesy of the DOJ. This document, which was sent in response to my request for records about ongoing cases, arrived over the summer from the Office of Deputy Attorney General. It was redacted under a privacy exemption, so my best guess is that it’s a list of email addresses or an organizational chart. But I think it looks like a black flag (I had to get in at least one punk rock reference).  “Black flag” Finally, here’s a redacted photo embedded in an email I obtained from the Transportation Security Administration in June related to the agency’s Covid-19 response, which I filed multiple lawsuits over back in 2020. I’m still getting records about it every month. This email doesn’t have anything to do with the pandemic other than a mention of “coronavirus” in the subject line. It’s a “weekly wrap” and it’s about three TSA employees who received awards for their work. I wonder about the thinking that went into this redaction. The agency not only blacked out the faces of the honorees, but also threw some black ink over a few of the pictures on the wall citing a privacy exemption. What makes this one strange though is that the email identifies the award recipients by name. Two of them have photographs of themselves attached to their LinkedIn profiles! I’m not complaining. I think this is an interesting use of the redaction pen. Thanks, TSA! Oops! We forgot to redact that | With every redaction you’re bound to get some documents that a government agency forgot to redact. When that happens they often try to claw it back by sending a letter demanding that the records be destroyed and claim the law is on their side. That’s what happened earlier this year when the Department of the Treasury turned over 10 pages of records in response to one of a half-dozen FOIA lawsuits I filed for documents about what the agency knew prior to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic. This is actually the second time a regulatory agency has given me records about Silicon Valley Bank that it forgot to redact and then insisted I destroy the documents. When are these agencies going to learn that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle? Anyway, check out the document below that contains the names of certain banks and price charts that Treasury left unredacted. Then, read the same set of documents but with the redactions applied, which Treasury wanted me to use instead. The difference is subtle, but it’s pretty interesting.  A side by side comparison of the unredacted and redacted SVB documents For some bizarre reason, 2024 has been the year where a bunch of agencies have finally responded to requests I filed nearly a decade ago. The latest deep cut comes from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis, which was in response to a request I actually filed with the Office of Director of National Intelligence in February 2015. Back then, I requested records about the Seth Rogen and James Franco movie, The Interview. It’s a comedy about journalists who landed an interview with Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, and were subsequently recruited by the CIA to assassinate him. A few months before the movie’s scheduled Christmas Day release, Sony, the studio that released the film, was hacked by a group allegedly sympathetic to North Korea that threatened terrorist attacks in the US if theaters showed the film. Needless to say, a ton of controversy and national security concerns transpired. I filed requests for records revolving around the bizarre Hollywood-North Korea incident. One request I sent to ODNI resulted in a few pages. The agency said other records it had were owned by DHS and as a result it needed to refer those documents to the agency for review and direct response to me. Well, ODNI, the agency that oversees the intelligence community, didn’t send the records to DHS to review until the end of October. Of 2024. Did I mention I filed this request in 2015? The records landed in my inbox five days after ODNI sent it to DHS. It’s an intelligence bulletin about terrorism that turned 10 years old yesterday. There’s only a few paragraphs about The Interview, but it’s clear that DHS seemed unbothered by the whole kerfuffle.  Finally, the next time you request documents from the Environmental Protection Agency, you may want to insist on the documents being sent by email. That’s because it turns out the EPA’s Atlanta office has an ongoing…rat problem? It’s been so bad that it may have contaminated a ton of documents. Seriously. According to this document I obtained, the EPA filled “450 large biohazard bags” with documents that were contaminated by a rodent infestation. It was apparently so severe that personnel were worried about the potential risk of transmission of rodent-borne disease, particularly hantavirus. On that note, good riddance to 2024! FOIA Files will return on Jan. 10, 2025. Got a tip for a document you think I should request via FOIA? Send me an email: jleopold15@bloomberg.net or send me a message on Signal: +1-917-623-1908
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