Have you ever filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI and received a written response from the agency stating that it could not locate records responsive to your request?
If so, there's a chance the FBI may have found some documents, but for unknown reasons, the agency's FOIA analysts determined it was not responsive and "blackballed" the file, crucial information the FBI withholds from a requester when it issues a "no records" response.
The FBI's practice of "blackballing" files has never been publicly disclosed before. With the exception of one open government expert, a half-dozen others contacted by Truthout said they were unfamiliar with the process of "blackballing" and had never heard of the term.
Trevor Griffey learned about "blackballing" last year when he filed a FOIA/Privacy Act request with the FBI to determine whether Manning Marable, a Columbia University professor who founded the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, sought to obtain the FBI's files on Malcolm X under FOIA. At the time of his death last April, Marable had just finished writing an exhaustive biography on the late civil rights activist. Griffey filed the FOIA hoping he would receive records to assist him with research he has been conducting related to a long-term civil rights project he has been working on.
More than a million children across the US have lost access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program...
As the U.S. war against Iran edges past 150 days, a controversial former ally of President...
One of the most intimidating aspects of modern US relations with the Arab and Muslim world...
