Three Glomars A Day: Officials Refuse To ‘Confirm Nor Deny’ Stuff At Least 1,000 Times A Year

The article highlights a significant gap in government transparency regarding "Glomar responses," where agencies refuse to confirm or deny the existence of records. A Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press investigation reveals that while the National Security Agency heavily utilizes this tactic, the practice is far more widespread across various federal departments than previously understood. This data underscores how the mechanism is often used not just for national security, but to obscure information from public scrutiny, creating a substantial informational deficit for citizens and journalists. However, the true extent of this opacity remains difficult to quantify due to the government’s own resistance to disclosing its refusal statistics. Several major agencies, including the FBI and CIA, have either denied the request for such data or failed to provide timelines for release. This meta-opacity illustrates a systemic irony: the institutions responsible for enforcing transparency laws are simultaneously obstructing efforts to measure how often they invoke exemptions. Consequently, any current baseline is incomplete, leaving open questions about the frequency and justification of these denials across the entire federal landscape. This finding is crucial for the open data community because it exposes a critical blind spot in federal accountability. Without reliable data on how often agencies use "neither confirm nor deny" tactics, it is impossible to accurately assess the health of FOIA compliance or identify trends in information suppression. Establishing a transparent baseline is a necessary step for advocating better open government policies, as it provides the empirical evidence needed to challenge potential abuses and push for greater institutional honesty.

Source: techdirt.com
Published on 2024-03-19

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