December 27, 2008

Appealing for the Release of Farouk's Full FBI File

Last week, with some further coaching from Michael Kuzma (member of Leonard Peltier's defense team), I wrote and faxed in my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal asking a judge to order the FBI to release the 893 pages of Farouk's file they're withholding.

As one might expect, many pages were withheld on the pretext of United States Code, Section 552(b)(1):

(A) specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact properly classified to such Executive order;

A lot of the pages withheld under (b)(1) seem to be from after Farouk's arrest, when the FBI unleashed brilliant counterterrorism techniques like asking Farouk to snitch on other Palestinians, interrogating him about "nuclear briefcases" and other half-baked allegations cooked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, using detainee informants trying to save their own skin.

So as to the (b)(1) exemption: that dog don't hunt, unless Bush ordered the suppression of any evidence that shows our domestic counterterrorism policies to be overwhelmingly abusive, wasteful and misguided. Which, alas, he probably has. But with luck the judge who rules on this appeal won't feel compelled to reaffirm the played-out excuse of "national security" as a bulwark against any accountability or transparency in our government.

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