FBI: Al Qaeda who?

The good folks over at the National Security Archive – they uncovered the reclassification of declassified documents by the CIA earlier this year – file a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests with the US government. So imagine their surprise when, after filing a request with the FBI in 2005 for documents relating to al ...

The good folks over at the National Security Archive - they uncovered the reclassification of declassified documents by the CIA earlier this year - file a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests with the US government. So imagine their surprise when, after filing a request with the FBI in 2005 for documents relating to al Qaeda, they received a letter stating that "no records responsive to your FOIA request regarding AL QAEDA ... were located...". Slate has a copy of the letter up and, as Timothy Noah points out, the Bureau noticeably does not say we have documents, but you can't have them. They say no documents can be located. It must be seen to be believed.

The good folks over at the National Security Archive – they uncovered the reclassification of declassified documents by the CIA earlier this year – file a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests with the US government. So imagine their surprise when, after filing a request with the FBI in 2005 for documents relating to al Qaeda, they received a letter stating that "no records responsive to your FOIA request regarding AL QAEDA … were located…". Slate has a copy of the letter up and, as Timothy Noah points out, the Bureau noticeably does not say we have documents, but you can't have them. They say no documents can be located. It must be seen to be believed.

Carolyn O'Hara is a senior editor at Foreign Policy.

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