Expediting the Disclosure Process; How to Submit a FOIA Request
Government transparency is necessary to a healthy democracy, and in the U.S. one of the best tools at our disposal is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). But filing a FOIA request isn’t always as simple as it sounds. So, we’ve compiled some best practices on how to submit a FOIA request and improve your chances of success.
FOIA was written into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, but despite his seemingly supportive rhetoric upon signing, he actually detested the bill. That’s according to Bill Moyers, White House Press Secretary at the time, who said Johnson adamantly opposed the idea of journalists “rummaging in government closets.”
Johnson almost pocket vetoed the bill – let it die while Congress was on break – but was convinced otherwise by Senator John Moss, who drafted it in response to government secrecy during the Cold War. The bill passed on July 4, 1966 – a fitting date.
Submitting a FOIA Request
There is a certain protocol to follow when filing FOIA requests and every agency has its own idiosyncrasies. If you simply demand an agency give you all its information about aliens and UFOs, you’re probably not going to get anything of substance, if you get anything at all. Instead, requests should address specific programs, officials, documents, and the time period in which you’re interested.
Aside from asking politely, you need to describe in detail the specific information you’re looking for, the format you want it in, and where to send your request. The one thing you don’t need to provide is the reason you’re requesting the information; that’s your prerogative.
One of the first steps you can take is to do extensive research. Inform yourself on the topic you’re interested in as much as possible, learn an agency’s chain of command, and identify any hurdles or dead ends. This will prevent you from asking the wrong questions that could potentially derail or delay your request, or prevent you from finding anything at all. It also helps to know whether someone has made the same request and already published it somewhere.
To convey how important specificity and research are, consider this: after the multi-million-dollar, clandestine Pentagon program studying UFOs was reported by the New York Times, many filed FOIA requests asking the Defense Department for information regarding the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP – the name used in the Times article.
Much to the chagrin and confusion of those requesting information, the government claimed no such program ever existed. That’s because the program was officially referred to by another name, eventually uncovered by UFO researcher Paul Dean. He discovered the program’s original title was the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program (AAWSAP) and that the acronym reported by the Times was more of an informal term for a facet of a larger program. But now that this discrepancy has been uncovered, his query is behind more than 1,139 others, potentially dragging out his response time for months longer.
Some agencies have even indexed all of the requests they’ve granted or processed, including the EPA, Customs and Border Patrol, and the Department of the Navy. These can be found at FOIAonline.gov
You can also FOIA a FOIA request by asking for data or a catalog of all previous FOIA requests on a particular topic. This helps weed out questions that may have been denied, led to a dead-end, or actually turned something up. If a request has already been processed pertaining to your topic in some way, you can request a copy of that information and receive it in very little time.
Once you’ve filed a request and received confirmation it’s being processed, it may be a good idea depending on how urgently you need it, to check in every now and then with your assigned FOIA officer. If you can develop a rapport with them, that’s even better. Learning the officer’s name, method of search, resources, and preferred communication formats can save you time and energy. It may also lead to their ability to help guide you in the right direction if they’re not the person you’re looking for.
Listen to the founder of The Black Vault, John Greenewald, discuss his experience filing hundreds of FOIA requests regarding aliens and UFOs on this episode of Beyond Belief:
Submitting a FOIA Request Sample Letter
Agency Head [or Freedom of Information Act Officer]
Name of Agency
Address of Agency
City, State, Zip Code
Re: Freedom of Information Act Request
Dear ______________:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
I request that a copy of the following documents [or documents containing the following information] be provided to me: [identify the documents or information as specifically as possible].
In order to help to determine my status to assess fees, you should know that I am (insert a suitable description of the requester and the purpose of the request).
[Sample requester descriptions: A representative of the news media affiliated with the ___________ newspaper (magazine, television station, etc.), and this request is made as part of news gathering and not for a commercial use.
Affiliated with an educational or noncommercial scientific institution, and this request is made for a scholarly or scientific purpose and not for a commercial use.
An individual seeking information for personal use and not for a commercial use.
Affiliated with a private corporation and am seeking information for use in the company’s business.]
[Optional] I am willing to pay fees for this request up to a maximum of $_____. If you estimate that the fees will exceed this limit, please inform me first.
[Optional] I request a waiver of all fees for this request. Disclosure of the requested information to me is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in my commercial interest. [Include a specific explanation.]
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
Name
Address
City, State, Zip Code
Telephone number [Optional]
Denial and FOIA Request Appeals
Government agencies are allowed to deny requests for a number of reasons: failure to describe documents reasonably; documents don’t exist pertaining to your description; or if you can’t or won’t pay the anticipated processing fees.
There are nine official exemptions allowing a FOIA request to be denied, of which most can be challenged or asked for re-examination. Those exemptions are: national security, internal agency rules, info exemption from another federal statue, trade secrets and confidential information, internal agency memo, personal privacy, investigatory records, and other exemptions. You can find more detail about those here.
These situations can always be appealed or reconciled in some way. It is important to make the argument that the release of this information is highly beneficial to public interest. It’s also common to challenge the adequacy of an agency’s search, asking it to refine or explain its process fulfilling your request. And if you want to take it to the next level, the adequacy of their search can even be challenged in court.
If the agency finds something related to your request that it does not want to release, it still must take action to release parts of the document that are not classified – a document with redactions. If they can’t release any part of a document, they must tell you how much information is being withheld, unless the mere existence of those records is classified.
While FOIA is an excellent tool to maintain the foundation of our democracy, it is not always the easiest tool to use. Even those who have filed hundreds or thousands of FOIA requests still experience resistance from government agencies not willing to divulge their secrets and behavior. That’s why it’s important to be patient, assertive, and even aggressive when you need to be, in order to attain the information you seek.
Remember, anyone can file a FOIA request, whether a U.S. citizen or not. Don’t let initial rejection set you back, be persistent, and demand disclosure of the information we deserve. A lack of transparency can only lead to tyranny.
John Greenewald discusses how to submit a FOIA request and his process for achieving best results on this episode of Beyond Belief:
About the Author
Did Nixon Leave Behind Evidence of Aliens in the White House?
If there’s anyone with insight into the existence of extraterrestrials, it’s the President of the United States. But when the topic of disclosure comes up, Richard Nixon’s name appears infrequently compared to other presidents tied to the government’s ufological secrets. But according to the testimony of one confidential informant, not only has the government made contact, but Nixon left evidence of the existence of aliens in the White House.
And it remains there to this day, he says, hidden in a time capsule – its location known only to a handful of people. Though, Nixon claimed it would surface when the time was right.
That informant is Earl Robert “Butch” Merritt, a man with a storied career as a confidential agent for the Nixon administration. A man who participated in a variety of intelligence operations in the nascent years of what would later become the NSA’s COINTEL program used to surveil, infiltrate, and disrupt various organizations and target groups even before Watergate.
And while Merritt’s credibility might seem questionable when discussing alien disclosure, his career as an informant is well documented, as are his high-level government connections. Which is why his revelation of a clandestine conversation with Nixon regarding the existence of alien technology and a living extraterrestrial entity is hard to immediately dismiss.
Evidence of Aliens in the White House?
President Eisenhower is usually the first name that comes to mind when discussing the White House’s knowledge of an alien presence, particularly in regard to an apocryphal program known as MJ-12, or Majestic 12.
Essentially, MJ-12 was an alleged group of high brass military and government officials organized after the Roswell UFO incident to deal with the implications of an alien presence and its subsequent technology.
And it was that technology recovered from the Roswell crash that is believed to have led to exponential leaps in our technological advancements, many of which have been used to bolster the military industrial complex – an industry Ike so famously warned the world about before leaving office.
Though he didn’t immediately succeed him, Nixon was Eisenhower’s Vice President, making the ufological connection all the more intriguing. It was also relatively well known that Nixon believed in the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrials, despite his release of Project Bluebook’s conclusive analysis; an Air Force study known as the Condon Report, which allegedly put the existence of UFOs to rest.
But according to his testimony, Nixon divulged his knowledge of a “sophisticated intelligent being” to Merritt toward the end of his presidency when he realized the Watergate scandal was becoming an imminent threat. According to Merritt, Nixon claimed the being was alive and in government protection.
He says Nixon entrusted this information to him as he considered Merritt one of his only confidantes, asking him to personally deliver a letter on the subject to Henry Kissinger – a copy of which allegedly remains hidden today somewhere in the White House.
A Dark Journalist’s Disclosure
Merritt’s testimony is corroborated by Douglas Caddy, a man who acted as a defense attorney for the parties convicted in the Watergate scandal and who claims he knows where Nixon’s ET disclosure letter is hidden in the White House. The two published a book titled, Watergate Exposed: How the President of the United States and the Watergate Burglars Were Set Up as told to Douglas Caddy.
Interviews with both men, including Merritt’s accounts of meeting Nixon, and his subsequent mission as letter courier to Kissinger, can be found on the website of Daniel Liszt, an investigative reporter on government and alien conspiracies, who goes by the alias “Dark Journalist.”
Liszt’s interview with Merritt is fascinating in that it delves into his history as one of the most notorious informants for the president and for other city, state, and federal government entities, due to his cutthroat and non-conventional tactics.
In fact, a New York Times profile piece on Merritt confirms this history, focusing specifically on his role helping New York authorities reclaim the Kenmore Hotel – a drug-addled building in Manhattan that was one of the epicenters of the city’s criminal activity in the ’90s.
Merritt was an indispensable tool for Nixon’s Huston Plan – the aforementioned intelligence program to infiltrate and disrupt parties he felt threatened by, particularly political opponents and anti-war groups.
While serving as an informant under the Huston plan, Merritt says he was warned by one of his sources, a switchboard operator next to the Watergate Hotel named Rhita Reid, of the impending investigation into the administration. Merritt said he tried to warn Nixon, but that he wasn’t concerned at the time and didn’t foresee it’s major implications.
Despite this dismissal, Merritt claims he was one of Nixon’s most trusted sources and was even given nicknames including “003” – an obvious James Bond reference. So, when the Watergate scandal played out and the days of the administration waned, Merritt claims he was brought into a secret underground room beneath the White House where Nixon revealed the existence of an alien entity and technology housed at the infamous Nevada military base, Area 51.
“We have possessed knowledge and we have in our protection subjects from a planet X,” Nixon supposedly told Merritt. “Knowledge we obtained so vast and powerful, whoever possesses this knowledge would be the most powerful person in the world,” Merritt recounted.
Merritt claims Nixon then wrote out a lengthy letter that included encrypted formulae to be delivered to Kissinger. He also included two cassette tapes, before sealing the letter and writing something on its outer flap, omitting his normal signature. Nixon then strapped the letter to Merritt’s stomach and sent him to deliver it to its intended recipient for unknown reasons.
Now, he claims that letter remains hidden somewhere in the White House, its location known to he and Caddy who say they will only reveal its location if the National Archives allows one of them to be present to read the letter publicly.
What is there to make of this testimony? While incredibly intriguing at first, there are some pretty farfetched and bizarre aspects to Merritt and Caddy’s story that might be questionable.
It seems if Nixon wanted to clear his name in the annals of history, he would have released this information himself, whether at that moment or before his death. Though in every instance of a president’s alleged attempt at disclosure, the truth always seems to be stranger than fiction.
For more on a U.S. President’s attempt at disclosure check out this episode of Deep Space:
