Leila Barghouty

We're sorry, the old FOIA office can't come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, cuz she's dead.

As the Signal plot continues to thicken, consider subscribing to our secrecy newsletter, The Classifieds, for a weekly lesson in how wild this all is from our resident expert @laurenleharper.bsky.social

Under Pressure From Trump, ICE Is Pushing Legal Boundaries Confrontations with judges are grabbing attention, but more quietly a pattern of questionable arrests shows the extent to which the administration is willing to test norms and laws.

ICE officers arrested 54-year-old Julio Noriega and moved him into a van before he could explain himself, he said.

He spent several hours in an ICE processing center before officers checked his wallet and realized he is a U.S. citizen.

By @vernalcoleman.bsky.social

You really can’t script this. The same week the Trump admin invokes the state secrets privilege to deny Boasberg info, he is assigned the lawsuit over the Trump administration’s apparent carelessness with state secrets.

JUST IN: Judge James Boasberg has been assigned to the Signalgate lawsuit.

Trump Halted an Agent Orange Cleanup. That Puts Hundreds of Thousands at Risk for Poisoning. Diplomats in Vietnam warned Washington that halting USAID’s efforts to clean up the massive deposit of postwar pesticides would be a catastrophe for public health and relations with a key strategic partner in Asia.

NEW: When Marco Rubio abruptly halted foreign aid, cleanup crews in Vietnam were forced to abandon one of the largest chemical spills in the world for weeks.

Left exposed: open pits of soil contaminated with dioxin, the deadly byproduct of Agent Orange.

You can read them in all their unsettling glory at the National Security Archive: nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/275...

For a couple of years in the early 70s, the NSA had a wildly orientalist internal magazine called Dragon Seeds, which was complete with Buddhist quotes, an advice column called "Ask the Dragon Lady" and of course, a racist caricature at the end of every issue to remind readers it was classified:

An attorney for Khalil says his legal team “literally have not been able to confer with our client once since he was taken off the streets of New York City,” interfering with their ability to represent him. They sought a privileged call with him that was scheduled for March 20.

Anchorage Police Department: AI-Generated Police Reports Don’t Save Time The Anchorage Police Department (APD) has concluded its three-month trial of Axon’s Draft One, an AI system that uses audio from body-worn cameras to write narrative police reports for officers—and ha...

Axon’s Draft One, which produces AI-generated police reports, purports to cut in half the amount of time officers spend writing police reports. But a recent police agency’s decision to discontinue use of the software and a new scientific study cast doubt on those assertions.

Pitch Wildlife and Environmental investigations to Bellingcat - bellingcat If your source material is online and public, and your story unearths something deeper about our planet, we'd love to hear from you.

Bellingcat's Environmental Investigation team is looking for story pitches that use open-source investigation techniques to investigate environmental issues. We offer payment for stories, so if you've been working on a story and want to get paid, look here:
www.bellingcat.com/uncategorize...

Free Mahmoud Khalil The Trump administration has illegally arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil in direct retaliation for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights. This egregious, unprecedented, and illegal abuse of...

ICE illegally arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident, for his political advocacy.

Take action to free Mahmoud NOW.

Virginia Prison Director Tells Self-Immolating Prisoners to ‘Behave’ At least six people incarcerated at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison intentionally burned themselves to get transferred.

At least six people incarcerated at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison intentionally burned themselves to get transferred out. Today, the VADOC's director dismissed concerns and called those imprisoned people manipulative. theappeal.org/virginia-pri...

There's still time to pass the PRESS Act, which would give journalists critical protections from government spying. You can speak up through our action center with just a few clicks:

!!!

The Classifieds The latest news and commentary on fighting government secrecy.

FPF is launching a newsletter focused on government secrecy: attacks on FOIA, overclassification, and anything and everything limiting government transparency — especially during this upcoming administration. Subscribe to here: mailchi.mp/freedom.pres...