FOIA Advisor

FOIA News: 9/11

FOIA News (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

14 Years After 9/11, Secrecy Shrouds Many Records

Dan Christensen, Miami Herald, Sept. 10, 2015

Seven weeks after the end of the massive cleanup at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan in 2002, a legal investigator for the families of 9/11 victims requested a copy of an arrest warrant issued by Interpol for fugitive al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Here’s the reply she got from the Justice Department’s Interpol-U.S. National Central Bureau:

“Release of information about a living person without that person’s consent generally constitutes an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy in violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You must submit an authorization [privacy waiver] signed by Osama bin Laden, consenting to the USNCB’s release to you of any record that it may have pertaining to him.”

The Justice Department’s assertion of privacy rights for bin Laden is a small rock in the wall of official secrecy that continues to hide 9/11 documents held by the FBI, CIA and other government entities on the 14th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Read more here.