Ernie Lazar, Who Trawled for Secret Government Documents, Dies at 77
By pursuing his “unusual hobby” of filing as many as 10,000 Freedom of Information requests about extremist groups, he proved invaluable to historians and journalists.
By Sam Roberts, NY Times, Sept. 7, 2022
Ernie Lazar, an unheralded hero of researchers who mined his vast digital and documentary archive of government records on political extremists to invigorate their books, articles and arguments and to warn against “it can’t happen here” complacency, died on Nov. 1 at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 77.
His death was confirmed by the Coroner’s Bureau of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. He reported online a few months ago that he was receiving home hospice care for kidney disease.
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