FOIA? FOOLED YA!

(First In A Series On Freedom of Information At Hilary Clinton's State Department)

By

J. Michael Springmann

The U.S. Department of State evidently believes that it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or the Privacy Act (PA), laws passed in the aftermath of Richard Nixon's Watergate. It fiercely fights the public's attempts to learn about waste, fraud, corruption, mismanagement, and abuse of authority amongst America's diplomats. This is particularly bad for a U.S. government agency, but worse for State since the Director of its FOIA office is Margaret Grafeld, who works for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). That's the organization which, until comparatively recently, didn't have a sign outside its Langley, Va. headquarters and still does not provide anything more than a zip code for a mailing address.