Unassigned

LSD canine psychosis article from USSR (1962)

“Description of an Experimental Psychosis Induced by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.” Official US government translation of an article from a Soviet psychiatric journal in 1962. [Released due to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the Defense Technical Information Center by Russ Kick, 28 Feb 2009. The request was referred to and fulfilled by the National Technical Information Service.]

Click here to download the article [PDF format | 20 pp | 500K]

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On Twitter

I’m now on Twitter (because there’s not already enough things to get done online):

http://twitter.com/russkick

The Memory Hole automatically feeds there, and I’ll be posting news, links, etc. relating to freedom of information, government documents, and related topics. And lots of unrelated topics – books, lit, poetry, art, religion, food, life in the rural South ….

Pentagon to allow photos of soldiers’ coffins when families permit

From the New York Times:

In a reversal of an 18-year-old policy that critics said was hiding the ultimate cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the press will now be allowed to photograph the flag-draped coffins of America’s war dead as their bodies are returned to the United States — but only if their families agree.

American Forces Press Service article.

No word on whether the military will be taking its own photos of the coffins and, if so, whether they’ll release them.

See also: Photos of Military Coffins

(Thanks, Fred.)

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Explosives Newsletters

Here’s something I didn’t expect to find online: the complete run of ATF Explosives Industry Newsletter from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. All 17 irregularly published issues so far.

Also, the Department of Mining of Queensland, Australia, has posted the complete run of its Explosives Safety News.

As always, I’ve downloaded the material I’m linking to. If it disappears, I’ll post it here.

Books Are People, Too

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I recently started a new blog, Books Are People, Too, about books, book culture, and the written word in general.

Updated daily, it covers the new, the upcoming, the old, the rare; nonfiction of all stripes, fiction, poetry, magazines. Soon I’ll be posting interviews, excerpts, and reviews.

Please take a look, subscribe to the feed, and spread the word.

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Wikileaks Releases 6,780 Semi-secret CRS reports

From Wikileaks:

Wikileaks has released nearly a billion dollars worth of quasi-secret reports commissioned by the United States Congress.

The 6,780 reports, current as of this month, comprise over 127,000 pages of material on some of the most contentious issues in the nation, from the U.S. relationship with Israel to the financial collapse. Nearly 2,300 of the reports were updated in the last 12 months, while the oldest report goes back to 1990. The release represents the total output of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) electronically available to Congressional offices. The CRS is Congress’s analytical agency and has a budget in excess of $100M per year.

Although all CRS reports are legally in the public domain, they are quasi-secret because the CRS, as a matter of policy, makes the reports available only to members of Congress, Congressional committees and select sister agencies such as the GAO.

They’ve added all those reports to the Open CRS system, which should mean that they’re now searchable at that site.

Obama embraces openness, strengthens FOIA

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From the National Security Archive:

President Obama embraces openness on day one, as urged by the National Security Archive and a coalition of more than 60 organizations

New president says era of secrecy in Washington is over, pledges “new era of openness in our country”

For more information contact:Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton – 202/994-7000

Posted: January 21, 2009

Washington, D.C., January 21, 2009 – On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order and two presidential memoranda heralding what he called a “new era of openness.” Announcing a Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act to reestablish a presumption of disclosure for information requested under FOIA, President Obama said that “every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.”

The FOIA Memorandum articulates a presumption of disclosure for government records and a hostility to the use of secrecy laws to cover up embarrassing information.  It directs the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing FOIA and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to improve information dissemination to the public.

President Obama also issued an executive order reversing changes made by President George W. Bush to the Presidential Records Act (PRA), stating he would hold himself and his own records “to a new standard of openness.”  The PRA order permits only the incumbent president (and not former presidents’ heirs or designees or former vice presidents) to assert constitutional privileges to withhold information, and would provide for review by the Attorney General and the White House Counsel before a president could claim privilege over his or her records.

Finally, President Obama also today issued a Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government which recognizes that “[o]penness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”  It directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Chief Technology Officer, and the Administrator of the General Services Administration to develop an Open Government Directive within 120 days to implement the memo.

“This is the earliest and most emphatic call for open government from any president in history,” said Archive director Tom Blanton.  “President Obama has reversed two of the most dramatic secrecy moves of the Bush initiatives, one that told agencies to withhold whatever they could under FOIA and the other that gave presidential heirs and vice presidents the power to withhold presidential records indefinitely.”

In November 2008, the National Security Archive and a coalition of more than 60 organizations called on President Obama to reverse the secrecy trend and issues new directives on openness on Day One of his presidency.  Today, President Obama heeded that call and took decisive action to ensure that openness, transparency, and accountability would be the rules and not the exceptions for his administration.

“President Obama is doing what he said he would do from the campaign trail.  He is trying to transform how the public will learn about government decisions and actions” said Meredith Fuchs, the Archive’s General Counsel.  “I hope his decisive leadership on these issues pushes the bureaucracy to make these principles a reality — to give us an accountable, democratic, national government.”

Navy JAG Investigations online

The Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG), in the FOIA area of its website, has posted around three-dozen of its investigative reports. Incidents range from 1937 to 1992 and include the Iowa explosion, the Panay sinking, the attack on the Liberty, the Midway fire, the seizure of the Pueblo, the Port Chicago explosion, and the death of James Forrestal.

JAGMAN Investigations

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Odds and Ends

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> Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion [Bloomsberg]

The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

> Rick Warren deletes anti-gay language from his website (includes screenshot) [AmericaBlog]

> Rod Blagojevich’s Deleted Facebook Account [Gawker]

> CIA Releases Soviet Intelligence Services Docs [Cryptome]

> After a pause, Government Attic is back in action, posting lots of new exclusive documents pried from the FBI, National Archives, Interior, the JASON Group, and elsewhere.

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Pentagon docs: expenditures in Iraq & elsewhere

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Today in its Freedom of Information Act reading room, the Pentagon has posted 202 pages of documents related to its Iraqi Freedom Fund transfers/expenditures from 2002 to 2006:

DOD reading room [PDF | 9 megs]

Memory Hole mirror

The Government Accountability Office explains the Iraqi Freedom Fund:

“The Iraqi Freedom Fund is a special account providing funds for additional expenses for ongoing military operations in Iraq, and those operations authorized by P.L. 107-40 (Sept. 13,2001), Authorization for Use of Military Force, and other operations and related activities in support of the global war on terrorism.”

Some sample pages from the Pentagon’s FOIA release:

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