Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

I’m Lauren Harper, the first Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), and welcome to “The Classifieds.” Read on to learn what actions FPF took to fight government secrecy this week, a critique of AI’s role in the declassification process, and more of this week’s top secrecy news.

FPF fights for Öztürk transparency

FPF, represented by Loevy and Loevy, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department this week for its refusal to disclose information about the arrest of Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk for exercising her constitutionally protected right to free speech. If successful, our suit will help Öztürk defend herself if the Department of Homeland Security continues its efforts to deport her. It will also put the government on notice that it will face more legal challenges the next time they want to drag a journalist off the street.

Read the complaint on our website.

FOIA-ing the LA protests

This week FPF filed a series of FOIA requests with the Marines and the National Guard Bureau to see what training they have received for interacting with the press during immigration-related protests in Los Angeles, California, and San Antonio, Texas. It is currently unclear if these military units receive sufficient (or any) training in press protections, and getting responses to these requests takes on added urgency after reports that local police are intentionally targeting journalists covering Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. We will keep you informed of what we learn.

AI comes for the de/classification process

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently announced the intelligence community needs to introduce more artificial intelligence into its work, including its declassification efforts. She cited the speedy release of thousands of pages of John F. Kennedy Jr. assassination records, which President Donald Trump mandated be released in an executive order, as a prime example of how AI can make the declassification process more efficient. (Gabbard did not appear to address how the JFK release was marred by the disclosure of hundreds of social security numbers, even though the National Archives, which coordinated the release, already has the technical capability to automatically redact social security numbers.)

It’s true that the current declassification review process is far too slow. It often relies on manual, line-by-line reviews — sometimes by multiple agencies, which each get a chance to withhold information. But introducing AI is not a guarantee that agencies will ultimately agree to release the records (especially when the records are not subject to an executive order), and it’s not a silver bullet for poor or rushed decision-making, as demonstrated by the most recent JFK release.

If she really wants to improve declassification, Gabbard should take a page from the National Declassification Center’s Indexing on Demand program, which allows the public to tell the NDC what records it would like to be prioritized for release. This would help ensure the DNI isn’t just releasing politically convenient information.

The Intelligence Community isn’t the only part of the government embracing AI for classification and declassification:

  • The Air Force’s Project Battering Ram seeks to digitize hundreds of its classification guides with the eventual goal of making “classification decisions on its own.”
  • The State Department has been exploring AI’s role in both its declassification and FOIA programs for several years. The pilot program explored diplomatic cables from the late 1990s, but could eventually be applied to more contemporary records.

What I’m reading

New Orleans pushes to legalize police use of ‘facial surveillance’ (The Washington Post). In response to reports that New Orleans police were using facial recognition technology to identify and search for suspects in violation of city ordinances that bans the use of AI as a surveillance tool, the city is considering legalizing the practice. If it passes later this month, the proposed rule would make New Orleans “the first U.S. city to formally allow facial recognition as a tool for surveilling residents in real time.”

Serving ‘dead time’: D.C. teens needed rehabilitation to keep the city safe. They languished in a violent detention center instead. (The Washington Post). FOIA requests submitted to Washington’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services helped The Post’s investigation of Washington’s juvenile justice system. The requests helped show that DYRS takes too long to provide teens with treatment plans, that its facilities are dangerously overcrowded, and is struggling to prevent crime.

Airlines don’t want you to know they sold your flight data to DHS (Wired). FOIA requests helped uncover that a data broker called Airlines Reporting Corporation, which is owned by eight major airlines including Delta, American, and United, has been selling customer data to Customs and Border Protection. The purchased data is updated daily and the entire database contains over a billion records. The FOIA releases show that ARC didn’t want CBP to disclose where the flight data came from, and that CBP claims to need the information “to support federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify persons of interest’s U.S. domestic air travel ticketing information.”

Transparently yours,

Lauren Harper

Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation