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 about the week’s top secrecy news.
Protecting an agency’s ‘best interest’ isn’t a FOIA exemption
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is spending nearly $31 million to equip all field officers with body cameras by the end of September.
This could be framed as a step toward transparency, but buying cameras for officers doesn’t mean the public will actually get to see what ICE is doing. Between ICE’s history of skirting court orders to wear cameras in the first place, and officers wearing cameras but refusing to turn them on, the agency’s latest announcement that this will make it more accountable shouldn’t be taken at face value.
Even if ICE provides every field agent with a camera and they are turned on, an agency directive from 2025 creates a clear barrier to public access. The policy states that when camera footage captures incidents where members of the public are seriously injured or killed during an ICE encounter, an agency review panel — known as the Body Worn Camera Review Group — will convene to determine if releasing the records proactively is in “the best interest of the agency.”
Unsurprisingly, the review group hasn’t released any footage proactively under this provision, despite the growing number of fatalities.
Luckily, ICE’s sham nod to transparency isn’t the final verdict on public access to this footage. In fact, it’s largely irrelevant.
That’s because an agency’s internal proactive disclosure policy doesn’t supersede federal statute, and there’s no Freedom of Information Act exemption that allows an agency to withhold records simply because it would make it look bad.
FOIA requesters like myself have already sought footage from ICE’s use-of-force incidents, and, while the legal battles for these records will be lengthy, it’s necessary to underscore that ICE’s self-serving policy isn’t the end of the road.
Your kid’s musical instrument might be a national security threat
In the latest absurd example of invoking national security to raise prices, the Trump administration is now proposing tariffs on imported brass wind instruments, from tubas to trombones. The rationale is that buying these instruments from abroad harms domestic production of copper and zinc, which are important parts of the defense supply chain, and that they should be more expensive as a result.
The supply chain claim doesn’t hold water. But it does provide another example of President Donald Trump invoking national security to make household goods more expensive. Last year, he cited “national security and other reasons” to push for steeper prices on everything from foreign films to kitchen cabinets.
These ridiculous assertions point to a serious problem: The government is growing increasingly comfortable using national security as a pretext to achieve an ever-wider array of policy goals — and bypass public scrutiny in the process.
It’s not an entirely new problem. For decades, officials from every administration have used vague national security justifications to hide wrongdoing or embarrassing information from the public. Now, that same rationale is being used to dictate trade policy, and, as a result, it’s costing everyday consumers real money.
One straightforward fix would be for the public, the press, and lawmakers to aggressively challenge the government every time it invokes national security as a catch-all. If we get in the habit of doing this, it will result in fewer government secrets — and maybe even cheaper tubas.
What I’m reading
Watchdog: NSA’s NDAs don’t comply with whistleblower law
The National Security Agency’s inspector general reports that the spy agency’s nondisclosure agreements lack the proper references to whistleblower protections. This report will do nothing to allay concerns that the administration’s proposed government-wide nondisclosure agreement may chill whistleblowers.
Grassley seeks release of government records recounting Nazi war crimes
Sen. Grassley recently wrote to Trump requesting an executive order that mandated the release of all remaining classified Nazi war crimes records. The request comes nearly 30 years after the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998 required agencies to conduct a comprehensive declassification review of records related to Axis crimes, as well as the U.S. intelligence community’s postwar collaboration with former Nazi operatives. Like many legislative attempts to force agencies to declassify their records, the NWCDA struggled to overcome agencies’ internal secrecy culture, and Grassley is hoping an executive order will make the difference.
Transparently yours,
Lauren Harper
Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation
