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 see why the Snowden disclosures are still relevant, which agency lost half its Freedom of Information Act staff, and more of this week’s top secrecy news.

Snowden disclosures take on new urgency

Twelve years ago this week, Edward Snowden — now a longtime FPF board member — blew the whistle on global mass surveillance programs, changing the way we think about the relationship between privacy and national security.

The 2013 revelations take on added urgency as the Trump administration reportedly attempts to circumvent existing privacy guardrails and build a “master database” containing our most sensitive information.

Such a database, combined with the government’s surveillance authorities, would grant the administration an unprecedented view into our private lives and provide it more opportunities to crack down on dissent.

It’s all the more reason to revisit what abuses the Snowden disclosures helped us mitigate and which still urgently need fixing. Read more on our website.

Democracy might die in darkness. But the fatal illness begins when the Archives’ lights are dimmed.

The National Archives and Records Administration has released its budget request for 2026, and the cuts are staggering, especially for an agency that was already operating on a shoestring budget. The agency, under the absentee leadership of acting archivist Marco Rubio, is seeking almost $60 million less than its previous budget — that’s more than a 10% cut.

NARA has been underwater for too long, but these reductions could completely capsize the agency, jeopardizing existing records, efforts to streamline large declassification projects, and ongoing work to standardize classification rules across the government.

The budget request isn’t final, and Congress can still help keep NARA’s lights sufficiently on — the question is, will it?

What I’m reading

Justice Dept. abandons suit to recover Navarro White House emails (The Washington Post). The Justice Department won’t try to recover emails from Peter Navarro, Trump’s first-term trade adviser, even though a judge already ruled the records are presidential and must be turned over to the National Archives. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted the request, but did not give an explanation for the reversal. This is a worrisome sign for anyone hoping President Donald Trump won’t abscond with presidential records again at the end of this term.

Document shows how FBI handled background checks for Trump appointees (Bloomberg News). Jason Leopold reports that the State Department’s FOIA office is down to half its previous size. In 2024, it took State’s FOIA office an average of 564 days to process most complex requests (which I would argue make up most of State’s requests), making it likely that it will take the State Department an average of two years or longer to process most of its requests at current staffing levels.

The absence of “state secrets” in US-El Salvador agreement: On removal and imprisonment of non-US citizens (Just Security). Co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, Ryan Goodman, has an excellent primer on the case law around the “state secrets” privilege, in which the government refuses to provide evidence in court cases (and sometimes to judges themselves) because doing so could damage national security. The privilege, which undermines the entire notion of judicial review, is frequently abused and can be abused to hide wrongdoing and prevent embarrassment — like in the case of the wrongful deportation of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. Goodman’s most important takeaway might be that the privilege can only be invoked to protect “actual secrets,” not a highly public crisis of the government’s own making.

How the FBI and Big Ag started treating animal rights activists as bioterrorists (The Intercept). FOIA requests filed by the nonprofit Property of the People to the FBI have released information shedding light on the law enforcement agency’s close relationship with the farm industry — and their joint efforts to treat animal rights activists as domestic terrorists. An FBI veterinarian (yes, the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate employs veterinarians for its animal epidemiological investigations) even said in 2015,“ Animal rights and environmental groups have committed more acts of terrorism than Al Qaeda.”

Ohio lawmakers propose bill targeting frivolous public records requests (Medina Today). Ohio State Representatives Sharon Ray and Dani Isaacsohn have introduced a bill that could potentially be weaponized against public records requesters. The bill proposes allowing public offices to limit requests “that are intended to harass or disrupt the work of public officials and their offices,” and could easily be abused to allow public officials to ignore requests they don’t like. As Medina Today reports, “The bill has yet to receive a number and be assigned to a House committee for further consideration.” Hopefully it stays that way.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time.

Transparently yours,

Lauren Harper

Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation