News groups ask appeals court to protect Americans' Freedom of Information Act rights

Dan Christensen, Fla. Bulldog, Oct. 24, 2017

Accusing the FBI of years of dishonesty in handling Freedom of Information Act requests, a legion of news organizations and support groups asked a federal appeals court Monday to protect Americans’ rights under the law.

The media’s vigorous arguments were made in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in Florida Bulldog’s recent appeal of a Miami judge’s June 29 ruling that would allow the FBI to keep secret thousands of pages of records about an apparent Saudi support network for the 9/11 hijackers in Sarasota and other information about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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Also filing a brief yesterday was former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee served as co-chair Congress’s Joint Inquiry into 9/11. Graham’s brief asked the appeals judges to reverse Miami U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga’s ruling, citing “pervasive” FBI over-classification of records that “is inappropriate and contrary to consistent findings that over-classification contributed to the U.S.’s inability to detect or disrupt the 9/11 attacks.”

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