Federal judge says Air Force ignored records law

[kpete]

Federal judge says Air Force ignored records law
By Toni Locy
ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 20, 2006

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force engaged in a pattern of ignoring requests for the release of classified documents dating to the Vietnam War, establishing a response rate that is worse than the CIA's, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled Wednesday in favor of the Washington-based National Security Archive, the largest non-governmental library of declassified documents, in significant parts of a lawsuit the group filed against the Air Force in 2005.

Collyer found that the Air Force had no defense – or essentially conceded – that it had failed to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act for up to 18 years in at least one case. The Air Force also ignored appeals of its denials of access to records for up to nine years, she said.

But the judge refused to order the Air Force to immediately turn over records pertaining to 82 pending requests by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit group affiliated with George Washington University. Instead, she ordered the Air Force to determine which portions of the documents could be declassified and released to the archive.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20060420-0654-airforce-foia.html

[MADem]

1. Wow, I'd heard about their 'tude, and how they got away with it

for the longest time. They seemed to have their own timetable, too. And not just in regard to THIS matter, either.

In a 12-page opinion, Collyer chastised the Air Force for its “dismal record” in responding to requests by the archive, whose collection of documents is used by historians, academics and other researchers interested in national security.

The Air Force had argued that the past should be forgotten and that it should get credit for devising a new Web-based system for tracking FOIA requests.

But Collyer was skeptical of the plan because it is unfunded.

“Since the Air Force only woke up in May 2005 to its need to fulfill its FOIA obligations on a more timely basis, it has not had time to demonstrate the success or failure of its new attention to FOIA,” she wrote.

[Imagevision]

2. Watch, this judge will "resign" shortly... ala Bush

[bemildred]

3. No shit. The Pentagon, ignore the law? Who knew? nt