Movements for civil rights were a worldwide series of political movements for equality before the law that peaked in the 1960s. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change through nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was accompanied, or followed, by civil unrest and armed rebellion. The process was long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not fully achieve their goals, although the efforts of these movements did lead to improvements in the legal rights of previously oppressed groups of people.

Below are files of prominent people and events.

Declassified Civil Rights Movement FBI Files

The following file is archived here for historical reference, and may contain language and references that are offensive to some people.

The Communist Party and the Negro, February 1953 – [ 114 Pages, 4.75 MB ] – Excerpt: Since its organization in this country in 1919, the Communist Party, USA, has devoted an inordinate portion of its time, funds, propaganda and personnel to recruiting members from among the fifteen million Negroes who comprise almost ten percent of our total population. The failure of its efforts in this respect is best attested to by the fact that it can be estimated that there are at present only 1,994 active, disciplined, dues-paying Negro members in the Communist Party. Of course, in addition to this figure,  there are approximately 18,000 other Negroes who have some contact with the Party, and its front groups, and who, to a certain degree, influenced directly or -indirectly by its program, propaganda and agitation.

16th Street Baptist Church Bombing – [ 242 Pages, 12.45 MB ] – The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963 as an act of racially motivated terrorism. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the United States 1960s Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Abdullah, Hakim Abdullah – NARA Release – [27 Pages, 1.3MB] Abdullah, Hakim Abdullah – FBI Release – [10 Pages, 3.2MB] – Hakim Abdullah Jamal (March 28, 1931 – May 1, 1973) was the name adopted by American activist Allen Donaldson, who was a cousin of Malcolm X and later became an associate of Michael X. Jamal wrote From the Dead Level, a memoir of his life and memories of Malcolm X. Jamal was romantically involved with several high-profile women, notably Jean Seberg, Diana Athill, and Gale Benson.

Abernathy, Ralph – [1,558 Pages, 52MB] – Ralph David Abernathy, Sr. (March 11, 1926 – April 17, 1990) was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, a minister, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest friend. In 1955, he collaborated with King to create the Montgomery Improvement Association, which would lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In 1957, Abernathy co-founded, and was an executive board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Following the assassination of King, Abernathy became president of the SCLC. As president of the SCLC, he led the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. during 1968. Abernathy also served as an advisory committee member of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). He later returned to the ministry, and in 1989 — the year before his death — Abernathy wrote, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography, a controversial autobiography about his and King’s involvement in the civil rights movement.

Allen, Lillie Belle – [ 45 Pages, 1.39 MB ] – On July 21, Lillie Belle Allen, a black woman from Aiken, S.C., who was visiting York with her parents, was riding in a car driven by her sister, Hattie Dickinson. Dickinson turned the car onto North Newberry Street and was looking for a grocery store when she saw a man with a gun leaning out of a second-story window. Multiple members of two all-white gangs, the Newberry Street Boys and the Girarders, were on the street that night, and many of them were armed. Dickinson began to turn around in the intersection of Newberry Street and Gay Avenue but the car stalled. As more armed white men began coming onto their porches, Dickinson panicked. Her parents, who were in the back seat, beging praying. Her older sister, Lillie Belle Allen, jumped out of the car to get to the driver’s seat and take the wheel. She flailed her arms screaming, “Don’t shoot!” Multiple shooters opened fire from the street, rooftops and windows, fatally wounding Allen. More than one hundred rounds were fired at the car, and Allen was shot by several different types of bullets.

Allen,  Louie – [ 93 Pages, 7.87 MB ] – Louis Allen (April 25, 1919 – January 31, 1964) was an African American logger and civil rights activist in the small town of Liberty, Mississippi. He allegedly witnessed the murder of a fellow activist by a white state legislator, and was himself murdered when he approached federal authorities about the killing. Despite a consensus among investigators that Allen was killed by Amite County’s sheriff, no one has been prosecuted for the murder.

Anderson, Marian – [ 122 Pages,  8.93MB ] – Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993) was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. Music critic Alan Blyth said “Her voice was a rich, vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty.” Most of her singing career was spent performing in concert and recital in major music venues and with famous orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although offered roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined, as she had no training in acting. She preferred to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals. She made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire of everything from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals. Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century.

Barrett, Richard – [ 242 Pages, 12.45 MB ] –  Richard Anthony Barrett (1934-2010) was a leader of several white supremacist groups. In 1987, following a rally in Cummings, Georgia, Barrett received a death threat that he reported to the FBI.

This release consists of five different investigations conducted between 1967 and 2003 in which Barrett was either a subject of the case or was mentioned in another investigation

Black Guerilla Family – [ 456 Pages, 17.18 MB ] – The Black Guerrilla Family (also known as the Black Family or the Black Vanguard) is a prison and street gang founded in 1966 by George Jackson and W.L.

Nolen while they were incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California, north of San Francisco.

Chavez, Cesar – [ File #1 | File #2 | File #3 | File #4 | File #5 | File #6 | File #7 | File #8 | File #9 | File #10 | File #11 | File #12 | File #13 | File #14 | File #15 | File #16 | File #17 ] – Cesar Chavez (born César Estrada Chávez, (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist, who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (later the United Farm Workers union, UFW).

Dee, Ruby [1 Pages, 0.5MB] – Ruby Dee (October 27, 1922 – June 11, 2014) was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and civil rights activist. She is perhaps best known for originating the role of “Ruth Younger” in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun (1961). Her other notable film roles include The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), and Do the Right Thing (1989). Unfortunately, the National Archives found hundreds of pages on Ruby Dee, but are charging me .80 cents per page. I am archiving this here so others know this file is available either at the NARA branch itself (reference this FOIA request and file number) or via payment. If you’d like to “sponsor” the retrieval of this document, please CONTACT me.

DuBois, William E.B. – [ File #1 | File #2 | File #3 | File #4 | File #5 ] – William E.B. DuBois, former Director of Publications of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was of interest to the FBI due to his affiliation with communist front groups.

Evers, Medgar – [ 236 Pages, 17.55 MB ] – Medgar Wiley Evers (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) was an African-American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi. After returning from overseas military service in World War II and completing his secondary education, he became active in the civil rights movement. He became a field secretary for the NAACP.

Fard, Wallace – The FBI’s “Vault” Release – [ File # 1 | File # 2 | File # 3 | File # 4 | File # 5 | File # 6 | File # 7 ] Fard, Wallace – FBI Release #1 (Not on The Vault) [995 Pages, 75MB] – Miscellaneous information about Wallace D. Fard, who is said to be the original founder of the Black Muslim movement.

Farmer, James L. – [ 338 Pages, 18.58 MB ] – James Leonard Farmer, Jr. (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999) was a civil rights activist and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was the initiator and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Ride, which eventually led to the desegregation of inter-state transportation in the United States. In 1942, Farmer co-founded the Committee of Racial Equality, which later became the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an organization that sought to bring an end to racial segregation in the United States through nonviolence. Farmer was the organization’s first leader, serving as the national chairman from 1942 to 1944. He was an honorary vice chairman in the Democratic Socialists of America.

Freedom Riders – [ File #1 | File #2 | File #3 | File #4 | File #5 | File #6 | File #7 | File #8 | File #9 | File #10 | File #11 | File #12 | File #13 | File #14 | File #15 | File #16 | File #17 | File #18 | File #19 | File #20 | File #21 | File #22 ] [ 4,285 Total Pages] – Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and following years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.

Geiger, H. Jack – [24 Pages, 1.2MB] – Herman J. Geiger (November 11, 1925 – December 28, 2020), known as H. Jack Geiger, was an American physician and civil rights activist. He was a leader in the field of social medicine, the philosophy that doctors had a responsibility to treat the social as well as medical conditions that adversely affected patients’ health, famously (and controversially) writing prescriptions for food for impoverished patients suffering from malnutrition. Geiger came to embody the idea of the responsibility of a physician to do something about what is now known as the social determinants of health, believing that medicine could be an instrument of social change. He served patients’ medical needs as well as social and economic necessities, which he believed were in large part responsible for the health problems communities faced. He was one of the doctors to bring the community health center model to the United States, starting a network that serves 28 million low-income patients as of 2020.

Gregory, Richard “Dick” Claxton – [3,384 Pages, 339.4MB] – Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an African-American comedian, civil rights activist, social critic, writer, entrepreneur, conspiracy theorist, and occasional actor. During the turbulent 1960s, Gregory became a pioneer in stand-up comedy for his “no-holds-barred” sets, in which he mocked bigotry and racism. He performed primarily to black audiences at segregated clubs until 1961, when he became the first black comedian to successfully cross over to white audiences, appearing on television and putting out comedy record albums.  Gregory was at the forefront of political activism in the 1960s, when he protested the Vietnam War and racial injustice. He was arrested multiple times and went on many hunger strikes. He later became a speaker and author, primarily promoting spirituality.  Gregory died of heart failure at a Washington, D.C., hospital at age 84 in August 2017.

Hamer, Fannie Lou – FBI Release #1 – [554 Pages, 28.68 MB] Hamer, Fannie Lou – FBI Release #2 – [167 Pages, 15MB] – Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) was a voting rights activist and civil rights leader. In June 1963, she and several other voting rights activists were arrested at a Mississippi bus station. This release concerns the FBI’s investigation into possible civil rights violations relating to that arrest.

Hampton, Fred – [194 Pages, 8.01 MB] – Fred Hampton (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an African-American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). He was killed while sleeping in his apartment during a raid by a tactical unit of the Cook County, Illinois State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO), in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Hampton’s murder was chronicled in the 1971 documentary film The Murder of Fred Hampton, as well as an episode of the critically acclaimed documentary series Eyes on the Prize.

Hayden, Tom – FBI Vault Release – [608 Pages, 31MB] Hayden, Tom – FBI Release #1 – [181 Pages, 13MB] Hayden, Tom – FBI Release #2 – [273 Pages, 51.2MB] – Thomas Emmet Hayden (December 11, 1939 – October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring the Port Huron Statement and standing trial in the Chicago Seven case. In later years, he ran for political office numerous times, winning seats in both the California Assembly and California Senate. At the end of his life he was the director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in Los Angeles County. He was married to Jane Fonda for 17 years, and is the father of actor Troy Garity.

Hedgeman, Anna – [251 Pages, 52.4MB] Hedgeman, Anna – [11 Pages, 2MB] – Anna Arnold Hedgeman (1899-1990) was an influential African American civil rights advocate, educator, and public servant. She was a pioneering force in the fight for racial and gender equality, dedicating her life to social justice and community service. Hedgeman was the first African American woman to hold a mayoral cabinet position in New York City under Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., where she worked on issues of employment, housing, and education. She played a significant role in organizing the 1963 March on Washington, contributing to the historic event that brought attention to the Civil Rights Movement. Her work with organizations such as the National Urban League and the National Council of Churches, along with her efforts in education and politics, left an indelible mark on American society.

Hudson, Winson– [189 Pages, 7.6MB] – Winson Hudson (1916–2004) was a dedicated civil rights activist from Mississippi whose lifelong commitment to justice helped transform voting rights in the American South. Born in Leake County, she became deeply involved in the movement through her work with the NAACP, where she served as president of the local chapter for more than 35 years. Hudson played a key role in registering Black voters despite facing threats, economic retaliation, and violence. She was also instrumental in desegregating schools in her community, courageously filing lawsuits that challenged entrenched racial barriers. Her memoir, Mississippi Harmony: Memoirs of a Freedom Fighter, co-written with Constance Curry, documents her tireless fight for equality and the personal sacrifices she endured to ensure future generations could live in a more just America.

Hooks, Benjamin – [223 Pages, 10.65 MB] – Benjamin Lawson Hooks (1925-2010) was a civil rights leader who served as the director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for more than a decade. This release consists of a background investigation file with materials dated 1972-1980 and several investigative files concerning threats against Hooks or the NAACP between 1987 and 1990.

Jones, Claudia – [805 Pages, 42.85 MB] – Claudia Cumberbatch Jones (15 February 1915—24 December 1964) was a Trinidadian journalist, who became a political activist and black nationalist through Communism.

Kasper, John – FBI Release #1 –  [2,787 Pages, 206MB] Kasper, John – FBI Vault Releases #1-6 –  [2,780 Pages, 135MB] – John Kasper was an American far-right activist and bookseller known for his vehement opposition to the racial integration of schools following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Born in 1929, Kasper gained national notoriety in the mid-1950s for his involvement in anti-integration protests, most notably in Clinton, Tennessee, where his incendiary speeches contributed to escalating racial tensions and violence. Despite several arrests and convictions for incitement to riot, Kasper remained a vocal proponent of segregation, often associating himself with the doctrine of “massive resistance” against federal desegregation mandates. A controversial figure throughout his life, Kasper also embraced and propagated the works of American poet Ezra Pound, whose economic and political views echoed his own nativist ideologies.

King, Coretta Scott – [ 976 Pages, 19.76MB ] – Coretta Scott King (April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Mrs. King played a prominent role in the years after her husband’s 1968 assassination when she took on the leadership of the struggle for racial equality herself and became active in the Women’s Movement and the LGBT rights movement.

King, Rodney – [ 725 Pages, 53 MB ] – Rodney Glen King (1965-2012) was the victim of an abusive arrest by Los Angeles police officers on March 3, 1991. Two officers involved in the arrest were found guilty of depriving King of his civil rights. This 725-page release of material from the FBI’s color of law investigation consists almost exclusively of news clippings related to the case.

King, Jr., Martin Luther [226 Pages, 4MB] – Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr., January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.

Ku Klux Klan – [676 Pages, 22.57MB] Ku Klux Klan – (Russ Kick Collection) – [133 Pages, 22.4MB] – The first Ku Klux Klan flourished in the Southern United States in the late 1860s, then died out by the early 1870s. Members adopted white costumes: robes, masks, and conical hats, designed to be outlandish and terrifying, and to hide their identities. The second KKK flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, and adopted the same costumes and code words as the first Klan, while introducing cross burnings. The third KKK emerged after World War II and was associated with opposing the Civil Rights Movement and progress among minorities. The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent reference to the USA’s “Anglo-Saxon” blood, harking back to 19th-century nativism and claiming descent from the original 18th-century British colonial revolutionaries.

Lee, George Washington – [20 Pages, 13.7MB] – George Washington Lee (December 25, 1903 – May 7, 1955) was an African-American civil rights leader, minister, and entrepreneur. He was a vice president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and head of the Belzoni, Mississippi, branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was assassinated in 1955 for organizing African Americans to try to register to vote. Since 1890 they had been effectively disenfranchised in Mississippi due to a new state constitution; other states across the South passed similar acts and constitutions, excluding millions of people from the political system and establishing one-party states.

Lingo, Albert J. – [90 Pages, 29.88 MB] – Colonel Albert J. Lingo, also known as Al Lingo (January 22, 1910 – August 19, 1969) was a career Alabama Highway Patrolman who served as Director of the Alabama Department of Public Safety from 1963 to 1965, including the turbulent early 1960s years marked by marches and demonstrations that characterized the civil rights movement in the U.S. South. Lingo’s service under Alabama governor George Wallace with regard to the Selma to Montgomery marches has been characterized in a negative light, though Lingo himself disputed that characterization, stating that he was following orders as required by his oath of office.

He resigned as director effective October 1, 1965, and later ran for election to be sheriff of Jefferson County, Alabama; he died at age 59 on August 17, 1969.

(Source: Ernie Lazar)

Liuzzo, Viola – [ 1,535 Pages, 76.47 MB ] – Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) was a Unitarian Universalist civil rights activist from Michigan, who was murdered by Ku Klux Klan members after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama.

One of the Klansmen in the car from which the shots were fired was a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant. Liuzzo’s name is one of those inscribed on a civil rights memorial in the state capital. She died at the age of 39.

Lowery, Joseph Echols – Cross References – [80 Pages, 41MB] – Joseph Echols Lowery (October 6, 1921 – March 27, 2020) was an American minister in the United Methodist Church and leader in the civil rights movement. He founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr. and others, serving as its vice president, later chairman of the board, and from 1977 to 1997 its president. Lowery participated in most of the major activities of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and continued his civil rights work into the 21st century.

He was called the “Dean of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Malcolm X – [ Part 01 | Part 02 | Part 03 ] – Malcom X was the Minister of the Nation of Islam up to March 1964.

He left the Nation of Islam and formed the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Malcom X was assassinated in 1965 while delivering a speech in New York City. Norman Butler, Thomas Johnson and Talmage Hayer were convicted of Malcom X’s murder and all three were sentenced to life in prison. The FBI investigated Malcom X to verify communist influence.

Mississippi Burning (MIBURN) – [1,049 Pages, 55.13 MB] – Three American civil rights’ workers, James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner, were shot at close range on the night of June 21–22, 1964 by members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County’s Sheriff Office and the Philadelphia Police Department located in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The three had been working on the “Freedom Summer” campaign, attempting to register African Americans to vote. Their murders sparked national outrage and a massive federal investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation referred to this investigation as Mississippi Burning (MIBURN), and eventually found the bodies 44 days later in an earthen dam near the murder site. After the state government refused to prosecute, the federal government initially charged 18 individuals but was only able to secure convictions for seven of them, who received relatively minor sentences for their actions. However, outrage over their deaths assisted in the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Moore’s Ford Lynching – [3,787 Pages, 235MB] – The Moore’s Ford Lynchings, also known as the 1946 Georgia lynching, refers to the July 25, 1946, murders of four young African Americans by a mob of White men. Tradition says that the murders were committed on Moore’s Ford Bridge in Walton and Oconee counties between Monroe and Watkinsville, but the four victims, two married couples, were shot and killed on a nearby dirt road. The case attracted national attention and catalyzed large protests in Washington, DC and New York City. President Harry Truman created the President’s Committee on Civil Rights and his administration introduced anti-lynching legislation in Congress, but could not get it past the Southern Democratic bloc. The FBI investigated for four months in 1946, the first time it had been ordered to investigate a civil rights case, but it was unable to discover sufficient evidence to bring any charges. In the 1990s publicity about the cold case led to a new investigation. The state of Georgia and the FBI finally closed their cases in December 2017, again unable to prosecute any suspect. The lynching victims — George W. and Mae Murray Dorsey, and Roger and Dorothy Malcom — have been commemorated by a community memorial service in 1998, a state historical marker placed in 1999 at the site of the attack (Georgia’s first official recognition of a lynching), and an annual re-enactment held since 2005. According to the 2015 report by the Equal Justice Initiative on lynchings in the Southern United States, Georgia has the second-highest number of documented lynchings.

NAACP (Summary) – [732 Pages, 26.06 MB] – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination”. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people. The NAACP bestows the annual Image Awards for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and the annual Spingarn Medals for outstanding positive achievement of any kind, on deserving black Americans. It has its headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.

Nation of Islam – [ 321 Pages, 14.26 MB ] – The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a syncretic new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930. The Nation of Islam’s stated goals are to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African Americans in the United States and all of humanity. Its critics accuse it of being black supremacist[2] and antisemitic. The Southern Poverty Law Center states NOI’s “theology of innate black superiority over whites and the deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders have earned the NOI a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate.”

National Council of Churches – [ File #1 51.71MB | File #1A 37.24MB | File #2 17.90MB | File #3 16.69MB | File #4 16.87MB | File #5 28.59MB | File #6 26.53MB | File #7 18.98MB | File #8 32.84MB | File #9 24.15MB | File #10 30.77MB | File #11 23.28MB | File #12 30.71MB | File #13 15.52MB | File #14 26.67MB | File #15 23.94MB | File #16 30.00MB | File #17 16.40MB | File #18 25.32MB | File #19 26.51MB | File #20 21.98MB | File #21 31.37MB | File #22 26.55MB | File #23 17.92MB | File #24 20.96MB | File #25 18.95MB | File #26 16.76MB | File #27 20.66MB | File #28 15.41MB | File #29 20.38MB  | File #30 16.50MB ] – [ 6,530 Total Pages ] – The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is an ecumenical partnership of 37 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member denominations, churches, conventions, and archdioceses include Mainline Protestant, Orthodox, African American, Evangelical, and historic peace churches. Together, they encompass more than 100,000 local congregations and 45 million adherents. It began as the Federal Council of Churches in 1908, and expanded through merger with several other ecumenical organizations to become the National Council of Churches in 1950. The NCC’s influence peaked in the 1950s, deriving its strength from a commitment to ecumenism, while the NCC’s strident antiwar position against the Vietnam War in the 1960s alienated the laity leading to a decline in influence thereafter. (Source: Ernie Lazar)

Parker, Mack Charles – [ 377 Pages, 20.58 MB ] – Mack Charles Parker (1936 – April 24, 1959) was an African-American victim of lynching in the United States. He was accused of ramping a pregnant white woman in northern Pearl River County, Mississippi. Three days before he was to stand trial, he was kidnapped from his jail cell in the Pearl River County Courthouse by a mob, beaten and shot. His body was found in the Pearl River, 20 miles west of Poplarville, 10 days later. Despite evidence compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and indictment by a federal grand jury, the men who killed him were released.

Perez, Leander – [ 285 Pages, 19.49 MB ] – Leander Henry Perez, Sr. (July 16, 1891 – March 19, 1969), was the Democratic political boss of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes in southeastern Louisiana during the middle third of the 20th century. Officially, he served as a district judge, later as district attorney, and as president of the Plaquemines Parish Commission Council. He was known for his staunch support of segregation.

Randolph, A. Phillip – [ File #1 7.06MB | File #2 17.38MB ] [ 265 Total Pages ] – Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a leader in the African-American civil-rights movement, the American labor movement and socialist political parties. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly black labor union. In the early civil-rights movement, Randolph led the March on Washington Movement, which convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. After the war Randolph pressured President Harry S. Truman to issue Executive Order 9981 in 1948, ending segregation in the armed services. (Source: Ernie Lazar)

Robeson, Paul – FBI Release #1 – [ File #1 84.04MB | File #2 102.10MB | File #3 60.84MB ] – [ 2,840 Total Pages ] – Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an African-American singer and actor who became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. At university, he was an outstanding American football player, then had an international career in singing, as well as acting in theater and cinema. He became politically involved in response to the Spanish Civil War, Fascism, and social injustices. His advocacy of anti-imperialism, affiliation with Communism, and his criticism of the US government caused him to be blacklisted during McCarthyism. Ill health forced him into retirement from his career. He remained an advocate of the unpopular political stances he took until his death.

Robinson, Amelia Boynton  – [38 Pages, 10MB] – Amelia Isadora Platts Boynton Robinson (August 18, 1911 – August 26, 2015) was an American activist who was a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama and a key figure in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. In 1984, she became founding Vice-President of the Schiller Institute affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche. She was awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr., Freedom Medal in 1990.  In 2014, actress Lorraine Toussaint played Robinson in the Ava DuVernay film Selma.

Rustin, Bayard – [434 Pages, 25.46MB] – Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was a civil rights activist and counselor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mr. Rustin was investigated for his ties to the Communist Party of the USA. These files are primarily dated during the 1960s.

Savio, Mario – [ File #1 12.86MB | File #2 10.94MB | File #3 2.05MB | File #4 20.42MB | File #5 0.5MB | File #6 16.53MB | File #7 7.66MB | File #8 15.35MB | File #9 20.15MB ] – [ 1,409 Total Pages ] – Mario Savio (1942-1996) was a political and human rights activist from the University of California at Berkeley who became the voice of the Free Speech Movement. He was investigated by the FBI from July 1964 until January 1975, following his arrest in March 1964 at a civil rights demonstration in San Francisco.

Shabazz, Betty – [ 400 Pages, 16.94 MB ] – Betty Shabazz (1934-1997) born Betty Sanders, aka “Betty X”, was a civil rights advocate and the wife of Malcolm X. The files in this release range from 1958 to 1970.

Till, Emmett – [ 291 Pages, 9.53 MB ] – Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (1945-1955) was murdered while visiting relatives in LeFlore, Mississippi. In 1955, two suspects were tried for the murder, but acquitted. In May 2004, the FBI reopened the investigation to determine if other individuals were involved. This release consists of the FBI’s 2006 “Prosecutive Report” on the matter and includes a type-copy of the transcript of the first trial as an appendix.

Ture, Kwame – FBI 2021 Release – [6,710 Pages, 404MB] Ture, Kwama– FBI Release Old “Vault” Release (Appears to be many more pages later removed from the FBI’s “Vault” website – [456 Pages, 20.12MB] Ture, Kwama – FBI “Vault” Release – [246 Pages, 64.6MB] – Kwame Ture (born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998) was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global Pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the United States from the age of 11 and became an activist while attending the Bronx High School of Science. He was a key leader in the development of the Black Power movement, first while leading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), then as the “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and last as a leader of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).

White Supremecist Groups – [ 78 Pages, 10.94MB ] – White supremacy is the belief of, and/or promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds and that therefore whites should politically, economically and socially dominate non-whites. The term is also used to describe a political ideology that perpetuates and maintains the social, political, historical and/or industrial dominance of whites. Different forms of white supremacy have different conceptions of who is considered white, and different white supremacist identify various groups as their primary enemy.

Wilkins, Roy – [ 1,035 Pages, 48.05 MB ] –  Roy Wilkins (August 30, 1901 – September 8, 1981) was a prominent civil rights activist in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins’ most notable role was in his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). (Source: Ernie Lazar)

Williams, Franklin Hall – FBI Release [170 Pages, 92.7MB ]  Williams, Franklin Hall – National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Release #1 [5 Pages, 0.9MB ]Franklin H. Williams (1917–1990) was a lawyer and civil rights leader in the United States. As an assistant to Thurgood Marshall he represented the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People before courts in criminal cases throughout the South. In 1950 he was appointed director of the NAACP’s western region where for 9 years he directed drives involving open housing, school desegregation and civil rights.

Wright, Nathan – Russ Kick Collection Release – [180 Pages, 27.2MB]  Wright, Nathan – FBI Release #1 – [82 Pages, 5.25MB]  Wright, Nathan – FBI Release #2 – Currently being scanned  Wright, Nathan – FBI Release #3 – [223 Pages, 12MB]- Dr. Nathan Wright was both an Episcopal minister and a scholar. A prominent advocate of black power, Wright shared the ideology of Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was both a participant and chronicler of the first Freedom Ride. At the National Conference on Black Power in Newark in 1967, Wright served as chairman of this pivotal meeting where the tactics of the civil rights movement changed from the demand for individual rights toward demands for group rights.After his ordination in 1950, Nathan Wright fulfilled his parish ministry in a variety of capacities. He held diocesan and national positions which included six years’ service as an Associate in the Office of Stewardship. From 1964 to 1969, Wright served as executive director of the Department of Urban Work in the Diocese of Newark. A lifelong Republican and an avid supporter of Presidents Nixon and Reagan, he was highly educated, earning six degrees, among them a doctorate of education from Harvard and a master’s degree from Episcopal Theological School. Dr. Wright was the author of 18 books, including Black Power and Urban Unrest, 1967; Ready to Riot, 1968; Let’s Work Together, 1968; and Let’s Face Racism, 1970. For over fifty years, he expounded on stewardship and social justice issues in his sermons, lectures, and writing.

Wright, Richard – [ 180 Pages, 9.34 MB ] – Richard Nathaniel Wright (September 4, 1908 – November 28, 1960) was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. His work helped change race relations in the United States in the mid-20th century.

The post FBI Files: Civil Rights Era first appeared on The Black Vault.

The following document was obtained by The Black Vault through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and was part of the “Stargate Collection” release.

It is a 1983 assessment of what LTC Wayne McDonnell thought about what was called the “Gateway Process.” This dealt with hypnosis, holograms, and out-of-body experiences, just to name a few things.

According to his introduction memo, as submitted to the U.S. Army:

“You tasked me to provide an assessment of the Gateway Experience in terms of its mechanics and ultimate practicality. AS I set out to fulfill that tasking it soon became clear that in order to assess the validity and practicality of the process I needed to do enough supporting research and analysis to fully understand how and why the process works. Frankly,’ sir, that proved to be an extremely involved and difficult business. Initially, based on conversations with a physician who took the Gateway training with me, I had recourse to the biomedical models developed by Itzhak Bentov to obtain information concerning the physical aspects of the process. Then I found it necessary to delve into various sources for information concerning quantum mechanics in order to be able to describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness. I had to be able to construct a scientifically valid und reasonably lucid model of how consciousness functions under the influence of the brain hemisphere synchronization technique employed by Gateway. Once this was done, the next step involved recourse to theoretical physics in order to explain the character of the time-space dimension and the means by which expanded human consciousness transcends it in achieving Gateway’s objectives. Finally~ I again found it necessary to Use physics to bring the whole phenomenon of out-of-body states into the language of physical science to remove the stigma of its occult connotations, and put it in a frame of reference suited to objective assessment.”

The full 29 page assessment and analysis is below.

Document Archive

Stargate Collection: Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process, 9 June 1983 [29 Pages, 3MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [3.01 MB]

Missing Page 25

There has been a missing Page 25 for as long as I’ve known the document to exist. In 2021, The Black Vault filed for a new search. The CIA ‘lost’ that request.  When a followed up was sent in December 2023, they told me they still can’t find the page, but I should file to INSCOM in hopes to find it.

In February 2024, The Black Vault filed with INSCOM for the missing page 25. Very quickly, they responded with:

For some extra information, page 25 was received, according to this article, from the The Global Architect Institute, and put online. Although it likely is the official page, the FOIA hunt above represents a sought after copy of the one that accompanied the original. Source: https://www.thearchitect.global/the-25th-page-of-the-cias-gateway-report-on-astral-projection-has-been-discovered/

The post Stargate Collection: Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process, 9 June 1983 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Declassified World Leaders FBI Files

Adulyadej, Bhumibol – [8 Pages, 1.6MB] – Bhumibol Adulyadej (5 December 1927 – 13 October 2016), conferred with the title King Bhumibol the Great in 1987, was the ninth monarch of Thailand from the Chakri dynasty as Rama IX. Reigning since 9 June 1946 he was, at the time of his death, the world’s longest-serving head of state,  the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history and the longest-serving monarch having reigned only as an adult, serving for 70 years, 126 days. During his reign, he was served by a total of 30 prime ministers beginning with Pridi Banomyong and ending with Prayut Chan-o-cha.

Castro, Fidel – FBI Release 1-8 – [2,135 Pages, 143MB]  Castro, Fidel – Archived Release – [761 Pages, 42.82MB] – This is an archived release which consists of older material released by the FBI prior to Castro’s death. It is archived here and may contain repeated pages in the above file.Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who was Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces from 1959 to 2008, and as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration the Republic of Cuba became a one-party socialist state; industry and businesses were nationalized, and socialist reforms implemented in all areas of society. Internationally, Castro was the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement, from 1979 to 1983 and from 2006 to 2008. Havana Cuba Legal Attache Office, 1950s and 1960s – [73 Pages, 44.3MB] – These documents were released after an FOIA appeal. More section may be released, and will be added here, if they are. Open FOIA still pending.  Havana Cuba Legal Attache Office, 1950s and 1960s – [435 Pages, 26MB]  Havana Cuba Legal Attache Office, 1950s and 1960s – [397 Pages, 20MB]

Ceausescu, Nicolae – [104 Pages, 60MB] – Nicolae Ceaușescu (5 February 1918 – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He was also the country’s head of state from 1967, serving as President of the State Council and from 1974 concurrently as President of the Republic, until his overthrow and execution in the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, part of a series of anti-Communist and anti-Soviet uprisings in Eastern Europe that year.

Edward VIII – [172 Pages, 47MB] – Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December the same year, after which he became the Duke of Windsor. Edward was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary. He was named Prince of Wales on his sixteenth birthday, nine weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, he served in the British Army during the First World War and undertook several overseas tours on behalf of his father.

Gairy, Eric – FBI Release #1 – [761 Pages, 37MB] Gairy, Eric – FBI Release #2 – [69 Pages, 5.2MB] – Sir Eric Matthew Gairy PC (18 February 1922 – 23 August 1997) was the first Prime Minister of Grenada, serving from his country’s independence in 1974 until his overthrow in a coup by Maurice Bishop in 1979. Gairy also served as head of government in pre-independence Grenada as Chief Minister from 1961 to 1962, and as Premier from 1967 to 1974.

Hussein, Saddam – [File #1 | File #2] – Saddam Hussein (1937-2006) was the president of Iraq from 1979-2003. In 2003, coalition forces invaded Iraq and deposed Hussein. In 2006, he was tried by the Iraqi Interim Government and convicted of the retaliatory executions of 148 Iraqi Shiites. He was executed on December 30, 2006. File 1 of this release is a March 10, 2005 “Prosecutive Report of Investigation” written for the Iraqi Special Tribunal concerning Hussein’s commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. File 2 consists of interviews conducted by the FBI while Hussein was in U.S. custody in 2004; the release’s contents range from 2004 to 2006.

Maxwell, Robert – [679 Pages, 33.03 MB] – Ian Robert Maxwell, MC (10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and Member of Parliament (MP). He rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire. His death revealed huge discrepancies in his companies’ finances, including the Mirror Group pension fund, which Maxwell had fraudulently misappropriated. He escaped from Nazi occupation, joining the Czechoslovak Army in exile in World War II and then fighting in the British Army where he was decorated. After the war he worked in publishing, building up Pergamon Press to a major publishing house. After six years as an MP during the 1960s, he again put all his energy into business, successively buying the British Printing Corporation, Mirror Group Newspapers and Macmillan, Inc, among other publishing companies.

Muammar Qadhafi – [207 Pages, 47.56 MB] – Muammar Qadhafi* (1942-2011) was the dictatorial ruler of Libya from 1969 to 2011. This release consists of FBI material related to Qadhafi ranging from 1976 to 1989. Investigations include security matters related to Qadhafi’s travel to the United States in 1987, threats by Libyan dissidents against Qadhafi, and Qadhafi’s possible involvement in threats to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Material has been withheld to protect personal privacy, the identities of FBI sources, and classified material. * Name variations include Khadafi, Khaddafy, Gaddafi, and Qadhafi.

Nagy, Ferenc – FBI Release #1 – [473 Pages, 48MB] – Ferenc Nagy (1903–1979) was a Hungarian politician, statesman, and prominent anti-communist who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from February 1946 to May 1947. A leader of the Independent Smallholders’ Party, Nagy advocated democratic government, agrarian reform, and political independence during Hungary’s turbulent post-World War II transition. Although his party had won a decisive victory in the 1945 elections, growing Soviet influence and pressure from Hungarian communists ultimately forced him from office while he was abroad in 1947. Nagy subsequently settled in the United States, where he became an outspoken critic of Soviet expansionism and communist rule in Eastern Europe. He remained active in international political affairs, writing and speaking extensively about democracy, freedom, and the Cold War until his death in 1979.

Rabin, Yitzhak – FBI Release #1 – [574 Pages, 132MB]  Rabin, Yitzhak – FBI Release #2 – [368 Pages, 15.6MB]  Rabin, Yitzhak – FBI Release #3 – [172 Pages, 6.5MB] – Yitzhak Rabin (1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995.  Rabin served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973, during a period of deepening U.S.–Israel ties. He was appointed Prime Minister of Israel in 1974, after the resignation of Golda Meir. In his first term, Rabin signed the Sinai Interim Agreement and ordered the Entebbe raid. He resigned in 1977 in the wake of a financial scandal. Rabin was Israel’s minister of defense for much of the 1980s, including during the outbreak of the First Intifada. In 1992, Rabin was re-elected as prime minister on a platform embracing the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. He signed several historic agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with long-time political rival Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. In November 1995, he was assassinated by an extremist named Yigal Amir, who opposed the terms of the Oslo Accords. Amir was arrested and convicted of Rabin’s murder; he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated and the second to die in office after Levi Eshkol. Rabin has become a symbol of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.

Rawlings, Jerry – [68 Pages, 22MB] – Jerry John Rawlings (1947–2020) was a Ghanaian military officer and politician who served as the 4th President of Ghana. He initially came to power through a military coup in 1979, leading the country briefly before handing over power to a civilian government. However, in 1981, Rawlings led another coup, establishing the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and ruling as a military leader until 1992. After transitioning Ghana to a democratic system, he was elected president in 1992 and re-elected in 1996, serving until 2001. His tenure was marked by economic reforms and efforts to stabilize the nation, while his leadership style blended authoritarianism with popular support.

Rhee, Syngman – [148 Pages, 32.93 MB] – Syngman Rhee (March 26, 1875 – July 19, 1965) was the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea as well as the first president of South Korea. When the way for the independence movement in the Japanese colonial period and the comments stood apart, he announced the domestic situation to foreign countries. His latter three-term presidency (August 1948 to April 1960) was strongly affected by Cold War tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Sharon, Ariel – [148 Pages, 32.93 MB] – Ariel Sharon (1928 to 2014) was an Israeli politician. This release consists of material related to diplomatic security issues concerning Sharon’s visit to the United States in 1982 and 1991.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott – FBI Release #1 – [318 Pages, 48.8MB]  Trudeau, Pierre Elliott – FBI Release #2 – [26 Pages, 3.0MB]  Trudeau, Pierre Elliott – State Department Release – [13 Pages, 6.74MB]  Trudeau, Pierre Elliott – Ernie Lazar Release – [248 Pages, 56.65MB] (Source: Ernie Lazar archived files. May be repeats of the above pages)Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, PC CH CC QC FSRC (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.   There are an additional 4,000 pages, available for $115.

Yew, Lee Kuan (State Department Release) – [60 Pages, 3.0MB]  Yew, Lee Kuan (FBI Release) – [65 Pages, 4.3MB]  Yew, Lee Kuan (Secret Service Release) – [25 Pages, 10.6MB] – Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH, SPMJ (born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, 16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), informally known by his initials LKY, was the first Prime Minister of Singapore, governing for three decades. Lee is recognised as the nation’s founding father, with the country described as transitioning from the “third world to first world in a single generation” under his leadership. This is the first of an unclear number of releases. This release was processed by the State Department, since they were the Office of Primary Responsibility (OPR) for the records. I am unclear, at this time, if additional records will come from the FBI.

Zedong, Mao – [55 Pages, 4MB] – Mao Zedong (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which he ruled as the chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism.

The post FBI Files: World Leaders & International Politicians first appeared on The Black Vault.

The released materials include presentations concerning the FAA’s Bioaeronautical Sciences Research Laboratory (BSRL) and its Autopsy Program Team, both associated with the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. These programs support investigations of fatal aviation accidents by coordinating autopsy documentation and conducting forensic toxicological examinations. According to the FAA, its aviation safety responsibilities include collecting medical and pathological information to help identify factors contributing to aircraft accidents. A 2020 FAA technical report, Comparative Evaluation of Forensic Toxicology Findings, 2012–2016, further documents how CAMI’s forensic laboratories and Autopsy Program Team support both the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The first portion of the release, containing presentation slides dated October 1, 2014, describes the laboratory’s handling of biological specimens collected following fatal aircraft accidents. It covers specialized collection kits known as “TOX-BOXes,” chain-of-custody documentation, specimen identification, laboratory storage, and testing for substances including alcohol, carbon monoxide, and various prescription and controlled drugs. The presentation also describes quality assurance procedures, including blind analytical testing, laboratory accreditation, and independent review. These materials provide a historical record of the laboratory’s documented procedures at the time of the presentation.

The second portion addresses the FAA’s Autopsy Program Team and its coordination with medical examiners, coroners, accident investigators, and the NTSB. It describes how the FAA obtains autopsy reports, identifies deceased pilots, and reviews medical evidence that may be relevant to an accident investigation. One instructional case example concerns a fatal light-sport aircraft accident in which an initial decision not to conduct an autopsy was reconsidered. According to the presentation, the subsequent examination identified severe coronary artery disease, including a complete blockage of the left anterior descending coronary artery, and classified the manner of death as natural. The example illustrates the importance of medical findings in examining circumstances surrounding aviation fatalities.

###

Document Archive

Mass Fatalities for Medicolegal Professionals Package Release [20 Pages, 2MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [1.98 MB]

The post FAA Training Records Detail Toxicology and Autopsy Procedures Following Fatal Aviation Accidents first appeared on The Black Vault.

This collection, released by the CIA under FOIA case F-2021-02420, contains historical correspondence, administrative records, appeals, and other materials associated with Bryant’s dealings with the agency. Among the subjects addressed are UFO investigations, alleged intelligence operations, and disputes over the CIA’s handling of information requests. The documents include correspondence concerning the agency’s searches, withholding decisions, fee assessments, and Bryant’s attempts to obtain recognition as a representative of the news media.

One notable portion concerns Bryant’s efforts to obtain records associated with the November 1986 Japan Airlines UFO encounter over Alaska and a subsequent meeting reportedly held at Federal Aviation Administration headquarters in 1987. In a September 30, 2008, response, the CIA stated that there was “no organized CIA effort to do research in connection with UFO phenomena” and that the agency had not maintained an organized UFO intelligence collection effort since the 1950s. Subsequent correspondence documents the reopening of Bryant’s request in 2009 and the CIA’s decision to recognize his news media fee status for that particular case. The collection also includes records concerning litigation arising from the dispute.

Other correspondence concerns Bryant’s attempts to obtain CIA records about John Joseph McCarthy Jr., his alleged intelligence activities, and Project CHERRY. In September 2004, the CIA invoked FOIA exemptions concerning classified information and intelligence sources and methods, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records that would reveal a covert relationship. Subsequent processing resulted in a determination that no responsive records were located, which the CIA upheld on appeal in 2006. Additional materials concern Bryant’s interest in UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass, including a published discussion of FBI records obtained through FOIA.

Document Archive

F-2021-02420 Release Package [170 Pages, 21MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [20.75 MB]

The post Larry W. Bryant and the CIA: UFO Investigations, FOIA Disputes, and Government Correspondence first appeared on The Black Vault.

The records include historical summaries of U.S. reconnaissance incidents and aircraft losses, along with a June 1992 memorandum concerning a Joint Staff effort to examine Cold War POW/MIA cases. Much of the history of the underlying reconnaissance incidents has been documented previously. The significance of the material is instead found in the internal Pentagon discussion surrounding those losses and the questions officials were examining decades later.

Among the most notable passages is a statement that, for some losses, the government’s “official” explanation and what actually happened could represent “two different stories.”

The documents do not establish that missing U.S. servicemen survived in foreign custody. Nor do they establish that official explanations for particular aircraft losses were false. They document questions Pentagon officials were examining in 1992, and some portions of which remain classified today.

A 1992 Joint Staff Review of Cold War POW/MIA Cases

One of the most notable records is a memorandum dated June 17, 1992, titled “JOINT STAFF EFFORT ON COLD WAR POW/MIA ISSUE.”

The memorandum describes a meeting chaired by Maj. Gen. Ryan concerning a task from the Secretary of Defense. According to the document, the effort involved:

“a listing of missing U.S. personnel who may have been captured by the former Soviet Union, PRC or North Korea.”

The memorandum states that downed U.S. reconnaissance assets represented the “most likely candidates,” although possible seaborne losses were also under consideration. CIA and NSA representatives were asked to participate and contribute information.

According to the memorandum, Ryan advised participants that information developed through the effort eventually “will be made public” in some form. Intelligence-community information could be discussed separately.

The document records his position:

“we owe the SecDef as honest a picture as we can present.”

The memorandum also records a separate request from Adm. Cramer:

“Separately, ADM Cramer has asked if we have ‘anything to add to the list or any SIGINT confirming that Soviets have U.S. prisoners.'”

“The ‘Official’ U.S. Explanation”

The memorandum becomes particularly notable in its description of what information officials wanted examined.

It states:

“the ‘official’ U.S. explanation for some of our losses and what really happened might be two different stories.”

The next sentence reads:

“Gen Ryan stressed that this group needs to know the truth.”

The document does not identify in that passage which specific losses prompted the observation. It also does not explain how an official account might have differed from what actually occurred.

Material immediately following this discussion remains withheld in the version released to The Black Vault.

21 Aircraft Loss Incidents and 131 Unaccounted-For Servicemen

Another record, titled “COLD WAR AIRCRAFT LOSSES,” summarizes information supplied by the Air Force and Navy concerning 21 loss incidents between April 1950 and April 1969.

The document separates those incidents into several categories. Four involved cases in which all crew members were recovered and the matter was considered resolved. Six had been presented to the Russians and required additional information. Three involved losses off the coast of the People’s Republic of China. Five had few details available concerning the loss. Two involved partial recovery of crews, and one involved a loss off the Korean coast.

The document then states:

“For the known losses: 131 unaccounted for servicemen.”

The accompanying table identifies Cold War aircraft losses involving a number of platforms, including the Privateer, B-29, P2V, RB-50, C-130, U-2 and RB-47.

A Broader History of U.S. Reconnaissance Incidents

The records also contain the Airborne Reconnaissance Incident History that was at the center of The Black Vault’s original FOIA request.

A Joint Staff Action Processing Form dated June 5, 1992, describes the purpose of the paper as providing a summary of approximately 30 airborne reconnaissance missions during the 1949-1960 period that resulted in international incidents and/or the loss of manned aircraft.

According to the document:

“During the period 1949-1960, there were 32 airborne reconnaissance missions flown which resulted in international incidents and the loss of 13 manned aircraft platforms.”

The pages that follow provide a chronology of encounters involving U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and Soviet, Chinese and North Korean forces.

The release also includes a continuation covering 1961 through 1973.

That section states that after centralized management of reconnaissance activities began in 1960, there was a “significant decrease in reconnaissance-related incidents.” It identifies three losses during the later period: the U-2 shot down over Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the capture of USS Pueblo off North Korea in 1968, and the EC-121 shot down over the Sea of Japan in 1969.

The accompanying chronology documents additional encounters involving U.S. reconnaissance platforms and foreign military forces during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Some of the Record Is Still Classified

Despite the age of both the Cold War incidents and the 1992 review, the FOIA production released to The Black Vault is not complete.

In its September 29, 2025, response, NSA stated that it had “no objection to the release of the NSA equities.” Other information, however, was referred to the Office of the Secretary of Defense-Joint Staff, or OSD-JS (now the Office of the Secretary of War-Joint Staff).

According to NSA, OSD-JS determined that the information remains properly classified under Executive Order 13526 and continues to warrant classification at the SECRET level.

The response states that disclosure:

“could reasonably be expected to cause grave damage to the national security.”

NSA therefore withheld the information under FOIA Exemption (b)(1). Other material was withheld under Exemption (b)(6) to protect personal privacy.

One of the OSD-JS deletions occurs directly after the 1992 memorandum’s discussion of the possibility that an “official” explanation for some losses and “what really happened” could be different.

The historical summary covering 1961 through 1973 also contains information withheld by OSD-JS.

The records were released to The Black Vault in September 2025 after a FOIA request specifically sought material excluded from an earlier NSA release as “non responsive.” They are now being made available online as part of The Black Vault’s document archive, preserving both the historical reconnaissance records and the additional context surrounding the Pentagon’s Cold War POW/MIA review.

###

Document Archive

FOIA Case 103558 Release Package [15 Pages, 2MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [2.27 MB]

The post NSA FOIA Records Detail Pentagon’s 1992 Search for Answers on Missing Cold War Aircrews first appeared on The Black Vault.

The 35-page responsive record was provided by the CIA in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Black Vault with the agency in August 2013. In its July 6, 2026, final response, the CIA said it had located the document in its “database of previously-released records” after determining that an earlier FOIA request had sought records on the same subject.

Searches conducted for this article, however, did not locate the complete document in the CIA’s online Electronic Reading Room or elsewhere through conventional web searches. Some portions may therefore be newly accessible online through this release, although that cannot be fully established. What can be established is that this newly obtained package brings together internal records showing how that information was prepared, cleared and organized for public disclosure.

CIA Withholds Records About What Happened to Bin Laden’s Body

The FOIA request contained two separate items. While the CIA released a previously processed record (at least, in part) responsive to the second, it refused to release records responsive to the first.

Item 1 sought:

“All documents pertaining to the capture of Osama Bin Laden’s body, and all documents pertaining to what happened with Bin Laden’s body after his capture — up to the point of his burial into the ocean.”

The request separately sought records concerning meetings about whether the media should be told of bin Laden’s death.

In its July 6, 2026, final response, the CIA said it conducted a review concerning Item 1 and determined that responsive records existed, but that they would not be released:

“With regard to Item 1, after a thorough review of your request, we determined that responsive records, should any exist, would be contained in operational files.”

The CIA cited the CIA Information Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3141, which exempts certain CIA operational files from the search, review, publication and disclosure requirements of FOIA. The agency therefore stated:

“This determination is not subject to an administrative appeal.”

It should be noted that the CIA did not confirm that responsive records concerning the handling of bin Laden’s body exist. Instead, it said that “should any exist,” they would be contained within operational files exempted from ordinary FOIA processing.

As a result, the newly released package does not provide the records specifically requested concerning the handling of bin Laden’s remains through his burial at sea. The CIA instead declined to search or process that portion of the request under the CIA Information Act.

Panetta Sought Rapid Declassification for the Public Rollout

The package begins with a May 1, 2011, memorandum from CIA Director Leon Panetta concerning a request for declassification “in preparation for Counterterrorism Compound Rollout.”

Panetta wrote that materials had been assembled at the president’s request:

“At the President’s request, we have prepared materials for the public roll-out of the 1 May 2011 counterterrorism operation against a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.”

The memorandum identifies the material prepared for release as three graphics, a document containing talking points for a background briefing, and another containing questions and answers for use during that briefing.

The three graphics were described as a current image of the Abbottabad compound, an imagery-based line drawing, and a comparison showing the compound neighborhood before construction and after it had been built.

Panetta’s memorandum also makes clear that the government was working on an extremely compressed schedule. He requested that the documents be declassified “on an expedited basis” for use by the interagency.

Clapper Authorized Use of Intelligence Imagery

The next record documents another part of that process.

A memorandum to the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency concerns the “Declassification of Imagery Products.” It bears the signature of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and is dated May 1, 2011.

Clapper authorized:

“the use of these half-meter resolution products, as well as any text or other intelligence information derived from this imagery, in an UNCLASSIFIED manner for the public roll-out.”

The memorandum says Clapper had reviewed the imagery-based products prepared at the request of the White House.

That authorization was followed by the compound imagery itself: a detailed illustration identifying walls, gates, opaque windows and the trash-burning location; a 2011 overhead image; a preconstruction/postconstruction comparison; and an image of the compound in 2005.

Those images are not newly revealed.

The Defense Department distributed the Abbottabad graphics during its May 2, 2011 background briefing. A contemporaneous copy of the Defense Department material identifies the individual files as the Pakistan map, the 2005 Abbottabad compound image, preconstruction and postconstruction imagery, a 2011 image and the compound illustration.

The National Security Archive later collected the material as part of its Zero Dark Thirty File, identifying the imagery as National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency satellite images and the conceptual compound illustration as a Defense Department release. The Defense Intelligence Agency also continues to make the compound illustration publicly available.

Those earlier releases provide the likely public origin for at least the imagery contained in the newly obtained CIA package.

Internal Talking Points Were Explicitly “Written to Be Declassified”

Following the imagery is a nine-page document titled:

“Talking Points for Background Briefing (with USMIL references)”

Immediately underneath is an unusual parenthetical instruction:

“(written to be declassified)”

The document is dated May 1, 2011.

The talking points divide the presentation among the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the CIA director and the CIA deputy director.

The opening script states:

“As you heard, the President ordered a raid today against an al Qaeda compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.”

It describes the intelligence operation as the product of years of work and says:

“Our intelligence and military professionals did a superb job. They deserve tremendous credit for serving justice to Osama Bin Laden.”

The proposed CIA director’s portion emphasizes the interagency intelligence effort:

“This military operation was the culmination of years of careful and highly advanced intelligence work.”

It specifically identifies officers from CIA, NGA and NSA as having worked “very hard as a team to analyze and pinpoint this compound.”

The Intelligence Case for the Compound

The proposed remarks for the CIA deputy director go deeper into the intelligence trail that led to Abbottabad.

The talking points state that detainee reporting after September 11 identified individuals who may have provided direct support to bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and that one courier drew particular attention.

According to the document:

“Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by Bin Laden.”

The document says intelligence officers eventually identified the courier’s real name and, approximately two years before the raid, identified an area in Pakistan where he and his brother operated. In August 2010, according to the prepared briefing:

“we found their residence — a compound in Abbottabad, a town about 35 miles north of Islamabad.”

The talking points then walk through characteristics that had raised suspicion: the compound’s size, unusually high walls, privacy barriers, lack of telephone or Internet service and the occupants’ practice of burning their trash.

But the prepared language also acknowledged a fundamental uncertainty.

After discussing the intelligence assessments, the document states:

“No other candidate fit the bill as well as Bin Laden.”

It then says the intelligence community’s conclusion was “twofold”: analysts had high confidence that a high-value target was being harbored there, while assessing that there was a “strong probability” that the individual was bin Laden.

An Extensive Q&A Anticipated Difficult Questions

Perhaps the most noteworthy portion of the release is a lengthy, 14-page section titled “Questions and Answers,” also explicitly marked “(written to be declassified).”

It amounts to a prepared government response book covering questions officials expected to face following the raid.

Among them:

“How confident were you that Bin Laden was there?”

The prepared answer distinguished between confidence that the compound contained a high-value terrorist target and confidence that the individual was bin Laden.

Another asks:

“Why didn’t the US trust the Pakistanis enough to share the intelligence with them?”

The prepared response states:

“The United States shared our very sensitive intelligence with no one until this very tightly held in our own government.”

It then says that decision was made to protect intelligence and ensure the operation’s success.

The document also anticipated questions about detainee interrogation.

One asks whether the reporting came from anyone held at a black site or subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. Another specifically asks whether detainees at Guantanamo provided information leading to bin Laden’s location.

For both, the prepared response declines to discuss the specific sources but says reporting from “a wide variety of sources — independently verified — helped lead us to this location.”

Questions About the Raid — and Answers Officials Were Not Prepared to Give

The Q&A also demonstrates where officials intended to draw the line publicly.

Asked what unit conducted the raid, the prepared answer says only that it was “a small team of highly-skilled operators.”

Asked how many troops were involved:

“I can’t be specific. It was a small team.”

Asked where the operation was launched from:

“For operational reasons, I cannot share that information with you.”

Asked how long U.S. forces were in Pakistan:

“I cannot get into that level of detail with you.”

The document says U.S. forces had left Pakistan after the operation and states that the mission objective, as directed by the president, was:

“To kill or capture Osama Bin Laden.”

Other anticipated questions addressed whether anyone was captured, how bin Laden was identified, what happened to his remains, U.S. casualties and whether similar operations could be conducted in Pakistan in the future.

Officials Prepared for Questions About Why Bin Laden Was Killed

The briefing book specifically anticipated:

“Why kill rather than capture?”

The proposed answer was concise:

“There was a firefight when our team arrived.”

Another question addressed why the president authorized the operation despite not knowing with certainty that bin Laden was inside.

The prepared response acknowledged that uncertainty:

“We couldn’t wait for absolute proof that might never come, nor could we risk the possibility that he might relocate.”

It characterized the decision as one involving risks the president was willing to take.

The document also anticipated questions about whether bin Laden’s death would alter U.S. counterterrorism policy, the search for Ayman al-Zawahiri, relations with Pakistan, Afghanistan policy and the possibility of retaliatory attacks.

Public Affairs Guidance Shows the Intended Government Message

The final substantive section is titled “Public Affairs Guidance for the Interagency,” again followed by:

“(written to be declassified)”

Its “Toplines” present a condensed version of the message agencies were expected to use publicly.

It states that President Obama had authorized “a unilateral raid” against the Abbottabad compound and describes the operation as the culmination of intelligence work led by CIA with support from partners across the Intelligence Community.

The guidance also contains sections headed “Impact of Bin Laden’s Death on al Qaeda,” “On the Intelligence Case,” “On the Operation,” “On US-Pakistan Relations,” and “Possible Retaliation by al Qaeda.”

Much of that information closely parallels what government officials said publicly in the immediate aftermath of the raid.

A May 2, 2011, Defense Department background briefing, for example, discussed the compound’s walls, privacy barriers, burned trash, lack of a conventional profile and approximately $1 million assessed value while presenting the government-released imagery.

The National Security Archive subsequently preserved extensive material concerning the government’s public account of the raid, including White House briefings and the NGA compound imagery.

What the Release Adds

The significance of the CIA release is therefore not that every fact or image inside it is new.

Much of the substantive account of the Abbottabad operation became public immediately after bin Laden’s death, and the imagery included in the CIA file can be traced to the government’s May 2011 public rollout.

What the newly obtained package adds is a more complete view of the internal machinery behind that rollout.

The records document Panetta’s request for expedited declassification, Clapper’s authorization permitting intelligence imagery and information derived from it to be used in an unclassified setting, the proposed division of talking points among senior officials, an extensive list of anticipated questions and prepared answers, and interagency public-affairs guidance.

They also preserve material in its internal form, which includes passages explicitly labeled “written to be declassified”, rather than simply the public statements that ultimately emerged from the briefings.

The document itself was approved for release on August 22, 2017, and the CIA told The Black Vault in 2026 that it located the material among its previously released records, but searches have not located this complete CIA package in the agency’s Electronic Reading Room or elsewhere online, leaving open the possibility that at least portions of the internal package are now becoming readily available online for the first time. That possibility cannot presently be confirmed.

###

Document Archive

F-2013-02406 Release Package [37 Pages, 4.77MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [4.78 MB]

The post CIA Release Reveals Internal Bin Laden Raid Talking Points, Q&A and Declassification Records first appeared on The Black Vault.

The controversy did not become public until 1983, more than two years after Reagan took office. Congressional investigations examined how Carter campaign documents reached Reagan’s campaign and whether they were improperly used in preparing Reagan for the debate. The matter became widely known as “Debategate.” Reagan campaign officials acknowledged having access to Carter materials, but accounts differed over who obtained them and how they entered the campaign. Investigators examined several possible sources, and the question of precisely how the documents were originally acquired remained unresolved.

The House Subcommittee on Human Resources conducted an investigation and issued a report in 1984. The investigation documented the possession and circulation of Carter campaign material within Reagan’s organization but did not establish a definitive chain showing who initially supplied the material. The FBI also investigated aspects of the controversy, generating records that later became available through the Freedom of Information Act and other government disclosure channels.

The documents collected in this archive relate to those investigations and the broader controversy surrounding the transfer of Carter campaign materials to the Reagan campaign. They provide a documentary record of government efforts to determine what happened, who had access to the material, and whether federal laws had been violated. The historical record established that Carter campaign documents reached Reagan campaign personnel; the unresolved issue was how the material left the Carter operation and initially reached Reagan’s campaign.

Document Archive

CIA Documents – F-2014-02258 Release Package [45 Pages, 9.2MB] – Note: There are additional documents on the CIA’s electronic reading room previously released. Those links are in the FOIA response letter.

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [9.18 MB]

The post The 1980 Reagan–Carter “Debategate” Scandal first appeared on The Black Vault.

The document, titled Inspection Report of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, Directorate of Operations, was completed in August 2001. An earlier version was approved for release to the public on July 26, 2010.

The Black Vault requested a new Mandatory Declassification Review of the report on January 8, 2019. In a July 6, 2026 final response, the CIA said it had completed that re-review and “determined that additional information can be released.” The agency said remaining deletions were being maintained under Executive Order 13526 and statutory protections incorporated through FOIA Exemption (b)(3).

A comparison of the two versions confirms that the new release does contain additional information. Much of it consists of statistics, organizational details and fuller passages that were only partially visible, or completely removed, in the 2010 copy. Numerous operational details, program names, personnel figures and other information remain classified.

New Details on the Center’s Growth

One of the clearest additions appears in the report’s executive summary.

The 2010 version stated that Counterterrorist Center resources had increased over five years, but the actual personnel and budget figures were removed. It also withheld part of the description of the operations that those resources supported.

The newly released version fills in those figures:

“CTC’s resources have steadily increased over the last five years, with personnel growing by 74 percent during that period and the budget more than doubling.”

The report adds that the Center’s resources permitted it to support “operations against terrorists and liaison relationships that DO area divisions otherwise could not fund.”

Those figures provide additional context for the CIA’s counterterrorism buildup before the September 11 attacks.

More of the Pre-9/11 Analytic Problems Are Now Public

Some of the more notable newly released material concerns the pressures facing CIA analysts responsible for terrorism intelligence.

The earlier version disclosed that analysts were concerned about the constant state of crisis and lacked sufficient time for warning and predictive analysis. But a substantial passage immediately following that discussion was withheld. The 2010 copy moved almost directly from the discussion of analysts trying to “get ahead of the target” to a Directorate of Operations response.

The 2026 release now fills in much of that missing section.

According to the newly disclosed text, following the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa, CTC management commissioned a review of the Center’s finished intelligence concerning Usama Bin Ladin and possible improvements in analytic tradecraft.

The report states that the earlier study found:

“significant strides in intelligence reporting, analysis, and the application of tradecraft principles”

but nevertheless recommended that management deliberately set aside analysts for research. It also found that an “eruption of reporting, much of it unreliable,” combined with a “dramatic growth in customer taskings,” hindered CTC’s ability to conduct in-depth research on Bin Ladin and his organization.

The Inspector General reported that 18 months later, those conditions persisted and the analytic group remained “largely reactive despite the infusion of more analytic resources.”

Analysts Were Spending Large Amounts of Time Supporting Operations

Other newly available figures provide a clearer picture of how CTC’s analytic resources were being used.

The 2010 version disclosed that the Center’s Assessments and Information Group, or AIG, provided terrorism analysis, but removed several organizational and staffing details.

The new release states that AIG had expanded from two regional branches, one covering the Middle East and another covering the “rest of the world”, to five branches, with increased attention to Bin Ladin’s network and weapons of mass destruction.

Even after that expansion, however, AIG accounted for only “14 percent of staff officers or only 7 percent of the total CTC workforce.”

Another previously withheld figure shows that analysts estimated they devoted between 30 and 50 percent of their time to counterterrorism operations support, including targeting and planning connected with “penetrations, recruitments, renditions, and disruptions.”

Information Overload and Translation Backlogs

The new release also restores substantially more information about a problem that runs through the report: the volume of intelligence coming into the Center.

The newly disclosed executive-summary language says CTC had to cope with “information overload,” sometimes generated by successful operations against terrorist cells. Officers said they attempted to scan and prioritize material for immediate action, but the report noted that operational demands did not allow the Center to exploit everything it collected.

A later section now identifies the CIA’s Language Exploitation Branch as the unit principally responsible for translating clandestinely acquired foreign-language material.

The 2010 release left most of that page blank or reduced it to isolated fragments.

The 2026 version provides considerably more detail. It states that much of the material was poor-quality audio and could contain accented speech, slang or particular dialects. Translators triaged large quantities of information looking for threat indicators, but:

“the translators cannot process all of the information quickly, and several interviewees expressed concern about what they might be missing.”

The report adds that material from some large operations could take “months or longer to process fully.”

New Numbers on Reporting, Staffing and Funding

Several smaller redactions were also removed.

The new version says the percentage of disseminated CTC reports rated “good” or better increased from 44 percent in 1998 to 48 percent in 1999. Those figures were absent from the earlier release.

It also reveals that threat reporting accounted for 12 percent of all CTC reports disseminated in 2000. Senior officials described the rapid dissemination of all threat information as a “zero threshold” approach, while customers sought additional context and analysis.

On personnel, the newly released report says 40 percent of survey respondents believed their work unit lacked sufficient personnel to accomplish its mission.

And in a discussion of funding, the CIA Inspector General reported that the additional costs associated with the millennium counterterrorism surge consumed an estimated 15 percent of CTC’s fiscal year 2000 budget. The extra expenditures occurred during the first quarter, while reserve funds did not arrive until May and supplemental funding followed in August. Interviewees characterized the period as a “rollercoaster” year.

A Fuller Document, But Significant Redactions Remain

The new release does not fundamentally rewrite what was already known from the 2010 document. Large portions of sensitive operational material remain withheld, including program names, specific overseas activities, personnel numbers, operational locations and sections concerning particular counterterrorism programs.

But the comparison shows that the Mandatory Declassification Review did produce meaningful additional disclosure, as the new version provides a more complete contemporary account of the pressures inside the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center immediately before September 11: rapidly expanding resources, analysts pulled heavily into operational support, difficulties conducting long-term research on Bin Ladin, information overload, translation backlogs and staffing concerns.

###

Document Archive

EOM-2019-00272 Release Package [82 Pages, 9.13MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [9.14 MB]

The post New CIA Release Reveals More About Counterterrorism Problems Before 9/11 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The records concern the Advanced Naval Vehicles Concepts Evaluation, or ANVCE, Project, a Navy study begun in 1975 to help shape research and development for the 1980–2000 period. The project ultimately examined nine broad vehicle concepts through more than 200 studies, tests and experiments. Volume 1 states that candidate vehicles were judged against three basic requirements: they had to “be technically feasible,” “have military value,” and “be affordable.”

The Navy released the records September 23, 2026, in response to a FOIA request filed by The Black Vault in September 2023. According to the response, the Navy located Volumes 1, 2 and 3, along with the appendices to Volume 4, consisting of 939 pages in all. The Navy said the Volume 3 appendices and the main Volume 4 report were still being digitized for later review and release, meaning the current production is not yet the complete ANVCE collection.

Portions remain withheld under FOIA Exemption (b)(1), covering information the Navy says remains properly classified concerning “operations and military plans, weapons systems, and operations,” as well as Exemption (b)(6) for personal privacy.

Volume 1 Was Already Public — The Significance Is in the Detailed Volumes

Volume 1, the ANVCE summary, is not newly public. A copy has circulated publicly online for years; a searchable copy remains hosted by the International Hydrofoil Society.

The same appears that it cannot be said about every page of Volumes 2 through 4. Individual ANVCE technical studies and information about the program have long been publicly accessible, including contemporary technical literature, and former ANVCE technical director Peter J. Mantle devoted a chapter of his 2015 book High-Speed Marine Craft to the project.

Per the report, the Navy considered Volume 2 the centerpiece of the project.

A January 7, 1980, Navy promulgation letter included with the newly released records states:

“These results are the most important products from the ANVCE project.”

According to that letter, Volume 2 drew on 165 separate analyses, surveys and experiments consuming 70 percent of the project’s total budget. Nine generic concepts produced 23 “point designs” which included 13 surface vehicles and 10 air vehicles, plus baseline and existing designs used for comparison.

A Navy Study of What Might Come Next

ANVCE grew out of Defense Department concerns over advanced naval vehicle development in the mid-1970s.

According to Volume 1, guidance from the Director of Defense Research and Engineering instructed the Navy to:

“Conduct R&D and studies necessary to evaluate the technical and military potential and costs of other ANV concepts which offer possible alternatives to the SES.”

The study formally examined air-cushion vehicles, hydrofoils, planing craft, surface-effect ships, small-waterplane-area twin-hull ships, air-loiter aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, sea-loiter aircraft and wing-in-ground-effect vehicles.

This was not simply an exercise in drawing futuristic vehicles. The Navy developed engineering-level “point designs,” subjected concepts to technical analysis, estimated their acquisition and life-cycle costs, and attempted to determine how their characteristics would matter against a projected future military threat.

Volume 1 describes Volume 2 as the technical feasibility assessment, Volume 3 as the cost analysis, and Volume 4 as the military mission analysis.

And among the concepts examined in detail, one stands out.

A 560-Ton Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Designed to Stay on Station for 15 Days

Volume 2 offers extensive details on the A/L(N) – a nuclear-powered “air loiter” aircraft.

The Navy was examining how to move beyond the endurance limitations of conventional maritime patrol aircraft. Volume 2 states that the project explored technology that might increase airborne loiter time “to at least a day, or perhaps 15 or more days.”

The study considered supercritical wings, laminar-flow control, advanced composite structures, advanced turbofan and turboprop engines, liquid-hydrogen fuel and lightweight nuclear propulsion, or LWNP.

The nuclear design was substantial: 560 tonnes gross weight, an 88-tonne payload, 407-knot cruise speed, 35,000-foot maximum altitude, 1,600-nautical-mile radius of action and 15 days on station, according to Table IV-3 of Volume 2.

The report makes a statement about what nuclear propulsion theoretically offered:

“Other than crew limits, there is no discernible limit to the endurance of the nuclear-powered aircraft.”

ANVCE selected a 15-day configuration as its nuclear point design.

The technical description went considerably beyond simply proposing a “nuclear airplane.” The aircraft used a high-wing, T-tail configuration with a three-deck fuselage. Volume 2 describes its reactor as a helium-cooled, graphite-moderated epithermal reactor with a liquid-metal sodium-potassium, or NaK, secondary loop. Four dual-mode high-bypass-ratio turbofans were mounted beneath the wings.

The report states:

“For safety reasons, JP-5 fuel is used for takeoffs and landings.”

It also says that “much of the element fabrication” was based upon technology developed for NERVA, the U.S. nuclear-rocket program.

There is an important qualification.

ANVCE did not demonstrate that the lightweight nuclear propulsion system actually worked. The report explicitly states that the project did not conduct an in-depth technical feasibility analysis of LWNP. Instead, it assumed such a system could be made technically feasible and then studied how it could be incorporated into an aircraft.

That distinction is critical when describing the design.

Even with that caveat, ANVCE concluded:

“a practical air loiter aircraft with a time on station of a day or, if LWNP is used, 4-15 days is feasible.”

That was a projection based on the technology assumptions available to the study—not evidence that such an aircraft was subsequently constructed or operated.

Nuclear Power Was Also Considered for a High-Speed Surface-Effect Carrier

Nuclear propulsion was not confined to aircraft.

Volume 2 also examined an SES CVN, a nuclear-powered surface-effect ship concept. The idea emerged from a fundamental problem the study identified in high-speed ships: combining very high speed with long endurance required enormous amounts of fuel.

ANVCE first developed a conventionally powered surface-effect carrier design with a gross weight of 11,165 tonnes, approximately 2,040 tonnes of payload, and a maximum sustained speed of 58 knots in Sea State 3.

The report noted that even this design presented formidable engineering challenges, including transmitting approximately 360,000 horsepower to its propulsion and lift systems.

To explore whether nuclear power could overcome the endurance problem, the project developed the SES CVN using the same assumed lightweight nuclear propulsion technology.

Again, the Navy inserted an explicit warning into the report:

“The ANVCE Project did not extensively explore the technology of LWNP; the feasibility of LWNP was assumed.”

The significance of these designs is therefore not that the Navy secretly possessed operational nuclear aircraft or exotic nuclear-powered surface-effect ships. The documents establish something narrower but concrete: Navy engineers incorporated lightweight nuclear propulsion assumptions into detailed feasibility-level naval vehicle designs and then carried those designs into broader cost and mission studies.

Ships Designed for More Than 80 Knots

Surface-effect ships were among the most ambitious high-speed concepts examined.

Volume 2 describes a planned 3,000-tonne-class SES incorporating multiple new technologies into a ship capable of more than 80 knots. But the report is notable for its caution as much as its ambition.

The Navy warned that such a vehicle would be “exploring new performance boundaries” and that “there is risk involved.”

It recommended:

“severely restrict the operating envelope to no more than 50 kt in any sea state until all engineering tests in that portion of the planned operating envelope are complete”

and proposed studying a 50-knot alternative to determine whether the extra speed was worth its cost.

That tension runs throughout ANVCE: extraordinary speed was technically attractive, but the study repeatedly tested whether the military payoff justified the engineering complexity and expense.

Hydrofoils: 70 to 80 Knots

The hydrofoil analysis similarly looked beyond then-current operational speeds.

After operation of a 50-knot PHM-class hydrofoil, the report recommended experimenting with variable-geometry foils that could potentially provide:

“a dash capability of 70-80 kt.”

The Navy believed that such performance should be evaluated under real operating conditions rather than accepted solely from theoretical analysis.

ANVCE also concluded that hydrofoils in the 1,000- to 2,000-tonne class deserved further exploration, while larger 2,000- to 3,000-tonne versions brought greater technical risk and higher costs.

A “Supercritical” Hull for Rough-Water Speed

The records also detail work on an unconventional planing-ship configuration described as a supercritical hull.

Traditional hard-chine planing hulls encountered increasingly severe power and seakeeping limitations as ships grew larger. ANVCE reported that its supercritical configuration offered the possibility of approximately 50-knot operation in rough seas while substantially reducing hull pounding.

Importantly, this was not only theoretical modeling. Volume 2 states:

“Its seakeeping advantages were verified by model tests within the ANVCE Project.”

The report recommended additional development, particularly to determine whether sufficient internal payload volume could be incorporated without losing the hull’s hydrodynamic advantages.

Separate ANVCE technical work on planing craft was already part of the historical public record, including an assessment describing the feasibility of open-ocean planing craft approaching the 1,000-ton range.

Wing-in-Ground-Effect Vehicles That Could Hover

Another major area was the wing-in-ground-effect, or WIG, vehicle—a craft intended to exploit the aerodynamic lift created when a wing operates close to a surface.

The concept studied by ANVCE could blur the distinction between aircraft, ship and hovercraft.

One configuration used pressurized air beneath the wing. Volume 2 states:

“This scheme gives the WIG vehicle a hovering capability, enabling it to operate over land as well as water.”

The same airflow could inflate flexible end plates for rough-water operation. With the skirts retracted, the vehicle could travel at high speed in calmer conditions, while another configuration could temporarily climb out of ground effect.

The Navy did not claim to have solved the WIG problem.

The study identified unresolved questions involving rough-water vulnerability, pitch stability and high-speed maneuverability. It specifically found that the WIG vehicle was “not very maneuverable at high speed” and could need to climb out of ground effect to execute tighter turns.

Its conclusion was continued research, not deployment.

Giant Airships Return to the Drawing Board

ANVCE also reconsidered lighter-than-air vehicles decades after rigid airships such as the Navy’s Akron and Macon.

Two major configurations were examined: fully air-buoyant, or FAB, and semi-air-buoyant, or SAB.

The project analyzed FAB vehicles with payloads between 50,000 and 150,000 pounds, maximum speeds of roughly 80–100 knots and endurance of up to 15 days.

But scale quickly became a problem.

For approximately 50-tonne multimission payloads, Volume 2 found that the fully buoyant vehicle became so large that ground handling and storage were impractical. Gusting winds also produced forces that raised concerns about precision landing.

Despite those limitations, the Navy concluded that smaller airships still had potential for maritime surveillance and recommended studying vehicles with internal volumes of roughly 1 million to 3 million cubic feet for antisubmarine-warfare surveillance.

A semi-buoyant design examined by ANVCE reached a projected dash speed of 150 knots, although the report acknowledged that the underlying aerodynamic-lift technology was insufficiently developed to produce highly reliable designs.

SWATH Ships: Less Spectacular, More Practical

Not every concept was based on extreme speed.

ANVCE viewed the small-waterplane-area twin-hull, or SWATH, ship as a comparatively modest departure from existing ship technology.

Its advantage was stability.

Volume 2 states:

“The steady platform feature of the small SWATH ship provides it with the seakeeping characteristics of a large ship.”

That made SWATH attractive as an escort and as a platform for helicopters and vertical/short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft.

The Navy recommended further design work in approximately the 1,000- to 3,000-tonne range and even proposed investigating towed fuel pods to extend range.

Volume 3: Putting a Price on the Future

Volume 3 is substantially less visually dramatic than the technical evaluation, but it was essential to ANVCE’s purpose.

The Navy attempted to put fundamentally different ships and aircraft onto a common cost basis rather than judging advanced concepts solely by performance.

The volume calculates development, procurement, operating and support expenses across a 15-year life-cycle period, which the study selected because 15 years represented the shortest service life among the advanced vehicles being examined.

The report states:

“Life-cycle costs were derived to provide an estimate of the total cost to develop, procure, and operate each of the point design vehicles over a 15-year period.”

Costs were generally expressed in fiscal-year 1977 dollars.

The analysis covered considerably more than purchase price: development, production, facilities, initial spare parts, repair parts, ordnance, personnel and operating support were incorporated into the methodology.

That cost discipline sometimes undercut the appeal of more exotic concepts. ANVCE’s broader findings repeatedly caution that increasing performance did not automatically produce enough military value to justify the corresponding expense.

Volume 3 ultimately recommended that the Navy develop better standardized cost reporting and continue refining its life-cycle-cost model.

The Release Is Still Incomplete

The September 2026 release is substantial, but it does not close the FOIA case.

The Navy says it found 939 pages comprising Volumes 1, 2 and 3 and the Volume 4 appendices, while the Volume 3 appendices and pats of Volume 4 itself remain under digitization and review.

Volume 4 may prove especially important because the project documentation describes it as the analysis that matched the advanced vehicles against a projected “Circa 2000” threat environment and attempted to identify which platform characteristics actually mattered in combat. Volume 1 says the methodology traced projected threats through potential tactical, weapon and sensor counters to the vehicle attributes that supported those responses. AdvancedNavalVehiclesConceptsEv…

Until that volume and the remaining Volume 3 appendices are released, the record remains incomplete.

What the present release already provides, however, is a detailed look at a Navy trying to answer a difficult question at the end of the 1970s: not merely what kinds of futuristic ships and aircraft could theoretically be designed, but which ones could be engineered, paid for and given a defensible military purpose.

###

Document Archive

FOIA Request DON-2023-004852 Response Letter [2 Pages, 0.6MB]

Volume 1: Summary [77 Pages, 5MB]

Volume 2: Technical Evaluation [616 Pages, 32.3MB]

Volume 3: Cost Analysis [87 Pages, 6MB]

Volume 4: Appendices A, B & C [162 Pages, 6MB]

The post Navy Releases Hundreds of Pages on Cold War-Era “Advanced Naval Vehicles,” Including Nuclear-Powered Aircraft and High-Speed Warship Concepts first appeared on The Black Vault.

Before the modern era, cryptography was concerned solely with message confidentiality (i.e., encryption)—conversion of messages from a comprehensible form into an incomprehensible one and back again at the other end, rendering it unreadable by interceptors or eavesdroppers without secret knowledge (namely the key needed for decryption of that message).

Encryption attempted to ensure secrecy in communications, such as those of spies, military leaders, and diplomats. In recent decades, the field has expanded beyond confidentiality concerns to include techniques for message integrity checking, sender/receiver identity authentication, digital signatures, interactive proofs and secure computation, among others.

Below, you will find the declassified FBI File that was labeled “Cryptography.”

The file stretches back to the mid to late 1930s! It is an ongoing FOIA request, wherein many documents have not been released yet, and are being reviewed by multiple agencies. I will continue to add the releases, as they become available.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Release

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Release #1, October 19, 2016 [356 Pages, 190.5MB]

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Release #2, January 17, 2025 [356 Pages, 2MB]

United States Army Release, November 17, 2016 [34 Pages, 4.9MB]

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Release #2 (as reviewed and released by ARMY/INSCOM), December 20, 2016 [22 Pages, 1.7MB]

Department of Justice, Office of Information Policy Release [3 Pages, 0.4MB]

The post FBI Files on Cryptography – FBI File #80-HQ-612 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The records also document a separate Pentagon engagement with representatives of Uruguay’s official UAP investigative organization, including plans for reciprocal mission briefings, discussions about future collaboration, lunch with senior AARO personnel and a private Pentagon tour.

The documents were released to The Black Vault under Freedom of Information Act case 26-F-1773. The request was filed March 17, 2026, one day after DefenseScoop senior reporter Brandi Vincent broke the story of the invitation-only workshop and obtained additional information about it from the Pentagon. Vincent’s original reporting established that approximately 40 government, academic and independent researchers had participated in the AARO-sponsored gathering and detailed its emphasis on integrating narrative UAP data and applying artificial intelligence to large datasets.

The new FOIA release does not fundamentally alter the publicly stated purpose or findings of the workshop. Instead, its significance is in filling in portions of the administrative record that AARO’s public white paper left anonymous or generalized: who delivered some of the presentations, who sat on the panels, where the workshop actually occurred, and how AARO interacted with at least one foreign government UAP organization before the event.

It is not a complete record. AARO identified 89 responsive pages but withheld 19 pages in their entirety under FOIA Exemption (b)(5), which protects certain deliberative government communications. Portions of the other 70 pages were withheld under Exemptions (b)(5) and (b)(6), with the latter protecting personal privacy.

From a Public White Paper to the Records Behind It

AARO publicly released its 2025 UAP Workshop: Narrative Data, Infrastructures, and Analysis paper in February 2026. The official document described an August 5-6, 2025 workshop sponsored by AARO and hosted by Associated Universities, Inc., or AUI, bringing together 40 participants from government, academia and independent research organizations.

The workshop concentrated primarily on an unusually difficult UAP research problem: narrative reports.

Unlike standardized sensor data, witness accounts can originate in military reports, civilian reporting systems, archives, social media and other sources using different terminology, formats and levels of documentation. The workshop considered methods for standardizing those records, connecting databases and using artificial intelligence and machine learning to process large quantities of material.

Some participants had already publicly acknowledged attending. The National UFO Reporting Center announced its participation on August 11, 2025, just days after the meeting, and later identified Chief Technical Officer Christian Stepien as a participant.

The Society for UAP Studies also subsequently disclosed its involvement and identified several participants. Its account said Michael Cifone delivered a presentation titled It’s All About the Evidence and identified Robert Powell of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies among the speakers.

Those disclosures are important because the workshop was private, but its existence and some of its participants were not secret after it occurred.

The Working Agenda Names Speakers and Panelists

One of the clearest additions is an August 5, 2025, working agenda identifying people whose names and affiliations were omitted from the generic agenda later published in AARO’s white paper.

The newly released agenda identifies the workshop location as Associated Universities Inc., 2650 Park Tower Drive, Suite 700, Vienna, Virginia, across from the Dunn Loring Metro station.

Opening remarks were scheduled from AUI representatives Tim Spuck and Adam Cohen, AARO Director Jon Kosloski, and Gretchen Stahlman of Florida State University’s School of Information.

The keynote, titled “Setting the stage: Importance of good UAP data,” was assigned to Robert Powell of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies and Kosloski.

The agenda then names Laura Domine, at the time identified as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, for the first session.

Domine’s participation fits directly with the workshop’s technical focus. Her published research includes work on the Galileo Project’s multi-sensor systems for collecting scientific observations of aerial phenomena, including an infrared camera array designed to continuously monitor and classify objects in the sky.

The first panel, “Opportunities and challenges with AI,” was to be moderated by Spuck. The working agenda identifies four panelists:

• Abigail Haddad, identified as a machine-learning engineer;
• Elliott Hauser, assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Information;
• Duncan McCaskill, identified as formerly with the U.S. Navy Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office;
• Matthew Szydagis, associate professor of physics at the University at Albany.

The second day included a presentation by Stephen Breuhl of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and another panel titled “Harmonizing qualitative and quantitative perspectives on narrative data.”

That panel was scheduled to include Cifone; Amanda Focke, head of Special Collections at Rice University’s Fondren Library; Ben Gibson, identified as a social/behavioral scientist at RAND Corporation; and NUFORC’s Christian Stepien.

The released agenda provides a more specific picture than AARO’s published workshop paper of the mixture of technical researchers, archivists, academics and established civilian UAP organizations invited into the discussion.

AARO Was Also Engaging Uruguay’s Official UAP Organization

Some of the more substantive new material concerns CRIDOVNI, Uruguay’s official commission for receiving and investigating reports of unidentified aerial phenomena within the Uruguayan Air Force.

Names of the foreign participants are redacted from the FOIA release under Exemption (b)(6), so the documents themselves do not provide a basis for identifying those individuals by name.

In a July 2025 email, an AARO partner-engagement officer told the visitors that AARO would provide hotel accommodations for several nights and proposed a separate August 4 meeting at the Pentagon, the day before the workshop began.

The stated purpose went beyond workshop logistics.

“On 4 August (Monday), would you two be available for a meeting at the Pentagon to provide briefings on our respective work at CRIDOVNI and AARO?”

The AARO official proposed discussing “the types of UAP data our offices analyze, types of analysis we undertake, and ways our offices can collaborate moving forward.”

The Uruguayan correspondent responded affirmatively:

“On August 4, of course, we will be available for a meeting at the Pentagon, it is of special interest to us to be able to establish a further working relationship with the AARO, and to exchange information and experiences.”

The correspondent also accepted an invitation to present CRIDOVNI’s work during the workshop.

Mission Briefings and “Future Collaboration” at the Pentagon

Later correspondence shows the Pentagon visit was approved through the Foreign Visit Request and Pentagon Force Protection Agency visitor systems.

A July 29 email laid out the planned meeting:

“1000-1030 CRIDOVNI Mission Briefing
1030-1100 AARO Mission Briefing
1100-1200 Discussion of Briefings and Future Collaboration”

AARO then planned to host the visitors for lunch and a private Pentagon tour.

AARO also provided a detailed list of what it wanted to learn from CRIDOVNI, including its investigative process, analytical methods and tools, handling of cases containing little or no technical data, notable cases in its database, its organizational relationship with the Uruguayan Air Force, and its scientific and governmental partnerships.

Another email states that a Pentagon lunch reservation had been arranged involving Kosloski and AARO Chief Technology Officer Josh Reiter.

The records do not establish what ultimately resulted from the discussions, whether any formal information-sharing arrangement was reached, or whether the contemplated collaboration continued afterward. No such conclusion can be drawn from the released pages.

They do establish that AARO was actively discussing future cooperation with CRIDOVNI and exchanging information about how the two organizations investigated UAP.

AARO Wanted More South American Participation

The correspondence also provides a glimpse into AARO’s effort to expand participation beyond the United States.

In one email, the AARO official wrote:

“We currently do not have any other registered guests from South America.”

The official said an invitation had been sent through a Chilean contact in Washington in an effort to bring in participants from SEFAA, but that no response had been received.

AARO then asked the Uruguayan representatives for contacts with other South American UAP research organizations that could potentially be invited to a later event.

That request led directly to another notable disclosure.

A Follow-On Workshop Was Already Being Planned

The released email states:

“AARO plans to hold a follow-on data workshop in early 2026, so if you have contact information for other UAP research organizations in South America that you could share with us, we would very much appreciate it and like to extend invitations to them as well.”

The same message described most participants in the 2025 gathering as coming from “U.S.-based universities or UAP research organizations, along with several people from U.S. federal agencies.”

The reference is notable when compared with what the Pentagon publicly said months later.

In Vincent’s March 16 DefenseScoop report, Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough said AARO hoped to convene future workshops and collaborative opportunities “as needed,” but DefenseScoop reported that Gough said AARO had no additional workshops or plans to announce at that time.

The two statements are not necessarily contradictory. The July 2025 email describes an internal plan for a follow-on workshop in early 2026; Gough’s March 2026 statement concerned what AARO had to announce publicly at that point. The released records do not establish whether the contemplated early-2026 event occurred, was postponed, changed form or was canceled.

They do establish that, before the first workshop had even taken place, AARO personnel were already telling prospective partners that another data workshop was planned.

Hospitality Went Beyond the Formal Workshop

The correspondence also shows the degree of personal and logistical attention provided to the Uruguayan visitors.

AARO arranged airport pickup, hotel accommodations and the Pentagon visit. The emails additionally discuss a Sunday Catholic Mass with Kosloski and the visitor and his wife. One message states:

“Perfect, Dr. Kosloski plans to pick you and your wife up from the hotel on August 3 and drive you to mass.”

The same email explains that Kosloski would locate a church near the visitors’ Virginia hotel.

These details do not bear directly on AARO’s UAP analysis, but they document the level of engagement surrounding the foreign delegation and provide context for a relationship that extended beyond simply registering two people for a conference.

Nineteen Pages Withheld Completely

The release also demonstrates the limits of what AARO was willing to disclose through FOIA.

The Black Vault’s request was intentionally broad. It sought attendee and invitation records, agendas, presentations, breakout materials, notes, transcripts, recordings, records concerning destruction of recordings, after-action reports, drafts of the public white paper, correspondence, contracts, funding records, IRB documentation and records concerning future workshops.

AARO reported locating 89 responsive pages.

Nineteen were withheld completely under Exemption (b)(5), with the agency describing them as inter- or intra-agency records that were deliberative and contained “subjective evaluations, opinions and recommendations.” Portions of the remaining 70 pages were withheld under the same exemption and under the personal-privacy provisions of Exemption (b)(6).

Several pages in the released package consist solely of a page number and a (b)(5) withholding notation, providing no indication of the underlying content.

Consequently, the release cannot be treated as a complete reconstruction of the workshop or AARO’s internal deliberations about it.

The Public Paper Went Through Pentagon Review

The records also include the Defense Department’s DD Form 1910 clearance paperwork for the eventual workshop paper.

The form identifies Kosloski as the author and describes the document as an 18-page white paper titled 2025 UAP Workshop: Narrative Data, Infrastructures, and Analysis. It states:

“This 18-page white paper captures findings and outcomes from an unclassified, AUI-hosted, AARO-sponsored interdisciplinary working group focused on narrative and technical UAP data integration.”

The form states that AUI intended to publish the paper on its website while AARO planned to promote it through social media and link to it from AARO.mil.

A More Detailed Picture of AARO’s Outreach

Taken together, the newly released material provides less of a revelation about what the workshop concluded than about how AARO assembled it and what the office was trying to build around it.

The public white paper already disclosed the methodological conclusions: standardize UAP data, preserve historical records, connect disparate databases, use AI cautiously, retain human oversight and develop a continuing interdisciplinary research community.

The FOIA records add names, affiliations and institutional relationships behind that summary. They show AARO putting its director on a keynote with a prominent civilian UAP researcher; bringing machine-learning specialists, physicists, archivists, social scientists and civilian UAP database operators into the same program; engaging Uruguay’s official UAP investigative body separately at the Pentagon; seeking contacts with additional South American organizations; and discussing another data workshop before the first one convened.

At the same time, the records leave significant gaps. AARO withheld 19 pages completely, redacted portions of others, and the released material does not establish the identities of all 40 participants, the full substance of the workshop discussions, the ultimate outcome of the proposed CRIDOVNI collaboration or what happened to the follow-on workshop contemplated for early 2026.

Additional FOIA requests are set to be filed regarding some of the above revelations, and those findings will be posted here at The Black Vault, when available.

###

Document Archive

26-F-1773 Release Package [91 Pages, 5.92MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [5.93 MB]

The post Behind AARO’s Private UAP Workshop: New Records Detail Participants, Foreign Outreach and Future Plans first appeared on The Black Vault.

The records were obtained by The Black Vault through a Freedom of Information Act request filed on May 24, 2022. The request sought emails sent to, from, copied to or blind-copied to Bray containing terms including “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” “UAP,” “UAPTF,” “UFO,” “AATIP,” “AAWSAP” and several related phrases.

More than four years later, the Navy responded on September 23, 2026. According to its response, the search located 1,321 pages of responsive records. The Navy withheld 302 pages in their entirety, while releasing the remaining 1,019 pages with redactions under several FOIA exemptions.

Who Was Scott Bray?

Bray served as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence and Director of the Naval Intelligence Activity during much of the period covered by the records. His position placed him within a network of Navy, Defense Department and Intelligence Community officials dealing with UAP reporting, briefings, congressional interest and the development of what ultimately became the Navy-led Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.

One email in the release described the relationship directly, stating that John “Jay” Stratton “leads the UAP Task Force effort for Navy… working directly for Scott Bray, our Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence.”

Bray later became one of the government’s most visible officials on the UAP issue. On May 17, 2022, he appeared with Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie before a House Intelligence subcommittee during a public congressional hearing devoted to UAP. The hearing was followed by a classified session.

The newly released records provide a much larger documentary backdrop to that public role.

A Broad Look Behind the Government’s UAP Effort

The correspondence stretches across years and includes exchanges involving Stratton, Defense Intelligence official Neill Tipton, senior Navy officials, admirals, Pentagon public-affairs personnel and other Defense and Intelligence Community officials.

For example, a March 2020 exchange shows Tipton, who was then identified in his signature block as Director of Defense Intelligence, Collection and Special Programs in OUSD(I&S), telling Bray that he had a document “relevant to our discussion the other day” that he preferred to deliver in hard copy. Other correspondence concerning a planned Senate Select Committee on Intelligence briefing includes Bray, Stratton, Tipton and Rear Adm. Kelly Aeschbach.

Elsewhere, the records show Stratton discussing proposed public language concerning the UAP effort and whether it should be reviewed by Bray before being sent forward. Other email traffic includes Vice Adm. Matthew Kohler, Rear Adm. Charles Brown and Rear Adm. Paula Dunn in communications surrounding the April 2020 public release of the Navy UAP videos.

Those are only examples of the names and subjects contained in the collection. The release includes communications surrounding congressional briefings, public-affairs strategy, the UAP Task Force, the 2021 ODNI UAP assessment, media inquiries, FOIA releases, classification questions, senior-level briefings and the government’s evolving organizational response to UAP.

There are also extensive attachments, forwarded news coverage and discussions of claims being made publicly about UAP. Their inclusion in Bray’s email records does not establish that the Navy or Bray endorsed those claims; in many instances, the records simply document what officials were receiving, discussing or preparing to address.

A Large Record With Significant Gaps

The release should not be viewed as a complete history of Bray’s involvement with UAP or of the UAP Task Force itself. The FOIA request was constructed around specific search terms, and the Navy withheld 302 responsive pages completely. Redactions also appear throughout the pages that were released.

What remains is nevertheless an unusually large collection of contemporaneous correspondence from inside the Navy and Defense Department during the years in which the modern UAP issue was developing into a formal, highly visible government effort.

Given the size of the release and the number of separate subjects contained within it, individual email chains and issues may warrant separate examination. The complete released collection is being made available through The Black Vault for independent review.

###

Document Archive

DON-NAVY-2022-008648 Release Package [1,324 Pages, 47MB]

The post Navy Releases Massive Cache of Scott Bray UAP Emails After Four Years; More Than 300 Pages Withheld in Full first appeared on The Black Vault.

The records were obtained by The Black Vault after case numbers for Epstein’s Privacy Act requests surfaced within the broader government release of Epstein-related files. Rather than requesting CIA records about Epstein specifically, The Black Vault used those case identifiers, listed as P-1999-02450 and P-2011-00673, to seek the records generated during the processing of the two cases. This also stemmed from a public call to action request from political commentator and speechwriter Mike Benz.

The CIA responded on September 18, 2026, under FOIA case F-2026-00889, saying it had located 17 responsive documents. One was released in full and 16 were released with portions withheld under FOIA Exemptions (b)(3) and/or (b)(6).

The resulting near 50-page release contains Epstein’s original 1999 request, internal CIA search records, correspondence between Epstein and the agency, and the records surrounding a substantially more specific request submitted on his behalf in 2011.

The documents establish that the CIA reported finding no records filed under Epstein’s name in response to his first request. In 2011, the agency similarly reported finding no records reflecting an open or otherwise acknowledged CIA affiliation during the period it searched. For records that could reveal a classified connection, however, the CIA gave a different response: it refused to confirm or deny whether such records existed.

That distinction is central to what the newly released records show, and what they do not.

Epstein Asks the CIA for “All Records About Me”

Epstein’s first request was dated October 28, 1999.

Writing directly to the CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, Epstein invoked both the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act and made a broad request:

“please furnish me with copies of all records about me indexed to my name.”

Epstein supplied identifying information including his full name, date and place of birth, citizenship, current address and several other addresses. The released document also contained a Social Security number, which is not reproduced here in this written article, though was released by the CIA in their document package under the FOIA.

Epstein told the CIA that if search or copying fees did not exceed $5,000, the agency should provide the information without first notifying him of the cost, as he agreed to pay to that amount. He also asked the CIA to identify the specific exemptions supporting any withholding.

On November 5, 1999, the CIA formally accepted the request as P-1999-02450.

The agency told Epstein:

“This acknowledges receipt of your letter dated 28 October 1999 wherein you requested information about yourself.”

The CIA said the request would be processed under both FOIA and the Privacy Act and that its search would cover records existing through November 5, 1999.

The documents then show the request moving through internal CIA search channels.

One November 1999 internal record identifies the requester as “EPSTEIN, JEFFREY,” describes the subject as “INFO ON SELF,” and records “NO RECORD FOUND”. This document appears to be only one component within the CIA that searched for records, with a second that would take another two years to complete their search.

Five Months Later, Epstein Wants an Answer

By April 2000, Epstein was pressing the CIA for a response.

In an April 7 letter, he wrote that more than five months had passed since his original submission:

“I would appreciate any efforts that could be taken to expedite a response to my request.”

The CIA answered on April 20.

The agency attributed the delay to its workload, telling Epstein that it was handling approximately 5,000 FOIA and Privacy Act requests and processing them on a first-in, first-out basis. It could not provide a definite completion date. Although Epstein was not notified of the initial negative search result at that stage, the case was still being processed and additional searches remained underway. The newly released internal records therefore provide a chronological view of the CIA’s processing of the request, including interim search results that were not separately communicated to Epstein before the agency issued its final determination.

The case would remain unresolved for nearly another two years.

A February 19, 2002, internal CIA memorandum records a search involving the Directorate of Operations.

Its conclusion was:

“Subject has been searched with all components of this Directorate which might have an interest or record. This Directorate has no information which can be identified with the Subject.”

Two days later, the CIA issued its final answer.

On February 21, 2002, more than two years after Epstein’s original request, the CIA closed P-1999-02450.

The agency wrote:

“We were unable to identify any information or record filed under your name.”

The CIA characterized its searches as “thorough and diligent” and said it was “highly unlikely” that repeating them would produce a different result, although Epstein retained the right to appeal.

The newly released records therefore provide considerably more information about the 1999 case than simply its case number. They show what Epstein requested, how portions of the CIA searched for responsive information, his follow-up when the process stalled, and the agency’s ultimate no-records determination.

But that was not Epstein’s last request.

A Much More Specific Request in 2011

On June 28, 2011, attorney Martin G. Weinberg submitted another FOIA and Privacy Act request to the CIA on Epstein’s behalf.

Unlike Epstein’s brief 1999 request for all records indexed to his name, the 2011 request specified both a time period and particular categories of records.

Weinberg sought records created between January 1, 2000 and June 28, 2011, including records “prepared, received, transmitted, collected, and/or maintained” by the CIA or its components and field offices.

The first category sought:

“Any records, order, agreement, or accommodation relating or referring to Epstein, including but not limited to records that document monitoring, surveillance, observation, questioning, interrogation, investigation, and/or collection of information relating to Epstein.”

The second sought:

“Any records relating or referring to how, why, or when Epstein was selected to be a subject of monitoring, surveillance, observation, questioning, interrogation, investigation, and/or collection of information.”

Epstein’s attorney also specifically requested a “cross-reference search” and preauthorized as much as $1,000 in fees.

The wording is noteworthy because it establishes precisely what Epstein wanted the CIA to search for. It does not, by itself, establish that the CIA had monitored, surveilled, questioned, investigated or maintained an intelligence relationship with Epstein, but rather, simply shows what Epstein was seeking.

CIA Requires Proof of Epstein’s Authorization

The CIA assigned the second matter P-2011-00673.

But processing initially stalled because the agency said Weinberg’s facsimile did not include the privacy waiver referenced in his request.

The CIA explained that it could conduct a search without authorization, but privacy considerations could restrict disclosure if records were found. It therefore required a properly executed statement establishing Epstein’s identity and authorizing his attorney to receive the results.

The agency gave Weinberg 45 days to provide the documentation.

On July 19, Weinberg sent another letter renewing the request and enclosed what he described as “an executed privacy waiver and certification of identity for Jeffery Edward Epstein.”

The release includes that signed authorization. In it, Epstein waived his privacy rights for purposes of the request and authorized the CIA to release information about him to Weinberg.

CIA records also document contact with Weinberg’s office. A July 20 entry states:

“I spoke with Mr. Weinberg regarding his client Mr. Epstein’s PA request. I confirmed he did receive our letter and he stated they sent out the Privacy Waiver to us via Fed Ex.”

The CIA Searches Again

The release contains records documenting the CIA’s second round of searches.

A July 2011 “NCS Upfront Person-Search Request Form” states that searches of the Office of Security central database indicated that the Directorate of Support held no record on Epstein and requested that NCS record systems also be checked. The handwritten search result is marked “Negative.”

Other released pages show searches of an internal security system using Epstein’s identifying information. One screen records a search using his date of birth, while another shows a search using his Social Security number.

Then, on July 29, 2011, the CIA issued its final determination.

That response requires careful distinction between two categories of possible records.

No Records of an Open or Acknowledged CIA Affiliation

For records that could reflect an overt or acknowledged connection between Epstein and the agency, the CIA said it found nothing.

The agency wrote:

“We searched for CIA-originated responsive records that might reflect an open or otherwise acknowledged Agency affiliation existing from 5 November 1999, the date of our previous acceptance letter (P-1999-02450) to 25 July 2011, the date we accepted Mr. Epstein’s current request. We were unable to locate any information or records.”

That statement is the CIA’s documented search result for an open or otherwise acknowledged agency affiliation during the specified period.

But the next paragraph gave a different answer concerning any potentially classified connection.

CIA Would Neither Confirm Nor Deny a Classified Connection

The CIA wrote:

“With respect to responsive records that would reveal a classified connection to the CIA, in accordance with section 3.6(a) of Executive Order 13526, as amended, the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request.”

The agency said the existence or nonexistence of such records was classified and constituted intelligence sources-and-methods information protected by federal law. It invoked FOIA Exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3), along with Privacy Act exemptions (j)(1) and (k)(1).

This is commonly known as a Glomar response: rather than acknowledging that responsive records exist and withholding them, an agency declines to confirm or deny whether the records exist at all.

The language therefore should not be read as confirmation that Epstein had a classified relationship with the CIA. Nor does it establish that no such records existed. The CIA expressly declined to answer that question.

An Earlier Epstein Case Had Already Been Destroyed

One of the more consequential administrative details appears on the final page of the release.

An internal notation concerning the 2011 determination states:

“MFR: Previous case destroyed 14 Sept 2005 per NARA destruction schedule”

The “previous case” is identified in the surrounding 2011 records as P-1999-02450. The newly released package nevertheless contains copies of numerous documents associated with that earlier matter, including Epstein’s original request and the CIA’s correspondence and search documentation.

The notation establishes that the previous case was recorded as having been destroyed pursuant to a National Archives and Records Administration destruction schedule. The released material does not, by itself, explain precisely which original case materials were destroyed in 2005 or why copies of some of those records remained available elsewhere for the CIA’s 2026 search.

What the Records Establish — and What They Don’t

The newly released material establishes a documented chronology.

Epstein asked the CIA in October 1999 for all records about himself indexed to his name. The CIA searched and ultimately told him in February 2002 that it could not identify any such information or records. Internal records released with the case document negative searches, including searches of personnel security systems and the Directorate of Operations.

In 2011, Epstein, through an attorney, returned with a considerably more detailed request. He specifically sought records concerning possible monitoring, surveillance, questioning, investigation or collection of information about him and requested a cross-reference search.

The CIA again reported no records reflecting an open or otherwise acknowledged Agency affiliation between November 5, 1999 and July 25, 2011. For anything that would reveal a classified connection, however, the CIA neither confirmed nor denied the existence of records.

Nothing in the newly released documents establishes that Epstein worked for, assisted, was recruited by, or otherwise maintained a relationship with the CIA. The records establish that Epstein repeatedly asked the CIA what it had on him, and they now reveal substantially more about how the agency processed and answered those requests.

More than two decades after the first case was opened, those administrative files provide a documented answer to at least part of that question: when the CIA searched for records it could acknowledge concerning Epstein, it reported finding none. On the separate question of whether records reflecting a classified connection existed, the agency’s answer in 2011 was neither yes nor no.

###

Document Archive

F-2026-00889 Release Package [50 Pages, 1.2MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [1.20 MB]

The post Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s CIA Privacy Act Requests for Records About Himself first appeared on The Black Vault.

The NSA’s March 25, 2026, response concerned a FOIA request filed on February 10, 2020, seeking records that “pertain or mention or contain cross references to QAnon.” The request covered records dating from 2016 through the date the request was processed.

The response does not disclose the subject, origin, date or contents of the three-page classified record. Consequently, the release provides no basis to conclude what connection the withheld document has to QAnon. It could contain a substantive discussion of the movement, a passing reference, a cross-reference comparable to the material that was released, or something else entirely. The available record does not resolve that question.

A SECRET Document Withheld in Full

According to the NSA, “1 document (3 pages) has been withheld in its entirety.” The agency said the document remains properly classified under Executive Order 13526 and specifically cited Sections 1.4(c) and 1.4(g). NSA further stated that the record remains classified at the SECRET level and that disclosure “could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.”

Section 1.4(c) of Executive Order 13526 covers classified information concerning “intelligence activities (including covert action), intelligence sources or methods, or cryptology.” Section 1.4(g) covers “vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, plans, or protection services relating to the national security.” Those classification categories establish the grounds cited by NSA for protecting the information; they do not establish what the three-page document says or how QAnon figures into it.

NSA invoked FOIA Exemption 1, which protects properly classified national-security information. It also invoked Exemption 3 and identified three statutes applicable to the fully withheld document: 18 U.S.C. § 798, 50 U.S.C. § 3024(h), and Section 6 of Public Law 86-36, codified at 50 U.S.C. § 3605.

NSA additionally stated that it “reasonably foresees” disclosure of the withheld material would harm an interest protected by the exemptions it cited.

Nothing in the response identifies whether the classified document was created by NSA, originated elsewhere in the Intelligence Community, or merely contains a QAnon reference that caused it to become responsive to the broad wording of the request.

That distinction matters because the unclassified record released alongside it demonstrates how little a keyword hit can reveal about a document’s actual subject.

The Released QAnon Reference Was a Joke

The substantive released material is a November 2019 discussion among NSA personnel concerning personnel policies, field tours, deployments and promotion requirements.

The pages are printouts from an NSA system labeled “Tapioca: The Stream.” The interface displays threaded posts and replies among multiple users, along with timestamps and automatically associated “Implicit Topics.” The released thread states that it contains 23 replies from 13 people.

The conversation began after a feed apparently cut out while the Director of NSA was discussing field-tour policy. Employees then attempted to reconstruct what had been said, discussing possible requirements for field tours or deployments, promotion to the GS-15 level, jobs at NSA Washington and the meaning of personnel terminology.

One participant complained that field-tour advertisements seemed to disappear. Another said someone had told them that advertisements were displayed only on certain days of the week before being removed.

That prompted the sole QAnon reference visible in the released discussion:

“This actually sounds like some qAnon conspiracy theory. Field ads appear in the hr tool just like other jobs. If you want a specific job, you should write to the org and ask about it.”

In other words, the released thread is not an NSA analysis of QAnon. The term was used colloquially by an employee during an unrelated workplace discussion. Because the 2020 FOIA request explicitly sought records that merely “mention” or “contain” references to QAnon, that passing reference made the discussion responsive.

What is Tapioca?

The released pages themselves provide useful context for Tapioca, although NSA does not provide a separate technical description of the system in this FOIA response.

The records identify the interface as “Tapioca: The Stream” and show a social-media-style internal discussion environment. The pages include tabs labeled “The Main Stream,” “Tributaries,” “Tributary Events” and “Search,” while individual entries contain replies, timestamps, topic tags and links indicating that messages were “posted to The Stream.”

An Earlier QAnon Search Found Nothing

The 2026 release also contains records from a separate August 2018 FOIA request, originally filed by The Black Vault, seeking Intellipedia entries for “QANON” or “Q-ANON,” including entries returned through an Intellipedia keyword search.

NSA explained at the time that it serves as executive agent for Intelink and provides technical services enabling Intelligence Community and Department of Defense users to access and share information. It also cautioned that Intellipedia pages are collaborative “living documents” that can be created and edited by users from different organizations and should not be regarded as the final, coordinated position of the Intelligence Community.

NSA reported that a “thorough search of Intellipedia files was conducted,” but that no responsive records were located.

That August 2018 result and the March 2026 response concern different searches and should not be conflated. The earlier request was specifically directed at Intellipedia. The later request was broader, seeking NSA records containing or cross-referencing QAnon.

What QAnon Was — and What Was Never Established

QAnon emerged online in 2017 around anonymous posts attributed to a figure calling itself “Q,” who claimed access to sensitive government information. The posts became the foundation for an expansive collection of conspiracy claims involving political figures, government officials and other public personalities.

Central QAnon claims, which included allegations of a secret cabal engaged in child trafficking and assertions that hidden government operations were underway against that cabal, were never substantiated by credible evidence. The existence of government records discussing QAnon should likewise not be confused with evidence supporting those claims.

Government agencies nevertheless had legitimate reasons to document QAnon as a social and, in some cases, security phenomenon. An FBI record from October 2018, for example, documents database checks and open-source research concerning QAnon. Later FBI and Department of Homeland Security reporting discussed conspiracy theories, including QAnon, in the context of some domestic violent extremists, while emphasizing that ideology or belief alone is not what defines domestic terrorism; the government’s framework centers on criminal acts, threats or violence.

None of that validates QAnon’s underlying allegations.

Previous CIA and FBI Responses on QAnon Records

The NSA response is not the first time a federal intelligence or law-enforcement agency has withheld information in response to a QAnon-related FOIA request. Previous requests by The Black Vault produced substantially different responses from the CIA and FBI.

In February 2020, The Black Vault submitted a request to the CIA for records pertaining to QAnon. The agency responded two days later with what is commonly known as a Glomar response: it would neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of responsive records. According to the CIA response as reported by The Black Vault at the time, even acknowledging whether such records existed would itself reveal classified information.

The FBI later took a different approach. In records released to The Black Vault and reported in May 2023, the Bureau acknowledged locating 43 pages related to QAnon but released only 19 pages. The remaining pages were withheld under FOIA Exemption 7(A), which applies to law-enforcement records when disclosure “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”

The newly released NSA response adds another, distinct piece to that record. Unlike the CIA, NSA has now acknowledged that responsive records exist. And unlike the FBI withholding, which was based on interference with enforcement proceedings, NSA identified a separate three-page document as currently classified SECRET, stating that disclosure “could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.”

Taken together, the three responses establish only what each agency has formally acknowledged through FOIA: the CIA refused in 2020 to say whether it possessed responsive records; the FBI later acknowledged 43 pages while withholding more than half of them on law-enforcement grounds; and NSA has now acknowledged responsive material that includes a three-page SECRET document withheld in full. They do not establish that the CIA, FBI and NSA records are connected, concern the same underlying matter, or substantiate any of QAnon’s claims.

What the NSA Release Does — and Does Not — Establish

The March 2026 FOIA response establishes a narrow but potentially significant fact: when NSA processed a broad request for records pertaining to, mentioning, containing or cross-referencing QAnon, it identified a three-page document that it determined remains classified SECRET and withheld every page.

It does not establish why that document was responsive.

NSA’s decision to withhold it under national-security and statutory exemptions reveals classification grounds, but not the nature of the QAnon connection. The released Tapioca thread provides a useful cautionary example: a record can qualify as responsive simply because someone mentioned “qAnon conspiracy theory” in an otherwise unrelated conversation about personnel policy.

The three-page SECRET record could similarly contain only an incidental reference, or its connection to QAnon could be more substantive. With all three pages withheld and no description of their contents provided, the public record does not permit either conclusion.

For now, what the document contains, and why the term QAnon led NSA to identify it as responsive,  remains unknown.

###

Document Archive

NSA FOIA Case 109168 Release Package [14 Pages, 1.95MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [1.95 MB]

The post NSA Located a Classified QAnon-Related Record — All Three Pages Were Withheld first appeared on The Black Vault.

The paper, “Coupon Collecting and Cryptology,” was written by Marie Capozza and published in the Fall 1966 edition of the NSA Technical Journal. Although the title had been publicly identified for years in declassified indexes of NSA publications, searches conducted by The Black Vault did not locate a previously public copy of the paper itself. The 1966 study released in response to the FOIA request therefore provides a newly available look at how NSA mathematicians examined a classic probability problem and applied it to cryptologic questions.

The Black Vault requested the article from NSA on August 6, 2017. NSA’s response is dated September 9, 2026, more than nine years later. The agency released the responsive document with portions withheld under FOIA Exemptions 1 and 3.

Despite its complex pages of equations, the basic idea behind the paper is relatively straightforward: If items are selected randomly from a fixed number of possible types, how long should it take before every type has appeared; and can deviations from that expected behavior reveal that the selection process is not actually random?

For the NSA, that question had direct applications to cryptology.

From Cereal-Box Coupons to Cryptology

Capozza begins with a deliberately ordinary example.

“Let us assume that a manufacturer encloses in each package of his product one coupon that is chosen randomly from a stock of K different coupons.”

The manufacturer might offer a prize to someone who obtains every different coupon. The mathematical problem is determining how many packages, on average, a customer would have to purchase before completing the set.

That is what mathematicians call the coupon collector’s problem.

Capozza describes the purpose of the paper as presenting “some well-known and some new results found in the literature on coupon collecting and to point out some cryptologic applications.”

In plain English, imagine that there are ten different coupons and every box contains one, selected independently and with equal probability. Finding the first several different coupons is easy. The problem becomes progressively harder as the collection approaches completion. Once nine different coupons have been obtained, every new box has only a one-in-ten chance of containing the single missing coupon.

That last stubborn item substantially increases the average waiting time.

Capozza calculates that when there are ten possible coupons, the expected number of selections required to collect all ten is approximately 29.29. The paper notes:

“Suppose that we have decimal digits. Then the expected number of drawings to exhaust the entire population … [is]29.29.”

The same mathematics applies to an alphabet. For 26 equally probable letters, the paper calculates an expected collection time of approximately 100.20 selections before all 26 have appeared.

These examples provide the foundation for the paper’s more consequential subject: testing whether sequences used in cryptographic systems behave as though they are genuinely random.

Why Randomness Matters

Cryptographic systems depend heavily on sequences that cannot be readily predicted. A sequence may look chaotic to a person while still containing mathematical biases or patterns.

The coupon collector framework offers one way of testing those sequences.

Instead of asking how long it takes to collect every coupon, an analyst can ask how many generated symbols must be examined before every possible symbol has occurred. If that process repeatedly takes substantially more or fewer observations than mathematics predicts for genuinely random selections, something about the underlying generator may warrant scrutiny.

Capozza devotes much of the paper to deriving the probability distributions necessary to make those comparisons.

The equations determine, among other things, the probability of obtaining a particular number of distinct coupon types after a given number of selections, the average waiting time required to obtain every possible type, the variance around that average and the limiting behavior of the distribution when the number of possible symbols becomes very large.

One table illustrates how quickly the waiting time grows. For ten possible coupon types, the expected collection time is about 29.29 selections. For 20 types, it is about 71.95. For 30, approximately 119.85. At 40, the expected number rises to approximately 171.16, and for 50 possible types it reaches about 225.06.

The point is not that cryptographers were literally collecting coupons. The coupon story provides a convenient mathematical model for analyzing symbols drawn from a finite alphabet.

Testing Random Numbers

The paper eventually turns explicitly to what Capozza calls “Cryptologic Applications.”

One is a test of randomness.

Capozza describes the “Coupon Collector’s Test for Randomness” and applies the concept to decimal digits. Under the assumption that digits are random, analysts can calculate how frequently they should need a particular number of observations before seeing all ten digits.

The paper states:

“Using the 2035 decimal approximations to π given by G. W. Reitwiesner, Greenwood began with the initial position 3 and found that 33 positions were required to collect all ten digits.”

The procedure was then repeated through the sequence, producing 87 sequences of complete sets, according to the study.

Those observed results could be compared with the mathematically expected distribution.

This is an important distinction: the test does not prove that a sequence is random. Rather, it provides a statistical means of identifying behavior that is inconsistent with what would ordinarily be expected from random sampling.

The underlying technique was not unique to NSA. Robert E. Greenwood published “Coupon Collector’s Test for Random Digits” in Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation in 1955, and the technique subsequently appeared in the literature on random-number testing.

Capozza’s NSA paper assembled that mathematical foundation and examined how it could be used in a cryptologic environment.

Generating Cryptographic Alphabets

A second application gets closer to operational cryptography.

Under the heading “Coupon Collecting and Key Card Generation,” Capozza describes a method in which randomly generated coordinates are used to place punches in a 12-by-12 field on a key card.

The goal was to populate the card while avoiding duplicate locations.

The document explains:

“If it takes too many trials to complete our matrix, then our ‘random’ process of position selecting is not truly random since it has a tendency to select one or more positions.”

Conversely, the study says that completing the matrix with unusually few selections could indicate another form of non-random behavior.

This is the practical significance of the otherwise abstract mathematics.

A random-number source might produce values that look unpredictable when examined casually. But if certain positions or symbols occur too frequently — or others appear too infrequently — coupon-collector statistics can expose that imbalance.

In cryptography, such bias can matter because the security of a system may depend on assumptions about the randomness of its keys or other generated values.

A Second Statistical Test

The paper also discusses what it calls a “Statistical Inference: Coupon Collector’s Test for the Number of Code Groups.”

Capozza asks analysts to imagine that there are K possible code groups, but that K itself is unknown. After observing a sample containing a certain number of different groups, the analyst can attempt to estimate the total number of groups that exist.

That reverses the original coupon problem.

Instead of knowing how many coupon types exist and calculating how long collecting them should take, the analyst observes repeated samples and attempts to infer the size of the unseen population.

Capozza notes that the underlying population is assumed to be flat — meaning the individual possibilities are treated as equally likely — an assumption that the paper explicitly acknowledges “is not easily satisfied.”

That caveat is important. The mathematics depends upon assumptions about how the underlying population behaves. If those assumptions are wrong, the resulting statistical conclusions may not accurately describe the real system.

A Paper Marked SECRET

Every page of the released article carries SECRET classification markings at the top and bottom. The released copy identifies it as Doc ID 6932166 and Doc Ref ID A3912410.

The first page now also bears a release notation:

“Approved for Release by NSA on 09-09-2026, FOIA Case # 102241.”

NSA did not release everything.

Its September 9 response states that portions remain classified under Executive Order 13526 and were withheld pursuant to FOIA Exemption 1. NSA said disclosure of the classified material “could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to national security.”

The agency also invoked FOIA Exemption 3, citing statutes protecting intelligence-related information, including 50 U.S.C. §3024(i) and Section 6 of Public Law 86-36. NSA characterized the release as a partial denial of The Black Vault’s request.

Several portions of the article remain visibly blank or redacted. Most notably, a large section on page 115 under the heading “Coupon Collecting and Alphabet Generation” is withheld. Portions of the bibliography are also redacted.

The contents of those withheld passages cannot be established from the released record.

What the 1966 Study Means in Plain English

Stripped of its equations, Coupon Collecting and Cryptology addresses a fundamental problem: How can mathematics tell whether something that is supposed to be random is behaving the way randomness says it should?

The coupon analogy provides an intuitive way to answer it.

If a bag contains ten equally likely numbered tokens, repeated draws should eventually produce all ten. Mathematics can predict approximately how long that should take and how much variation around that average is normal.

If repeated experiments behave very differently from those predictions, the discrepancy becomes measurable.

Capozza’s paper develops that concept mathematically and then applies it to cryptologic problems involving random digits, code groups, key-card generation and alphabets.

The advanced formulas filling much of the 13-page article are therefore not describing an exotic cryptographic cipher. They are establishing the probability distributions required to distinguish expected random behavior from potentially significant statistical irregularities.

Sixty years after the study appeared inside the NSA Technical Journal — and more than nine years after The Black Vault asked NSA for a copy — the released portions of Coupon Collecting and Cryptology provide a window into how the agency applied classical probability theory to practical cryptologic problems.

The release also leaves part of that history unresolved. Portions of the 1966 paper remain withheld, including material in its discussion of alphabet generation, meaning the complete scope of the study remains unavailable in the public version released by NSA.

###

Document Archive

Coupon Collecting and Cryptology [21 Pages, 2.5MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [2.37 MB]

The post NSA Releases 1966 Secret Study on “Coupon Collecting and Cryptology” After Nine-Year FOIA Wait first appeared on The Black Vault.

A collection of eight National Security Agency technology forecasting studies, spanning topics from privacy and anonymity to brain-network interfaces, advanced antennas and terahertz electronics, has been released through the Freedom of Information Act after a request that dated back to May 25, 2011.

The original FOIA request sought ten documents described as “Point Forecasts issued by the Futures Intelligence Team.” The requested studies covered solid-state lighting for wireless communications, human interaction with computer networks, antenna technology, energy storage and ultrathin electronics, post-Moore’s Law materials, terahertz microelectronics, harvested power, bio-inspired computing, privacy and anonymity, and position-location technologies.

The documents requested sought the following titles:

• Using Solid-State Lighting for Wireless Communications
• The Human Side of the Net
• Antenna Technologies
• Point Forecast for Small Energy Storage and Ultrathin Electronics
• What’s Beyond Moore’s Law
• Terahertz Solid-State Microelectronics
• Harvested Power and the Need
• Bio-Inspired Computing
• Privacy and Anonymity
• Position Location

NSA’s response, dated August 29, 2026, came more than 15 years after the request was filed. The agency stated that some responsive documents were being released with information withheld and that one 228-page document was withheld in its entirety. NSA did not identify that document by title.

According to the response, the 228-page document remained “currently and properly classified” under Executive Order 13526, resulting in its withholding under FOIA Exemption 1. NSA also cited Exemption 3 for information protected by federal statutes, specifically Title 18 U.S.C. §798, Title 50 U.S.C. §3024(i), and Section 6 of Public Law 86-36. Personal information was withheld under Exemption 6. The agency further stated that the Department of Energy requested withholding of certain information under Exemptions 6 and 7, with those portions identified as “OGA,” or Other Government Agency.

The eight studies now archived by The Black Vault correspond to eight of the ten titles specifically identified in the 2011 FOIA request. The two requested titles not represented in the released collection are Bio-Inspired Computing and Position Location. The available FOIA response does not identify which requested title corresponds to the 228-page document withheld in full, so it cannot be established from the records whether that document was Bio-Inspired Computing, Position Location, or both. Accordingly, the record establishes only that ten titles were requested, eight are represented in this release, and one unidentified 228-page responsive document was withheld in its entirety.

A Window Into NSA Technology Forecasting

Although the subjects vary considerably, the documents belong together for a specific reason: they were produced as forward-looking assessments intended to examine technologies that could affect national-security missions.

One of the earliest records in the collection, the 2002 Privacy and Anonymity study, provides unusually direct context for that effort. Its preface states that NSA’s Technology Forecasting Program was established to “anticipate the impact of advancing technologies on NSA’s mission.” It describes a process under which analysts examined emerging technologies, market trends and research activity to identify technologies that could affect future operations.

Later reports show national laboratories playing a significant role in that process. Several were produced by Sandia National Laboratories for NSA’s Research Transformation activities, while others were prepared by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The documents often combine scientific literature reviews, technology assessments, commercial-market analysis, international research comparisons and forecasts of capabilities several years into the future.

What emerges is not a single research program devoted to one technology. Instead, the papers provide snapshots of what government technology analysts considered potentially consequential at different points between 2002 and 2010: how humans might interact directly with networks, how tiny autonomous devices could power themselves, whether visible light could carry wireless data, what might replace traditional semiconductor scaling, how terahertz systems could be miniaturized, and how advances in antennas could reshape sensing and communications.

Below are the eight released records.

The Released Documents

Privacy and Anonymity: A Technology Forecast, 29 October 2002 [44 Pages, 11.671MB]

This NSA Information Assurance Research Group forecast examines privacy and anonymity at a moment when Internet use, electronic commerce, digital communications and government surveillance were rapidly expanding. Rather than treating privacy and anonymity as technologies themselves, the report examines them as rights and policy concerns being reshaped by technology. Written shortly after the September 11 attacks, it places particular emphasis on the tension between personal privacy and national security. The document reviews U.S. and European privacy law and discusses technologies with significant privacy implications, including Wi-Fi, Secure Socket Layer, public-key infrastructure, virtual private networks, intrusion-detection systems, biometrics, Microsoft’s Passport and Palladium initiatives, anonymous remailers and Internet anonymizers.

The report also addresses the issue specifically from NSA’s perspective. It acknowledges a fundamental tension between protecting privacy and anonymity and conducting intelligence operations intended to penetrate those protections when directed against authorized foreign targets. The forecast concludes that technological solutions alone cannot resolve privacy concerns and that legal and policy protections will remain important. It also anticipates that improvements in privacy- and anonymity-enhancing technologies could make NSA’s intelligence mission “more challenging and expensive,” while potentially assisting—or complicating—the Agency’s information-assurance responsibilities.

What’s Beyond Moore’s Law: Emerging Research Materials, May 2009 [91 Pages, 26.229MB]

This technical assessment examines what might happen as conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) scaling approaches physical and engineering limits. Rather than assuming that increasing transistor density could continue indefinitely through conventional silicon technology, the report evaluates emerging materials and fabrication techniques that might sustain the historical trajectory associated with Moore’s Law. Topics include advanced lithography, graphene, carbon nanotubes, nanowires, macromolecules, directed self-assembly, spin materials, complex metal oxides, interfaces and heterointerfaces, along with computational modeling and simulation. Its stated objective is to forecast the sustainability of Moore’s Law through 2030 and beyond.

The report develops three broad scenarios: carbon-based nanoelectronics replacing or supplementing silicon; complex metal oxides assuming a larger role in future devices; or silicon remaining dominant while the historical rate of Moore’s Law gradually declines. Its forecast anticipated a difficult transitional period as conventional CMOS scaling weakened before replacement technologies became sufficiently mature. The report identified carbon-based nanoelectronics—particularly graphene and carbon nanotubes—as an important potential route beyond conventional silicon, while explicitly recognizing major unresolved technical problems. Its long-range projections, including terahertz-range single-core performance and trillions of transistors per chip by around 2030, are forecasts made from the technological perspective of the report’s period rather than statements of present-day capability.

Technology Point Forecast: Terahertz Solid-State Microelectronics, April 2009 [109 Pages, 22.913MB]

Prepared by Sandia National Laboratories, this report assesses efforts to develop practical solid-state electronic components operating in the terahertz portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which it generally defines for its purposes as approximately 0.5 to 5 THz. The document describes terahertz frequencies as occupying a technological gap between microwave electronics and infrared photonics: conventional transistor-based electronics become increasingly difficult at the upper end, while conventional photonic technologies encounter limitations approaching from higher frequencies. The forecast evaluates research aimed at creating compact, manufacturable solid-state sources and detectors capable of closing that gap.

The report contrasts this goal with existing tube-based terahertz sources, which could provide useful performance but carried substantial disadvantages in size, weight, operating voltage, power requirements and mechanical complexity. It cites, for example, a 2.5-THz molecular gas laser developed for NASA’s Aura satellite as evidence that rugged terahertz systems were possible, while noting the substantial engineering expense involved. The forecast therefore focuses on solid-state approaches and assesses competing research directions, technical hurdles, anticipated component requirements and leading research groups worldwide, with an eye toward applications relevant to national security, defense and intelligence.

Overview of Harvested Power and the Need, April 2009 [37 Pages, 12.255MB]

This Sandia National Laboratories report examines “energy harvesting” as an alternative to relying exclusively on stored battery power for miniature sensors, actuators and communications equipment. The report explains that shrinking conventional batteries can sharply reduce practical energy density because packaging, seals and other inactive components occupy an increasing proportion of the available volume. It therefore evaluates methods for collecting energy from the surrounding environment, including photovoltaic, chemical, thermal, mechanical and radio-frequency sources. The document compares the energy densities, conversion efficiencies and practical limitations associated with each approach.

The forecast goes beyond individual energy-harvesting devices by examining the supporting systems required to make them useful. Because harvesters frequently cannot meet the instantaneous power requirements of electronics, the report discusses batteries, supercapacitors and power-management circuitry as load-leveling mechanisms. It also provides short-, medium- and long-term capability forecasts, including the possibility that advances in antennas, rectifiers and low-power electronics could eventually make RF energy harvesting practical across substantial portions of urban environments. The broader forecast is that harvested power would become increasingly important as electronic systems became smaller, more autonomous and expected to operate for longer periods without conventional battery replacement.

Point Forecast for Small Energy Storage and Ultrathin Electronics, March 2010 [59 Pages, 18.380MB]

Prepared by Sandia National Laboratories for NSA Research Transformation, this forecast examines technologies capable of supplying power to increasingly small electronic devices while simultaneously reducing the physical thickness of the electronics themselves. The report surveys ultrathin and printable batteries, battery materials, supercapacitors, mechanical energy-storage systems, radioisotopic power systems and ultrathin semiconductors. Its central concern is the engineering problem created when sensors, communications devices and other electronics become so small that conventional batteries and packaging consume a disproportionate amount of their available volume.

The forecast also tracks international research activity, including work in China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Australia, France and the United Kingdom. On the electronics side, it examines efforts to thin conventional silicon circuits into flexible structures approximately 5 to 50 micrometers thick, as well as organic semiconductor alternatives. The document connects these advances to applications such as smart cards, wearable sensors and low-profile communications equipment, while emphasizing that reliability, heat dissipation, packaging and energy density remained significant constraints.

Forecasting of Antenna Technologies, March 2010 [38 Pages, 10.651MB]

This Sandia National Laboratories forecast, sponsored by NSA Research Transformation, examines emerging antenna technologies needed to support increasingly capable and miniaturized wireless systems. It concentrates on four principal areas: electrically small antennas, metamaterial-based antennas, advanced antenna-array architectures and new approaches to integrating materials into antenna systems. The report argues that antennas should no longer be treated as an afterthought in system design, particularly as wireless devices are required to support multiple functions while meeting increasingly stringent size, power and performance requirements.

The study evaluates electrically small antennas for applications such as RFID and communications, metamaterials intended to alter or improve electromagnetic behavior, smart and phased arrays, and flexible or mechanically reconfigurable antenna concepts. It also surveys international research and publication activity, including Chinese work in areas such as monopulse systems, RF stealth and radar-absorbing materials. The forecast concludes with short-, medium- and long-term assessments of technical readiness, framing antenna development as an enabling technology for future communications, sensing and other wireless systems rather than merely a peripheral hardware component.

Technology Forecast: Using Solid-State Lighting for Wireless Communications, February 2010 [61 Pages, 15.479MB]

Prepared by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, this forecast examines whether light-emitting diode solid-state lighting could simultaneously illuminate spaces and function as a wireless communications infrastructure. The underlying concept is visible-light communication: because LED output can be modulated rapidly, lighting fixtures could potentially transmit digital information while continuing to provide apparently continuous illumination to occupants. The report considers both indoor networking and point-to-point optical communications and reviews the rapid development of high-brightness LEDs that was making solid-state lighting increasingly practical.

The report tempers some of the more ambitious expectations surrounding the technology. Earlier projections had contemplated gigabit-per-second data rates and communication over hundreds of meters, but experimental systems, physical modeling and practical engineering constraints had caused those expectations to be revised downward by the time of the study. The forecast evaluates LED performance, modulation, receivers, networking architectures and the relationship between lighting requirements and communications performance. In effect, it examines an early version of what later became widely known as visible-light communications or “Li-Fi”: using existing or future LED lighting infrastructure as an additional medium for transmitting information.

The Human Side of the Net, March 2010 [99 Pages, 27.450MB]

Prepared by Sandia National Laboratories, The Human Side of the Net explores neuroscience and neurotechnology as potential components of future computer networks. The report surveys technologies including EEG, fMRI, MEG, PET, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, transcranial stimulation and other methods for measuring or influencing brain activity. Its central forecasting question is unusually direct: how might humans become “more than metaphorically” part of a network? From that premise, the study examines the possibility of direct input from the brain to a network, biometric encryption and identification based on unique neurological signals, cognitive-state detection, deception detection and direct control of devices.

The report then considers more speculative applications that researchers might eventually pursue if neurotechnology improved sufficiently. These include using the brain as a supplementary processor, “brain onion routing,” outsourcing recognition tasks to human participants, and establishing two-way interaction between the brain and a computer network. Importantly, these concepts are presented as forecast scenarios rather than evidence that NSA possessed or deployed such capabilities. Large portions of the document are redacted under FOIA exemptions, including material withheld under Exemption 7(E), leaving some of the original analysis unavailable in the released version.

The post NSA Releases Cold War-Era Style “Technology Forecasts” on Brain-Network Interfaces, Terahertz Systems, Energy Harvesting and More first appeared on The Black Vault.

The decision does not establish that Immaculate Constellation exists, that NSA participated in such a program, or even that NSA possesses records about it. Instead, NSA maintains that simply answering the question on whether responsive intelligence records exist at all, would itself disclose classified and statutorily protected information.

That distinction is particularly significant in this case. The Department of War has publicly denied having any record of a Special Access Program by that name, while the document responsible for many of the allegations remains an unverified whistleblower-origin report containing extraordinary claims for which no underlying imagery, intelligence reports, databases or other corroborating evidence described in the report has been publicly produced.

The result is an unusual information gap: one part of the government has publicly said it has no record of the alleged program, while NSA says national security prevents it from saying whether it has records pertaining to the same allegation.

The Immaculate Constellation Allegations

“Immaculate Constellation” entered the public UAP debate in October 2024 through reporting by journalist Michael Shellenberger. A document subsequently provided to Congress was entered into the record of the House Oversight Committee’s November 13, 2024 hearing, “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.”

The document describes itself as the product of “a multi-year, internal investigation” concerning UAP, “Technologies of Unknown Origin,” and “Non-Human Intelligence.” It states that it was provided to Congress through UAP whistleblower mechanisms and says its public version was reviewed and approved for public release by the State Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs.

Its central allegation is explicit:

“IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION is an Unacknowledged Special Access Program (USAP) established following the public disclosure of the AATIP/AAWSAP programs by Luis Elizondo in 2017.”

The report further alleges that the program’s “primary mission is collecting imagery intelligence on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) and ARV/RV (Reproduction Vehicles)” using tasked and untasked U.S. military-intelligence collection systems.

The claims extend considerably further. The document describes alleged imagery from CENTCOM, INDOPACOM, NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM environments; asserts that a Defense HUMINT database contains more than 400 UAP/UFO encounter reports from 1991 through 2022; and presents tables cataloging reported shapes, sizes, behaviors, signatures and other characteristics.

Those are allegations contained in the document and are not independently established findings.

The document’s presence in an official congressional hearing record verifies that Congress received and published the report. It does not authenticate the underlying claims, establish that the purported program exists, or demonstrate that the described imagery and databases are genuine.

That evidentiary distinction remains an important part of this. No primary program documentation establishing Immaculate Constellation as an actual USAP has been publicly produced alongside the report, and the underlying imagery and intelligence reporting described in it have not been made publicly available for independent examination.

Pentagon: No Record of the Program

The Department of Defense publicly took a substantially less ambiguous position.

DoD spokesperson Sue Gough stated:

“The Department of Defense has no record, present or historical, of any type of SAP called ‘IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION.’”

That denial was also recorded in an internal Office of the Director of National Intelligence document concerning the allegations. The ODNI document characterized Immaculate Constellation as a “supposed unacknowledged Special Access Program” and summarized what had been reported publicly before recording Gough’s denial.

The available public record therefore contains a direct conflict between the whistleblower-origin allegations and DoD’s stated position. There is currently no publicly available documentary evidence sufficient to independently resolve that conflict in favor of the program’s existence.

The NSA FOIA Request

On December 3, 2024, The Black Vault submitted a request to NSA seeking intelligence records and records concerning intelligence activities pertaining to the alleged Immaculate Constellation program.

The purpose of filing with NSA was not based on evidence establishing that NSA operated the alleged program. Rather, it was part of a broader FOIA strategy used by The Black Vault when attempting to trace claims involving the Intelligence Community.

Records about a program or subject do not necessarily reside exclusively with the agency alleged to have originated them. Intelligence reporting, correspondence, referrals, finished products or other material can potentially exist elsewhere in government. When responsive records originated with another agency, the FOIA process can also involve consultation or referral to the originating agency for review.

Submitting requests to multiple potentially relevant agencies can therefore test a broader portion of the government’s documentary record rather than assuming that only one agency could possess responsive material.

NSA answered on December 6, 2024.

But it did not say that it found nothing.

It would not say whether it found anything at all.

NSA Issues a Glomar Response

NSA told The Black Vault:

“For reasons described below, we are not able to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of these records.”

Importantly, NSA also explained that its response was not unique to Immaculate Constellation:

“Please be advised that this is our standard response to all requests where we reasonably believe that the request seeks intelligence records or records revealing intelligence related activity involving UFOs/UAP.”

NSA invoked FOIA Exemptions 1 and 3. Under Exemption 1, the agency said that even “the fact of the existence or non-existence” of the requested material was currently and properly classified under Executive Order 13526.

For Exemption 3, NSA cited 18 U.S.C. § 798, 50 U.S.C. § 3024(i), and Section 6 of Public Law 86-36, codified at 50 U.S.C. § 3605.

NSA further stated:

“the Agency reasonably foresees that disclosure of the existence or non-existence of the requested information would be harmful to an interest that is protected by the identified exemptions.”

The response is commonly known as a Glomar response: rather than acknowledging whether responsive records exist and then withholding some or all of them, an agency refuses to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records.

Nothing in NSA’s December 2024 response can properly be treated as confirmation of Immaculate Constellation. NSA specifically said the response was its standard treatment for requests it believes seek intelligence records or intelligence-related activity involving UFOs or UAP.

The Black Vault Appeals

The Black Vault appealed the decision on December 9, 2024.

The appeal centered in part on the apparent tension between NSA’s position and the categorical public statement already made by DoD.

It argued that if the alleged program did not exist, acknowledging that fact should not reveal classified information. Conversely, if responsive records existed independently of an NSA-operated program, for example, records discussing allegations concerning a program elsewhere in government; the FOIA process could potentially identify those records and subject them to normal classification and referral procedures.

The appeal specifically requested that NSA reconsider the Glomar response, “explicitly confirm or deny the existence of records related to ‘Immaculate Constellation,’” process any non-exempt portions, and provide appropriate justification for information that remained withheld.

NSA has now rejected that argument.

NSA: Even Acknowledging Records Could Harm National Security

In its appeal determination, NSA said its original response was appropriate and again declined to answer whether responsive records exist.

The appeal authority wrote:

“I determined that NSA’s response to not confirm or deny the existence of records was appropriate.”

The agency then explained the reasoning behind maintaining the Glomar response:

“To respond otherwise would require NSA to confirm or deny the existence of an alleged intelligence program (‘Immaculate Constellation’).”

NSA continued:

“If the NSA were to confirm or deny the existence of records about an alleged NSA program to you, NSA would have to do the same for others.”

According to the agency, releasing that information could “expose or compromise classified and protected intelligence information, sources, methods, or activities,” potentially harming national security and undermining NSA’s mission.

The appeal determination also directly addressed the argument concerning another agency’s public statements.

NSA wrote:

“Another agencies’ acknowledgement of the existence or non-existence of records regarding an alleged program does not require NSA to acknowledge the existence or non-existence of records about the same program.”

The appeal was therefore denied.

What the NSA Response Does — and Does Not — Establish

NSA’s decision creates no evidentiary support for the underlying Immaculate Constellation allegations.

A Glomar response cannot logically be read as “yes.” By design, it provides neither a confirmation nor a denial.

That limitation is particularly important because NSA explicitly stated in its original response that this is its standard treatment for requests seeking intelligence records or intelligence-related activity, even that which is involving UFOs and UAP.

Consequently, the NSA correspondence provides no basis for concluding that the agency operated Immaculate Constellation, participated in it, knows that it exists, or possesses any of the extraordinary imagery or intelligence described in the whistleblower-origin report.

The documentary record remains considerably narrower.

A report alleging the program’s existence was provided to Congress and formally entered into a House hearing record. The report contains detailed allegations concerning imagery intelligence, HUMINT reporting, signals intelligence and government UAP activities. DoD has publicly stated that it has “no record, present or historical” of a SAP called Immaculate Constellation. And NSA refuses to say whether it possesses intelligence records pertaining to the allegation.

Those facts can coexist without confirming the alleged program.

The Continuing Problem With Glomar

The NSA case also illustrates a recurring transparency problem created by Glomar responses.

There is an important distinction between asking whether a classified intelligence program exists and asking whether an intelligence agency possesses records concerning allegations about such a program. The latter could encompass material originating outside NSA, correspondence discussing press reports, intelligence reporting, interagency communications, referrals or other records without establishing that the alleged program itself exists.

Indeed, the ODNI record demonstrates that this distinction is not merely hypothetical. ODNI possessed an internal document discussing the Immaculate Constellation allegations, summarizing press reporting and recording DoD’s denial. Its existence did not establish that the alleged program was real.

NSA nevertheless maintains that even acknowledging the existence or nonexistence of intelligence records responsive to the request would reveal protected information.

That leaves a fundamental question unresolved: if an allegation is false, and an agency truly possesses no responsive intelligence records, what national-security interest would be damaged by simply saying so?

NSA’s appeal determination does not provide a case-specific public explanation answering that question. Instead, it states that confirming or denying records concerning alleged intelligence programs could expose classified intelligence information, sources, methods or activities, and that another agency’s acknowledgement does not bind NSA.

That is the government’s legal position. It is not evidence that Immaculate Constellation exists.

For now, the publicly available evidence remains insufficient to substantiate the extraordinary allegations contained in the whistleblower report. NSA’s Glomar response does nothing to change that evidentiary picture. It establishes only that NSA will not say whether responsive intelligence records exist, even after another component of the U.S. government publicly stated that it has no record of the alleged program.

The distinction between a government record documenting an allegation and government documentation proving the allegation remains essential in evaluating Immaculate Constellation. At present, the public record establishes the former, but not the latter.

###

The post Pentagon Says It Has No Record of “Immaculate Constellation” — NSA Denies Appeal and Won’t Say Whether It Does first appeared on The Black Vault.

In the months and years that followed, the circumstances surrounding Benghazi became the subject of extensive investigations by the State Department, FBI, intelligence community and multiple congressional committees. Those inquiries examined separate but overlapping questions, including security conditions before the attack, requests and arrangements for protecting U.S. personnel, intelligence concerning extremist activity, the U.S. government’s response while the attacks were underway, and the public explanation of what had occurred. The State Department’s Accountability Review Board ultimately issued 29 recommendations, 24 of them unclassified, addressing diplomatic security and the protection of personnel at high-risk posts. The Department stated that it accepted all of the Board’s recommendations.

The Black Vault’s Benghazi archive brings together records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, government releases, congressional investigations and other document collections so researchers can examine the underlying record directly. A substantial portion of the archive concerns one of the central questions raised after the attack: what information the U.S. government possessed about threats in Benghazi and the surrounding region before September 11, 2012. The collection includes FOIA responses and records from the Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, FBI, CIA and National Security Agency. Some requests produced released records, while others identified responsive material that remained classified or otherwise withheld. The NSA collection, for example, contains internal government communications concerning the developing situation during the attack, while other agency responses document records that were located but withheld from public disclosure.

The archive also documents how information about Benghazi was communicated inside the government and presented publicly after the attack. Included are the State Department’s September 2012 “Rapid Response: Hot Topics” newsletters, records concerning FBI interviews of survivors, White House emails, and several collections tracing the development and revision of the government’s Benghazi “talking points.” Among these are records released by the White House as well as approximately 100 pages obtained by The Black Vault from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence containing communications involving the intelligence community, State Department, CIA and other officials. Taken together, these records allow researchers to compare successive drafts and communications rather than relying solely on later descriptions of how the government’s public account developed.

Additional material addresses security at the Benghazi facilities and the physical aftermath of the attack. The archive includes officially released photographs from the attack scene and a 130-page State Department collection concerning Blue Mountain Group, the security contractor that provided local guards at the Special Mission compound. Other FBI and intelligence-agency FOIA responses illustrate the limits of the public record: in several instances agencies acknowledged locating responsive records concerning threats or warnings but withheld some or all of the underlying material under FOIA exemptions involving classified national-security information, statutory protections or law-enforcement proceedings. Those responses are preserved alongside the released records so that the scope of what remains unavailable is also part of the archive.

Finally, the collection includes material from the congressional investigations that followed Benghazi, including the report of the House Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, released in June 2016. That investigation examined events preceding the attack, the military and civilian response on September 11 and 12, and government communications afterward. Because Benghazi generated years of political dispute and competing claims about responsibility, intelligence, security and the government’s public statements, the purpose of this archive is not to resolve those disputes for the reader. The document index below instead preserves the available primary records, FOIA responses, investigative material and related releases so they can be reviewed directly and compared against the claims that have surrounded the attack.

Document Archive

The following are documents received under the FOIA regarding Benghazi. I still have MULTIPLE requests still open and being processed, and they will be made available here when I get them.

Did the U.S. Government receive warnings of a threat on 9/11/12?  

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)

DIA Response for Records – Records Released, January 21, 2022- [9 Pages, 0.6MB]

FOIA-00437-2012 Case File – NSA Release – These were administrative files released in regards to the above case. The DIA is also processing the request for the same, and those files will be added to the site, when available.

Department of Defense (DoD)

DoD Response for Records – Original Denial, 2013 – [2 Pages, 0.6MB]

DoD Response for Records – Records Released, 2019 – [52 Pages, 0.6MB] Note: The records were obtained electronically, and they were this compressed upon receipt (looking blurry and of poor quality.)

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

 FBI Response to FOIA request for all warnings / threats of terrorism on or around 9/11/12 [5 Pages, 1MB] – The FBI found 72 pages of responsive records to this search, but each of them were classified and exempt from release.  Could these pages potentially show the Obama Administration was negligent and ignored warnings of a terrorist attack on 9/11/12?

 FBI Response to FOIA request for all warnings / threats of terrorism on or around 9/11/12, on documents originating with a “Other Government Agency” [3 Pages, 0.2MB] – The FBI had sent 4 pages to a “Other Government Agency” that was responsible for the documents. They determined that these, as well, were entirely classified and exempt from release.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

 CIA Response to FOIA request for all warnings / threats of terrorism on or around 9/11/12 [2 Pages, 0.2MB] – The CIA responded on behalf of the Department of State, when they found multiple pages responsive to my request.  The CIA says that each document is classified, and exempt from release.

 CIA Response to Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) request for all warnings / threats of terrorism on or around 9/11/12 [1 Page, 0.2MB] – After four years from the above case, I requested a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) request of all the files found, but previously exempt, in 2014. Yet again, the CIA denied access to the files.

National Security Agency (NSA)

 NSA Response to FOIA request for all warnings / threats of terrorism on or around 9/11/12 [ 70 Pages, 6.1MB ] – This request took more than 5 years to complete. The keys (to me) to this specific release are, first, I got the official internal messages sent updating on the situation, many sent while Ambassador Stevens was not even found or his whereabouts known. Second, there is a “declassified” Top Secret briefing from April of 2012. This must contain information about the situation in and around Benghazi, but the question about this briefing, is why is it STILL so classified since much of the situation and CIA presence became known when the attack took place? The reasons why are cited as FOIA Exemption (b)(1) having to deal with national security information and (b)(3) information exempted by statute.

Related FOIA Documents

DoD Response for Records [2 Pages, 0.6mb]

 State Department “Rapid Response: Hot Topics” Newsletter for the month of September 2012 [ 37 Pages, 1.6MB ] – These newsletters are issued daily by the State Department, and circulated internally. I requested the entire month of September 2012 to show the days leading up to and following the Benghazi attack.

 FBI Response to FOIA request for all transcripts from interviews with Benghazi survivors [4 Pages, 2.35MB] –

Benghazi “Talking Point” Timeline revisions [8 Pages, 1.7mb] – This document, released by ABC News, shows the different versions of the “talking points” relating to Benghazi. There is a drastic change over the course of 12 revisions.

 Benghazi “Talking Point” Revision — Emails from the White House, released April 2014 [113 Pages, 43.76mb] – These records come from my friends over at Judicial Watch, who do great work obtaining hard to get documents.  To quote FoxNews on their release, “Newly released emails on the Benghazi terror attack suggest a senior White House aide played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances — where she wrongly blamed protests over an Internet video.”

Benghazi “Talking Point” Revision — Emails from the DNI, State Dept. CIA and others [100 Pages, 36.71mb] – These pages were released to The Black Vault from the Director of National Intelligence in a request for all emails pertaining to the “talking points” and how they were revised behind the scenes before Susan Rice and others used them in the days after the attack.  Very interesting to see what went into it, and how they knew from the start the bullet point about it being over a protest would be an issue.  You will also see where the information about the “warnings” given PRIOR to 9/11/12, along with the terrorist ties, were completely cut out of the final version.

Benghazi Attack Scene Photos [8 Pages, 1.6mb] – Thanks to my friends over at Judicial Watch, photos from the scene of the Benghazi attack were released under the FOIA after originally being deemed classified, and exempt from disclosure under FOIA exemption (b)(7). These are the first photos to have been officially released from the scene of the Benghazi attack.

 FBI Response for Benghazi “threats” towards the consulate, or to the US on or around 9/11/12 [3 Pages, 1.02MB] – In a search for records relating to a threat towards either the United States, or the Benghazi consulate, I filed a FOIA request to the FBI for records relating to anything that may indicate we had prior knowledge that an attack was imminent around 9/11/12.  The response? FOIA exemption (b)(7) – law enforcement information, which if released, would interfere with an ongoing proceeding.

White House Releases Emails Regarding Benghazi [100 Pages, 29.12mb] – On 5/15/2013, The White House released 100 pages of emails regarding the ‘talking points’ that would be discussed in the days that followed the attack in Benghazi.  Up until this date, the White House refused to release them to congressional investigators.

 Blue Mountain Group (BMG) Security Firm Repeatedly Abandoned Their Posts in Benghazi due to “fear” for their safety [ 130 Pages, 39.28MB ] – On September 10th, 2014, Judicial Watch announced that it had obtained 130 pages of new State Department documents revealing that local security guards working for Blue Mountain Group (BMG), the firm hired to protect the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, repeatedly abandoned their posts “out of fear of their safety” in the months leading up to the deadly terrorist attack on the special mission compound. Source and special thanks: Judicial Watch

Report of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi

Published 6/28/2016

Washington, D.C. – Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (SC-04) released the following statement after the committee’s Majority released a mark of its investigative report:

“Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were heroes who gave their lives in service to our country. Their bravery and the courageous actions of so many others on the ground that night should be honored.

“When the Select Committee was formed, I promised to conduct this investigation in a manner worthy of the American people’s respect, and worthy of the memory of those who died. That is exactly what my colleagues and I have done.

“Now, I simply ask the American people to read this report for themselves, look at the evidence we have collected, and reach their own conclusions. You can read this report in less time than our fellow citizens were taking fire and fighting for their lives on the rooftops and in the streets of Benghazi.”

The committee’s proposed report is just over 800 pages long and is comprised of five primary sections and 12 appendices. It details relevant events in 2011 and 2012.

The following facts are among the many new revelations in Part I:

• Despite President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s clear orders to deploy military assets, nothing was sent to Benghazi, and nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost 8 hours after the attacks began. [pg. 141]

• With Ambassador Stevens missing, the White House convened a roughly two-hour meeting at 7:30 PM, which resulted in action items focused on a YouTube video, and others containing the phrases “[i]f any deployment is made,” and “Libya must agree to any deployment,” and “[w]ill not deploy until order comes to go to either Tripoli or Benghazi.” [pg. 115]

• The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff typically would have participated in the White House meeting, but did not attend because he went home to host a dinner party for foreign dignitaries. [pg. 107]

• A Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) sat on a plane in Rota, Spain, for three hours, and changed in and out of their uniforms four times. [pg. 154]

• None of the relevant military forces met their required deployment timelines. [pg. 150]

• The Libyan forces that evacuated Americans from the CIA Annex to the Benghazi airport was not affiliated with any of the militias the CIA or State Department had developed a relationship with during the prior 18 months. Instead, it was comprised of former Qadhafi loyalists who the U.S. had helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution. [pg. 144]

Rep. Mike Pompeo (KS-04) released the following statement regarding these findings:

“We expect our government to make every effort to save the lives of Americans who serve in harm’s way. That did not happen in Benghazi. Politics were put ahead of the lives of Americans, and while the administration had made excuses and blamed the challenges posed by time and distance, the truth is that they did not try.”

Rep. Martha Roby (AL-02) released the following statement regarding these findings:

“Our committee’s insistence on additional information about the military’s response to the Benghazi attacks was met with strong opposition from the Defense Department, and now we know why. Instead of attempting to hide deficiencies in our posture and performance, it’s my hope our report will help ensure we fix what went wrong so that a tragedy like this never happens again.” 

The following facts are among the many new revelations in Part II:

• Five of the 10 action items from the 7:30 PM White House meeting referenced the video, but no direct link or solid evidence existed connecting the attacks in Benghazi and the video at the time the meeting took place. The State Department senior officials at the meeting had access to eyewitness accounts to the attack in real time. The Diplomatic Security Command Center was in direct contact with the Diplomatic Security Agents on the ground in Benghazi and sent out multiple updates about the situation, including a “Terrorism Event Notification.” The State Department Watch Center had also notified Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills that it had set up a direct telephone line to Tripoli. There was no mention of the video from the agents on the ground. Greg Hicks—one of the last people to talk to Chris Stevens before he died—said there was virtually no discussion about the video in Libya leading up to the attacks. [pg. 28]

• The morning after the attacks, the National Security Council’s Deputy Spokesperson sent an email to nearly two dozen people from the White House, Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community, stating: “Both the President and Secretary Clinton released statements this morning. … Please refer to those for any comments for the time being. To ensure we are all in sync on messaging for the rest of the day, Ben Rhodes will host a conference call for USG communicators on this chain at 9:15 ET today.” [pg. 39]

• Minutes before the President delivered his speech in the Rose Garden, Jake Sullivan wrote in an email to Ben Rhodes and others: “There was not really much violence in Egypt. And we are not saying that the violence in Libya erupted ‘over inflammatory videos.’” [pg. 44]

• According to Susan Rice, both Ben Rhodes and David Plouffe prepared her for her appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows following the attacks. Nobody from the FBI, Department of Defense, or CIA participated in her prep call. While Rhodes testified Plouffe would “normally” appear on the Sunday show prep calls, Rice testified she did not recall Plouffe being on prior calls and did not understand why he was on the call in this instance. [pg.98]

• On the Sunday shows, Susan Rice stated the FBI had “already begun looking at all sorts of evidence” and “FBI has a lead in this investigation.” But on Monday, the Deputy Director, Office of Maghreb Affairs sent an email stating: “McDonough apparently told the SVTS [Secure Video Teleconference] group today that everyone was required to ‘shut their pieholes’ about the Benghazi attack in light of the FBI investigation, due to start tomorrow.” [pg. 135]

• After Susan Rice’s Sunday show appearances, Jake Sullivan assured the Secretary of the State that Rice “wasn’t asked about whether we had any intel. But she did make clear our view that this started spontaneously and then evolved.” [pg. 128]

• Susan Rice’s comments on the Sunday talk shows were met with shock and disbelief by State Department employees in Washington. The Senior Libya Desk Officer, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, State Department, wrote: “I think Rice was off the reservation on this one.” The Deputy Director, Office of Press and Public Diplomacy, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, State Department, responded: “Off the reservation on five networks!” The Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, Bureau of Near East Affairs, State Department, wrote: “WH [White House] very worried about the politics. This was all their doing.” [pg. 132]

• The CIA’s September 13, 2012, intelligence assessment was rife with errors. On the first page, there is a single mention of “the early stages of the protest” buried in one of the bullet points. The article cited to support the mention of a protest in this instance was actually from September 4. In other words, the analysts used an article from a full week before the attacks to support the premise that a protest had occurred just prior to the attack on September 11. [pg. 47]

• A headline on the following page of the CIA’s September 13 intelligence assessment stated “Extremists Capitalized on Benghazi Protests,” but nothing in the actual text box supports that title. As it turns out, the title of the text box was supposed to be “Extremists Capitalized on Cairo Protests.” That small but vital difference—from Cairo to Benghazi—had major implications in how people in the administration were able to message the attacks. [pg. 52]

Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-04) released the following statement regarding these findings:

“Obama Administration officials, including the Secretary of State, learned almost in real time that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Rather than tell the American people the truth, the administration told one story privately and a different story publicly.”

Rep. Peter Roskam (IL-06) released the following statement regarding these findings:

“In the days and weeks after the attacks, the White House worked to pin all of the blame for their misleading and incorrect statements on officials within the intelligence community, but in reality, political operatives like Ben Rhodes and David Plouffe were spinning the false narrative and prepping Susan Rice for her interviews.”

The following facts are among the many new revelations in Part III:

• During deliberations within the State Department about whether and how to intervene in Libya in March 2011, Jake Sullivan listed the first goal as “avoid[ing]a failed state, particularly one in which al-Qaeda and other extremists might take safe haven.” [pg. 9]

• The administration’s policy of no boots on the ground shaped the type of military assistance provided to State Department personnel in Libya. The Executive Secretariats for both the Defense Department and State Department exchanged communications outlining the diplomatic capacity in which the Defense Department SST security team members would serve, which included wearing civilian clothes so as not to offend the Libyans. [pg. 60]

• When the State Department’s presence in Benghazi was extended in December 2012, senior officials from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security were excluded from the discussion. [pg. 74]

• In February 2012, the lead Diplomatic Security Agent at Embassy Tripoli informed his counterpart in Benghazi that more DS agents would not be provided by decision makers, because “substantive reporting” was not Benghazi’s purpose. [pg. 77]

• Emails indicate senior State Department officials, including Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, and Huma Abedin were preparing for a trip by the Secretary of State to Libya in October 2012. According to testimony, Chris Stevens wanted to have a “deliverable” for the Secretary for her trip to Libya, and that “deliverable” would be making the Mission in Benghazi a permanent Consulate. [pg. 96]

• In August 2012—roughly a month before the Benghazi attacks—security on the ground worsened significantly. Ambassador Stevens initially planned to travel to Benghazi in early August, but cancelled the trip “primarily for Ramadan/security reasons.” [pg. 99]

• Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta bluntly told the committee “an intelligence failure” occurred with respect to Benghazi. Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell also acknowledged multiple times an intelligence failure did in fact occur prior to the Benghazi attacks. [pg. 129]

Rep. Susan Brooks (IN-05) released the following statement regarding these findings:

“President Obama has said his worst mistake was ‘failing to plan for the day after … intervening in Libya.’ As a result of this ‘lead from behind’ foreign policy, the Libyan people were forced to make the dismal trade of the tyranny of Qadhafi for the terror of ISIS, Al-Qaeda and others. Although the State Department considered Libya a grave risk to American diplomats in 2011 and 2012, our people remained in a largely unprotected, unofficial facility that one diplomatic security agent the committee interviewed characterized as ‘a suicide mission.’”

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03) released the following statement regarding these findings:

“One of the most concerning parts of the State Department’s policy in Libya was its reliance upon the militias of an unstable nation to protect our men and women in Benghazi. These were by no means forces that could adequately protect Americans on the ground, and the State Department knew it. But the appearance of no boots on the ground was more important to the administration.”

Part IV of the report reveals new information about the Select Committee’s requests and subpoenas seeking documents and witnesses regarding Benghazi and Libya, and details what the Obama administration provided to Congress, what it is still withholding, and how its serial delays hindered the committee’s efforts to uncover the truth.

Part V proposes 25 recommendations for the Pentagon, State Department, Intelligence Community, and Congress aimed at strengthening security for American personnel serving abroad and doing everything possible to ensure something like Benghazi never happens again, and if it does, that we are better prepared to respond.

The Select Committee intends to convene a bipartisan markup to discuss and vote on the proposed report on July 8, 2016. All members of the committee will have the opportunity to offer changes in a manner consistent with the rules of the House.

 Read the Report [853 Pages, 10.7MB]

Honoring Courage, Improving Security and Fighting the Exploitation of a Tragedy

Published June 2016

As the report states, “The Democratic Members of the Benghazi Select Committee submit this report in honor of the memories of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty; the other extraordinary heroes in Benghazi and Tripoli who risked life and limb to help their fellow Americans; and the men and women of the Defense Department, State Department, and Intelligence Community who serve the United States every day around the world.”

Why can’t our elected officials work together? Why can’t they do an unbiased investigation into ANY event, including Benghazi?  Regardless of the answers, this report is included here for reference and fairness.

 Read the Report [344 Pages, 4.3MB]

U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Published 11/21/2014

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI” or “the Committee”) conducted a comprehensive and exhaustive investigation into the tragic attacks against two U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11-12, 2012. The nearly two-year investigation focused on the activities of the Intelligence Community (“IC”) before, during, and after the attacks. During the course of thousands of hours of detailed investigation, HPSCI reviewed thousands of pages of intelligence assessments, cables, notes, and emails; held 20 Committee events and hearings; and conducted detailed interviews with senior intelligence officials and eyewitnesses to the attacks, including eight security personnel on the ground in Benghazi that night.

 Read the Report [37 Pages, 2.5MB]

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Releases Report on DOD Response to Benghazi

Published 2/11/2014

WASHINGTON – The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations released a comprehensive report today evaluating the response of the Department of Defense (DOD) to the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. Read the Report

To undertake the committee’s review, Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon directed the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to work alongside the full committee. As a result, this report expresses the views of Chairman McKeon, Vice Chairman Mac Thornberry, Rep. Martha Roby (who was the chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee until December 2013), and the five majority members of that subcommittee.

To date, committee staff has reviewed thousands of pages of written material (including classified emails and situation reports) made available by DOD. Staff has also held three classified staff briefings, and two classified interviews. Members have participated in two open hearings, and seven additional classified briefings. In undertaking this work, the committee has met with and received information from military personnel in the entire chain of command in connection with Benghazi: from those on the ground at the time of the attack to the nation’s senior-most uniformed leader.

While the committee’s inquiry continues, the majority members believe that information gathered to date reaffirm the relevant findings in the Interim Progress Report for the Members of the Republican Conference on the Events Surrounding the September 11, 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya issued in April 2013 by the five committees with jurisdiction in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Based on its activities undertaken since the release of that report, majority members make the six findings listed below:

 Read the Report [31 Pages, 0.4MB]

Documents about the Benghazi Aftermath

The following are documents received under the FOIA regarding Benghazi, and the aftermath in the days, weeks and months after the attack.

• Correspondence Between Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Members of Congress, 09/01/2012 – 12/31/2012, Released March 2015 [47 Pages, 17.3MB]
• Director of National Intelligence E-Mails Regarding Benghazi, Released December of 2015 [26 Pages, 3.5MB] – After being told there were no documents relating to my request for correspondence to or from the consulate in Benghazi. After appealing their decision, I was asked to withdraw it, and they would do another search for responsive records. As a result, there were responsive records, and they were redacted and released. This is another example of being told one thing, but after pushing and exercising my appeal rights, there is another picture that unfolds.  FOIA Case Processing Notes, [18 Pages, 6MB]
• A Trainee Demand Analysis for the Expansion of the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group, March 2013, Master’s Thesis [95 Pages, 4.54mb] – On September 11, 2012, the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked, resulting in the death of four United States citizens, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Prior to Bengazi, the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group (MCESG) held a total strength of about 1,400 Marines, of which 1,196 were Marine Security Guards (MSG). In response to the deadly attack, Congress authorized 1,000 new MSGs through the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, creating additional protection for U.S. diplomatic facilities worldwide. This thesis examines the growth requirements needed to support MCESG’s expansion demands to produce MSGs at maximum capacity in the coming three to four years. The study analyzes trainee demands, proposing a methodology to assist MCESG operation personnel plans for expansion and future force sustainment. The proposed methodology is founded on an Excel-based analytical approach that relies heavily on simulation and is interfaced through a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) UserForm. The model is easily manipulated, as operational needs dictate. Once developed, VBA UserForm is a simple and effective tool that can assist planners in standardizing procedures at the operational level. Research-based analysis indicates that the proposed methodology could yield significant savings in terms of manpower and training requirements for MCESG.
• CTC Sentinel – Volume 6, Issue 2, February 2013 [25 Pages, 1.51MB] – Islamist Militant Groups in Post-Qadhafi Libya.

Declassified Transcripts of Benghazi Briefings Released

January 13th, 2014 – The House Armed Services Committee today released a series of recently declassified transcripts of briefings on the September 11th 2012 attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya. The briefings were conducted by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations then chaired by Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL), though they were open to all members of the Committee and attended by Members off the Committee. The briefings, which took place over the course of several months, were part of the Committee’s examination of the actions of the military chain of command before, during, and after the attack. A report summarizing the conclusion of the HASC Oversight & Investigations majority Members draw from these briefings is expected to be released later this week.

•  Transcript #1

  1_Briefing transcript (redacted), “DOD’s preparation for the terrorist attacks in Benghazi,” (Part I, Session I, DOD), May 21, 2013.pdf (3.7 MBs)

•  Transcript #2

  2_Briefing transcript (redacted), “DOD’s preparation for the terrorist attacks in Benghazi,” (Part I, Session II DOD), May 21, 2013.pdf (642.4 KBs)

•  Transcript #3

  3_Briefing transcript (redacted), “DOD’s preparation for the terrorist attacks in Benghazi,” (Part II, AFRICOM), June 26, 2013.pdf (9.2 MBs)

•  Transcript #4

  4_Briefing transcript (redacted), “DOD’s preparation for the terrorist attacks in Benghazi,” (Part III, Colonel Bristol), July 31, 2013.pdf (10.8 MBs)

•  Transcript #5

  5_Hearing transcript, “DOD’s posture for September 11, 2013,” (Part IV, Force Posture), September 19, 2013.pdf (691.9 KBs)

•  Transcript #6

  6_Briefing transcript (redacted), “DOD’s force posture in anticipation of September 11, 2012,” (Part V, General Dempsey), October 10, 2013.pdf (2.3 MBs)

Progress Report on Benghazi Terror Attack Investigation

Last year, Speaker John Boehner asked the House committees on Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Judiciary, and Oversight & Government Reform to investigate the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans. On 4/23/13, these five committees released their progress report, which outlines their findings and the next steps in the investigation.

• Progress Report on Benghazi Terror Attack Investigation [46 Pages, 0.99mb]

Timeline of Documents and Events Relating to the Benghazi Attack

1. 8/27/12 – Travel Warning, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Bureau of Consular Affairs, in regards to Libya [2 Pages, 113kb] – Specifically mentions Benghazi with increased violence.
2. 9/11/12 – Statement on the Attack in Benghazi, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, Department of State [1 Page, 90kb] – Blames internet video for attack. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
3. 9/12/12 – Statement by the President on the Attack in Benghazi [1 Page, 96kb] – Written Statement released by the President. No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
4. 9/12/12 – Statement by the President on the Attack in Benghazi, Rose Garden Speech [Video] – No mention of “terror” or “terrorism” in relation to Benghazi. Says “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve on this great nation…” at the end of the speech, however, he was speaking about the 9/11/01 attacks, and his visits to victims and family members.
5. 9/12/12 – Remarks on the Deaths of American Personnel in Benghazi, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, Department of State [3 Pages, 90kb] – The video of this speech, is below in the Video Archive. Blames internet video for attack. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
6. 9/12/12 – Press Statement on the Deaths of American Personnel in Benghazi, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, Department of State [2 Pages, 101kb]-
   Blames internet video for attack. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
7. 9/12/12 – Remarks on the Deaths of American Personnel in Benghazi, Libya, Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations , U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Department of State [3 Pages, 98kb] –Blames internet video for attack. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
8. 9/12/12 – Briefing by Senior Administration Officials to Update Recent Events in Libya [3 Pages, 98kb] – Will not answer if internet video was cause of attack. Will not answer if there is a “terrorism” link.
9. 9/13/12 – State Department Daily Press Briefing [21 Pages, 180kb] – Confirms blaming internet video for attack. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
10. 9/13/12 – Statement on the Deaths of Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty in Benghazi, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, Department of State [2 Pages, 101kb]- No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
11. 9/14/12 – Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney [17 Pages, 166kb] Blames internet video as attack. Denies any “concrete evidence” of a “terror” link that would show “[the attack]to not being in response to the film.”
12. 9/14/12 – Remarks at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony to Honor Those Lost in Attacks in Benghazi, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State [3 Pages, 99kb] Blames internet video as attack. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
13. 9/14/12 – Remarks at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony to Honor Those Lost in Attacks in Benghazi, Libya, President Barack Obama [2 Pages, 125kb]- No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
14. 10/09/12 – Background Briefing on Libya [13 Pages, 140kb]-
    Said video was not their conclusion for attack..No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
15. 10/10/12 – On-The-Record Briefing by Under Secretary Kennedy [4 Pages, 110kb] – WATCH VIDEO – No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
16. 10/12/12 – Hearing on Benghazi Security Issues, Testimony Before the House Oversight Subcommittee, Patrick Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management [4 Pages, 108kb]- No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
17. 10/12/12 – Hearing on Benghazi Security Issues, Testimony Before the House Oversight Subcommittee, Charlene Lamb, Deputy Assistant, Secretary of State [8 Pages, 124kb] – No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
18. 10/12/12 – Hearing on Benghazi Security Issues, Prepared Statement Before the House Oversight Subcommittee, Eric Allan Nordstrom, Regional Security Officer, Tripoli, Libya from September 21, 2011-July 26, 2012 [12 Pages, 191kb]-
    No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
19. 10/15/12 – Interview With Margaret Brennan of CBS, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State [4 Pages, 108kb] -No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”
20. 11/09/12 – Daily Press Briefing, Victoria Nuland, Spokesperson [19 Pages, 190kb]- No mention of video. No mention of “terror” or “terrorism”

Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack At Benghazi (Official Senate Report)

1. Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack At Benghazi [31 Pages, 0.4mb] – While our country spent September 11, 2012, remembering the terrorist attacks that took place 11 years earlier, brave Americans posted at U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, were fighting for their lives against a terrorist assault. When the fight ended, U.S. Ambassador to Libya John C. (Chris) Stevens and three other Americans were dead and U.S. facilities in Benghazi were left in ruin. We must remember the sacrifice that these selfless public servants made to support the struggle for freedom in Libya and to improve our own national security. While we mourn their deaths, it is also crucial that we learn from how they died. By examining the circumstances of the attack in Benghazi on September 11th, we hope to gain a better understanding of what went wrong and what we must do now to ensure better protection for American diplomatic personnel who must sometimes operate in dangerous places abroad.

Historical government records, detailing the highly volatile situation in Libya and Benghazi

1.  America Strikes Back, April 1987 [44 Pages, 16.53mb] – After repeated warnings from the United States government, elements of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and the USAF bombed targets in and around the Libyan cities of Benghazi and Tripoli on 14 April 1986. The attack came in retaliation to several Libyan sponsored terrorist attacks on U.S. concerns in the weeks preceding. This paper examines the effects of the bombing as a deterrent of future terrorist attacks and further examines current and projected U.S. counterterrorist policies.
2. Conflict with Libya: Use of Military Force Against Terrorism, 8 Feb 1994 [30 Pages, 1.1mb] – The United States attack on Libya on April 15, 1986 was the culmination of a series of developments in U.S. foreign policy and military strategy intended to combat international terrorism. It was the culmination of the U.S. attempt to use both non- military and military methods to combat terrorism. This paper examines the use of military force as an appropriate means to combat terrorism. In particular, the 1986 conflict with Libya is examined concentrating on the following aspects: whether operational level objectives contributed to achievement of strategic goals; and the use of military force as an effective instrument in the war against terrorism. This paper concludes that the use of military force (along with the European non- military responses) was an effective instrument in the war against terrorism as measured by the decrease in Libyan sponsored attacks from 1986 to 1991. However, the U.S. attack on Libya is still an isolated event and does not provide a sufficient basis for a doctrine of military retaliation against terrorism.
3. Deterring Libya: The Strategic Culture of Muammar Qaddafi, October 2000 [31 Pages, 0.2mb] – In September of 1969, Muammar al-Qaddafi then a virtually unknown army officer in his late twenties rose to the leadership of Libya. Armed with a vision of Arab unity and anti-colonialism, he led a small group of his fellow officers who called themselves the Free Officers Movement. In a virtually bloodless coup, they ousted the aging (and absent) King Idris Al-Sanusi and established Libya as a republic. During the 30 years since, Qaddafi has emerged as a charismatic and complicated leader. Considered by Westerners to be bizarre and irrational, he has been branded a terrorist and a rogue. Among some of his fellow Arabs, he is praised as a virulent anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist, while others condemn him as a plotter and an adventurer whose zealous pursuit of Arab, African, and Islamic unity has only resulted in destabilization. Qaddafi remarked in 1976 that atomic weapons will be like traditional ones, possessed by every state according to its potential. We will have our share of this new weapon. In 1987 Reuters quoted him as saying: The Arabs must possess the atom bomb to defend themselves, until their numbers reach one thousand million and they learn to desalinate water and until they liberate Palestine. 1 Qaddafi places little faith in his armed forces and dreads a repeat of the 1986 U.S. air strikes against Tripoli and Benghazi. Reflecting on the air strikes, Qaddafi has wistfully spoken of possessing a ballistic missile capability that could threaten New York.2 Few state leaders have expressed such single-minded determination to obtain chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. This determination, coupled with Qaddafi s long-term association with terrorism, has caused grave concern among other nations especially the United States and Israel.
4. Libya: A Future Arab Democracy [43 Pages, 0.6mb] – Libya has overthrown its long time dictator Muammar Gadhafi with the aid of both Western and Arab militaries. The United States acted under the authority of U.N. mandate 1973 as part of a broad coalition of both NATO and Arab Nations primarily in a supporting role. In Libya, as in its neighbors Egypt and Tunisia, the successful revolution has now established transitional governments who’s effectiveness is yet to be determined. Unlike other Arab nations, Libya possesses a combination of vast oil reserves, a small and balanced population, and a relatively high education level in its citizens. These factors all bode well for the establishment of a lasting representative government. If successful, Libya can not only secure its borders, and deny safe haven to terrorism as is the declared interest of the United States, but also serve as a positive economic and political influence on the region. Egypt remains the most significant and strategic nation in the region, but the benefits of a successful Libya and the relatively low cost at which it may be achieved should not be overlooked.
5. Libya: Unrest and US Policy [43 Pages, 0.7mb] – Over 40 years ago, Muammar al Qadhafi led a revolt against the Libyan monarchy in the name of nationalism, self-determination, and popular sovereignty. Opposition groups citing the same principles are now revolting against Qadhafi to bring an end to the authoritarian political system he has controlled in Libya for the last four decades. The Libyan government’s use of force against civilians and opposition forces seeking Qadhafi’s overthrow sparked an international outcry and led the United Nations Security Council to adopt Resolution 1973, which authorizes “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians. The United States military is participating in Operation Unified Protector, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military operation to enforce the resolution. Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and other partner governments also are participating. Qadhafi and his supporters have described the uprising as a foreign and Islamist conspiracy and are attempting to outlast their opponents. Qadhafi remains defiant amid continuing coalition air strikes, and his forces continue to attack opposition-held areas. Some opposition figures have formed an Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC), which claims to represent all areas of the country. They seek foreign political recognition and material support.
6. A Nation at the Periphery: Libyan Regionalism Revisited [43 Pages, 0.6mb] – This article places the current Libyan conflict in historical perspective by focusing on the dynamics between the country’s two main regions (Tripolitania and Cyrenaica) during key moments of the 20th century. Particular attention is given to the different way each of the two regions approached the early period of Italian colonialism, from 1911 to 1923. The paper shows that historical relations between the two regions are characterized by both independence and interdependence and that this pattern is reemerging as the country transitions to a new era.
7. Personnel Recovery: Strategic Importance and Impact, December 2012 [31 Pages, 0.6mb] – The breaking news from countless media venues in March 2011 was captivating and compelling: while taking part in coalition operations in Libya, a US Air Force F-15E, call sign Bolar 34 had gone down east of Benghazi. The two crew members had ejected into a chaotic battle between the despotic Libyan regime and opposition forces supported by the coalition. As our nation prayed for the two Airmen, President Barack Obama heard a briefing on the event and monitored the situation as rescue forces from a US Marine task force in the area and opposition ground forces quickly dashed in to recover both men. In many ways, this heartwarming story resembled accounts of other rescues performed in earlier conflicts. The saga of Bolar 34 joined the lore of rescue missions that grace the proud history of our nation.

The post Benghazi Attack, 9/11/2012 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The records released by the National Security Agency provide an important distinction.

The NSA’s PROMIS, or Product Management Information System, was an intelligence-product management database developed during the 1970s. According to records released to The Black Vault under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the system was designed to organize information associated with intelligence reports and give senior signals intelligence managers a way to search, analyze and manage information about those products.

It should not simply be equated with the better-known Prosecutor’s Management Information System, also called PROMIS, associated with INSLAW, Inc. and the Department of Justice.

That distinction became a central issue when the Justice Department investigated allegations surrounding INSLAW and its software in the 1990s. DOJ ultimately concluded in 1994 that there was no credible evidence that INSLAW’s PROMIS had been improperly distributed elsewhere in the federal government or to foreign governments. A subsequent Court of Federal Claims proceeding also rejected INSLAW’s claims.

Yet NSA did, in fact, have something called PROMIS.

The records obtained by The Black Vault document what it was, and then a FOIA request filed in 2013 to uncover those records produced one final surprise nearly 13 years later.

Two Systems Called PROMIS

The Black Vault’s pursuit began with a passage contained in Justice Department records concerning the INSLAW controversy.

On November 14, 2013, The Black Vault filed a FOIA request with NSA seeking:

“a copy of all records pertaining to the NSA’s use of the computer program PROMIS.”

The request specifically cited a Justice Department account stating that investigators had contacted NSA to determine whether the agency “used or developed any program called PROMIS.” According to that account, NSA explained that it had developed a database in the 1970s using the M204 database system and called it PROMIS, an acronym for Product Related On-line Management Information System.

The NSA records subsequently released provide considerably more detail.

A draft Justice Department report sent to NSA for review in May 1994 recounts interviews with NSA personnel about the issue. The document states:

“the NSA maintains a database known as Product Management Information System, or ‘PROMIS.'”

It explains that “Product” was an NSA term for intelligence reports and that the database contained “abstracts of intelligence reports generated by various parts of the NSA.”

Most importantly, the DOJ account records an explicit distinction between NSA’s database and the software at the center of the INSLAW controversy:

“the NSA ‘PROMIS’ is not a software program, but rather is an application of the M204 database management system.”

One NSA employee interviewed by DOJ said she had participated in the original development of the database during the 1970s. According to the document, it was developed “primarily to allow the accumulation of management information regarding the productivity of various NSA divisions.”

That distinction is important because the Justice Department’s own PROMIS was the Prosecutor’s Management Information System, a case-management system used by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. DOJ records describe that system as a tool for maintaining and tracking information involving defendants, crimes, charges, court events and witnesses.

The common acronym helped produce decades of confusion, but the NSA records released through this FOIA case document an independently developed intelligence-product management database.

Building PROMIS Inside NSA

The released records trace the NSA system to early 1974.

A January 15, 1974, memorandum titled “SIGINT Management Data Bases” described the underlying management problem. The Deputy Director for Operations wrote that existing management statistics were prepared separately by different production groups and therefore were not available in a form that fully met his needs.

The memorandum called for:

“a system which will cut across Group lines”

and provide management data while allowing officials to respond to Intelligence Community questions.

Another memorandum, dated January 21, 1974, described plans to implement:

“an on-line computer system to provide product-related data needed at the DDO level and outside the agency.”

The document also made clear that security was built into the design requirements. Because some of the information was sensitive, the system would need controls governing both security and access. The memorandum stated that access to data, “either in part or in whole,” would be restricted to those who actually needed it.

A February 12, 1974, memorandum described the existing process the proposed database was intended to improve. The older Offline Coversheet Processing system was characterized as costly and inadequate, with manual data conversion alone consuming approximately 500 man-hours each quarter. Output could lag by roughly two weeks, while the memorandum estimated an error rate of seven to eight percent.

By May 1974, the name PROMIS was explicitly appearing in the records.

A May 8 memorandum titled “PROMIS Content and Timeliness Requirements” discussed a study of the database and asked what SIGINT products should be included initially, what products should eventually be covered and how current the information needed to be.

The memorandum stated:

“We expect to conclude the study and to recommend a system for PROMIS in the very near future.”

The surviving documents therefore portray PROMIS not as a mysterious stand-alone surveillance package, but as a management and retrieval system built around NSA intelligence “products,” with requirements involving searchable information, access controls, timeliness and the handling of sensitive SIGINT data.

The Black Vault’s FOIA Pursuit

Obtaining those records became its own unusually long story.

The Black Vault filed the request on November 14, 2013.

By March 2016, NSA had located a substantial volume of potentially responsive material but sought $440 in fees to continue processing the request. The Black Vault did not pay the requested amount, and there was no expectation that a release would follow.

Then, unexpectedly, one did.

On October 4, 2018, nearly five years after the original request, NSA sent The Black Vault a partial release. The agency wrote:

“Your request has been processed under the FOIA and some of the documents you requested are enclosed.”

NSA withheld portions under FOIA Exemptions 1, 3 and 6, citing classified national-security information, statutory protections applicable to NSA activities and personal privacy.

Significantly, the October 4 letter also stated:

“Additional documents will be provided when their processing is complete.”

The first release included internal NSA memoranda from the 1970s describing the creation and requirements of the system, along with Justice Department correspondence concerning its later INSLAW investigation.

A second, much larger release followed on October 22, 2018. That production contained 85 pages, including a PROMIS user’s manual and additional memoranda. NSA characterized that production as the final release in the case. The Black Vault subsequently archived the material on this page.

And for years, that appeared to be the end of FOIA case 75611.

It wasn’t.

An Unexpected Letter — Nearly Eight Years Later

On April 29, 2026, The Black Vault received another response from NSA.

There had been no indication to The Black Vault that the 2013 request remained open, and nearly eight years had passed since NSA’s October 2018 releases.

Nevertheless, NSA’s new letter identified the same underlying November 14, 2013 request and described the 2026 correspondence as:

“a final response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request”

The agency then provided an explanation for why a case that had seemingly ended years earlier had suddenly produced another record:

“During a review of our files, we located one document that was not provided to you with our final response to your request.”

NSA said it had reviewed the newly located document under FOIA and released it with redactions. Portions were withheld under the statutory protection applicable to NSA, while NSA also stated that the CIA had requested protection of CIA information under FOIA Exemptions 6 and 3.

The newly released record was dated February 8, 1978.

Its subject was:

“Regular PROMIS Listings for CIA”

That document added a significant piece to the historical record.

Addressed to the DDO from NSA’s Chief, V, the memorandum states that an individual identified as being with CIA/COMP had asked NSA to provide “regular quarterly PROMIS listings” for certain sites. Portions identifying the sites remain redacted.

The memorandum indicates that NSA had previously provided the information on a “one-time basis” the preceding August. The author then questioned whether NSA should establish recurring distribution:

“I don’t see any grounds for standing fast on one-time lists, since we are providing monthly listings for [redacted]”

and noted that another party was “obviously aware of this agreement.”

The identities and portions of the operational context remain withheld, preventing a complete reconstruction of what information was being supplied and to whom. The document does, however, establish that by 1978 NSA officials were discussing providing CIA personnel with recurring PROMIS-generated listings and that at least one earlier PROMIS listing had already been supplied.

What the Records Establish — and What They Do Not

The documents now accumulated through this FOIA case establish that NSA developed a system called PROMIS during the 1970s; that the name referred to a product-management database associated with intelligence reporting; that the system grew out of an effort to replace or supplement cumbersome offline management processes; and that its design contemplated searchable product information with controls over sensitive SIGINT data.

They also show that PROMIS information crossed organizational boundaries. The January 1974 planning records contemplated information needed “outside the agency,” while the newly released 1978 memorandum documents discussions about recurring PROMIS listings for CIA.

What these records do not establish is equally important.

They do not demonstrate that NSA’s PROMIS was INSLAW’s Prosecutor’s Management Information System. In fact, the Justice Department material contained within NSA’s own release specifically records NSA personnel distinguishing the agency’s PROMIS database from a separate software program. Nor do the released records, standing alone, substantiate broader claims that have circulated for decades connecting PROMIS to later NSA surveillance systems.

The documentary record supports a narrower conclusion: NSA developed and operated a PROMIS database for managing intelligence-product information beginning in the 1970s, and surviving records show the system being discussed internally and in connection with information provided to the CIA.

The history of the FOIA request has now lasted almost as long as some modern government information systems themselves. A request submitted in November 2013 produced records in 2018, appeared finished, and then resurfaced without warning in April 2026 when NSA discovered that a responsive 1978 document had been left out of its earlier final production.

Whether additional responsive records remain undiscovered is unknown. NSA’s April 29, 2026, letter again labels its response “final.”

For now, the documents below represent the record released by the government, including the document NSA itself found nearly eight years after its previous final response.

Document Archive

Department of Justice (DOJ)

 Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc., March 1993, and the 1994 DOJ Report on INSLAW/PROMIS matter, released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Information Policy (OIP) [465 Pages, 11MB] – Special thanks to GovernmentAttic.org for this record.

National Security Agency (NSA)

 NSA Documents Regarding PROMIS, Released 4 October 2018 [17 Pages, 2.7MB] – In March of 2016, see below, the NSA required a $440 payment in order to continue to process my request on PROMIS. Although I did not respond, I was surprised to receive this in October of 2018. It appears that this is only part of what the NSA has on PROMIS, and additional records are still being processed. I will add them when they are released to me.

 NSA Documents Regarding PROMIS, Released 22 October 2018 [85 Pages, 8MB] – This release includes the user’s manual of the PROMIS system, various memorandums and more. One document was withheld entirely and this, according to the NSA, is now the final release of information.

 NSA Documents Regarding PROMIS, Released 22 October 2018 [3 Pages, 1MB]

 Payment Estimate Letter (Read Above) Letter regarding the NSA use of the PROMIS System [4 Pages, 1.1MB] – The NSA did find a considerable amount of documents, however, they are requiring a payment of $440 for the release of the material.

The post NSA’s PROMIS: What the Declassified Records Actually Show first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Black Vault submitted the request on August 6, 2017, seeking the article, which was published in the Fall 1972 edition of the journal. The NSA ultimately processed the request as FOIA Case 102240 and issued its response on August 25, 2026.

The article, written by Herbert S. Guy, Jr., concerns the analysis of a callsign system. The portion released on the opening page describes it as “the story of the dissection of a callsign system” and discusses the overlapping work of cryptanalysts, traffic analysts and linguists.

However, only a relatively small portion of the underlying article is readable in the release. Large sections, including entire pages, remain withheld.

In its response, the NSA stated that the withheld material is exempt under FOIA Exemption 3, which permits withholding information protected from disclosure by another federal statute. According to the agency:

“The specific statute applicable in this case is Section 6, Public Law 86-36 (50 U.S. Code 3605).”

The NSA further stated that it “reasonably foresees that disclosure of the withheld information would be harmful to an interest that is protected by the identified exemption.”

The Black Vault intends to appeal the redactions and seek additional disclosure of the material withheld from the 1972 article. Any subsequent appeal determination or additional release will be added to this archive as the FOIA case progresses.

###

Document Archive

FOIA Case 102240 Release Package [7 Pages, 0.8MB]

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [767.97 KB]

The post NSA Releases Heavily Redacted 1972 Technical Journal Article After Nine-Year FOIA Wait first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to the Department, the waiver establishes an “authorized, legally protected disclosure mechanism” for individuals possessing UAP-related National Defense Information, or NDI.

“This waiver establishes an authorized, legally protected disclosure mechanism for current and former personnel to provide UAP-related National Defense Information (NDI) to designated representatives of the PURSUE effort,” the Department said.

The announcement is significant, particularly because the Department expressly references Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements alongside conventional nondisclosure agreements.

But the underlying concept, allowing government personnel to provide otherwise protected UAP information to specifically authorized government investigators without violating their NDAs, is not new.

Documents previously obtained and published by The Black Vault show that similar protections were already established for disclosures to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Those protections became a central issue during AARO’s unsuccessful attempts to interview former intelligence official David Grusch in 2023.

The new announcement therefore raises an important question: What does the PURSUE waiver provide that the government did not already provide through AARO?

The public announcement does not fully answer that question.

What the New Waiver Says

According to the Department of War, the new directive covers “all current and former DOW service members, civilian personnel, and contractors holding or previously granted access to UAP-related National Defense Information.”

Those individuals are now authorized to provide that information directly to official PURSUE representatives.

The Department specifically states:

“The waiver supersedes civil and administrative enforcement provisions contained within Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements (SAPIAs) previously executed within the United States, strictly for communications directed to the PURSUE team.”

That final limitation is important.

The announcement does not provide blanket authorization for personnel to disclose protected information publicly. It does not state that classified information may be provided to journalists or released independently by the individual possessing it. Nor does the announcement itself declassify information.

The authorization described by the Department applies specifically to disclosures made to PURSUE.

According to the Department, information entering that channel would undergo “systematic review, security evaluation, and potential declassification.”

The use of “potential declassification” establishes another distinction: information disclosed to PURSUE does not automatically become unclassified and/or publicly releasable.

Department Says the Waiver Removes Fear of Penalties

The Department characterized the waiver as addressing concerns from individuals who might otherwise hesitate to provide information because of agreements they previously signed.

“Historically, individuals with direct knowledge of UAP-related programs cited concerns regarding potential legal liability, loss of clearances, or administrative prosecution stemming from standard NDAs and SAP indoctrination terms,” the announcement states.

It continued:

“This waiver removes those barriers by explicitly authorizing covered disclosures to PURSUE representatives without triggering breach-of-agreement penalties or standard NDA violations.”

The Department did not identify the individuals who reportedly raised those concerns, identify specific programs associated with them, or provide examples of information that had previously been withheld from PURSUE because of an NDA or SAP agreement.

The announcement also does not establish that any alleged undisclosed UAP program exists.

It establishes a mechanism through which information about such matters can be provided to the government for evaluation.

Similar UAP Disclosure Protections Already Existed

Although the September 14 announcement establishes a new channel through PURSUE, the federal government had already created an authorized mechanism for individuals to provide highly classified and otherwise protected UAP information to AARO.

That authority dates to legislation enacted years before PURSUE.

Section 1673 of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 established a mechanism for authorized UAP disclosures and gave AARO authority to receive UAP-related information regardless of classification and notwithstanding nondisclosure agreements.

AARO’s current reporting guidance continues to state that an authorized disclosure “shall not be subject to a nondisclosure agreement entered into by the individual who makes the disclosure.” AARO also states that it is authorized to receive UAP information subject to restrictive access controls, including Special Access Programs and compartmented access programs.

The practical implementation of that authority was subsequently revealed through Freedom of Information Act records obtained by The Black Vault.

Those records centered on David Grusch.

The Government Told Grusch He Could Disclose Classified UAP Information

In November 2023, The Black Vault filed FOIA case 24-F-0266 seeking records concerning AARO’s attempts to contact and interview Grusch.

The resulting 28-page release documented repeated communications between AARO and Grusch and included government memoranda addressing exactly the type of disclosure protections now being highlighted under PURSUE.

In a November 19, 2023, communication released through the case, AARO told Grusch:

“In accordance with the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, AARO is authorized to receive any information related to UAP regardless of classification, and notwithstanding any nondisclosure agreement you may have signed.”

AARO offered to meet Grusch inside a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, so he could provide the information.

The records also contained formal government guidance concerning individuals holding protected UAP information.

One memorandum stated:

“Individuals with current or previous access to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP)-related or presumed relevant information which is subject to a USG Nondisclosure Agreement are authorized to provide this otherwise protected information to AARO representatives.”

The memorandum further stated:

“The provision of UAP-related information which is subject to a Nondisclosure Agreement to AARO personnel constitutes an authorized disclosure if the information is provided and received for the limited purpose of conducting AARO’s assigned mission.”

The documentation was not limited to ordinary classified information.

The procedures contemplated information potentially classified at TOP SECRET//SCI or involving Special Access Programs, with AARO instructed to initially handle information at the classification level asserted by the individual until its actual status could be determined.

Those records were published by The Black Vault in April 2024 as part of its reporting on AARO’s attempts to interview Grusch.

The Exact Legal Advisement Was Later Released

Questions remained about precisely what AARO intended to tell Grusch and other witnesses immediately before they provided protected information.

The Black Vault subsequently filed FOIA case 24-F-1138 in April 2024 seeking the complete wording of AARO’s “Verbal Legal Advisement.”

The Department of Defense released that document in full in 2025.

It provided unusually explicit instructions.

Before an interview, a witness was to be asked:

“Do you understand that for the limited purpose of this oral history, and only during the course of our discussion in this Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), that the information you disclose is not subject to any Nondisclosure Agreement you have signed?”

The witness was also told:

“Upon completion of this interview today all non-disclosure agreements remain in full force.”

The language illustrates the limited nature of the protection.

A witness was not being released permanently from secrecy obligations. Rather, the government was creating an authorized environment in which protected UAP information could be communicated to officials legally entitled to receive it.

That basic structure closely resembles what the Department of War is now describing for PURSUE.

Grusch Raised a More Complicated Question

The earlier records are also relevant because Grusch disputed whether the protections offered by AARO were sufficient for the information he said he needed to discuss.

His documented concern went beyond whether an NDA covering UAP information could be overridden.

In a November 13, 2023, email released through FOIA, Grusch wrote:

“The key issue here is that many of these activities have conventional classified and compartmented Security Classification Guides that also cover non-UAP activities as well.”

He continued:

“To discuss the UAP-related activities would also expose these conventional SAP mission areas.”

Grusch argued that an individual participating in an oral-history interview would need protection from those obligations as well, including information he described as potentially involving “bigoted or WAIVED” programs.

The records show that Grusch continued requesting additional assurances and documentation concerning AARO’s authority and ultimately did not participate in the planned November 14, 2023, meeting.

AARO, meanwhile, maintained that it possessed the necessary statutory authority to receive his UAP-related information and continued attempting to arrange an interview.

The distinction between those two positions is important.

The government maintained that Grusch was legally authorized to provide AARO with UAP-related information regardless of classification or applicable NDA restrictions. Grusch’s concern was that providing that information could necessarily reveal additional classified or compartmented information governed by other restrictions.

The FOIA records document the disagreement. They do not establish which interpretation would have prevailed if the issue had been litigated or otherwise formally adjudicated.

Does the PURSUE Waiver Address Grusch’s Concern?

That history makes one phrase in the September 14 announcement particularly noteworthy.

Unlike some earlier public descriptions of the AARO disclosure mechanism, the Department now expressly states that the PURSUE waiver supersedes applicable civil and administrative enforcement provisions contained in both “Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements (SAPIAs).”

That is more specific language.

Whether it actually provides broader protection than the AARO framework is not yet clear.

The earlier AARO authority already contemplated classified information, Special Access Programs, compartmented access programs and information covered by NDAs. The newly announced PURSUE waiver explicitly identifies SAPIAs and UAP-related National Defense Information.

But the Department has not publicly released, at least as of this writing, the underlying directive or complete waiver language accompanying its announcement.

That makes a direct legal comparison impossible.

It also remains unclear whether the PURSUE waiver addresses the precise scenario Grusch raised: UAP information that cannot be discussed without simultaneously revealing conventional classified or compartmented information that is not itself UAP-related.

The Department’s announcement says the authorization covers “UAP-related National Defense Information.” It does not explain how collateral classified information would be treated when disclosure of that information is necessary to describe the UAP-related material.

The Black Vault Seeks the Actual Directive and Guidance

The Black Vault contacted the Department of War following the September 14 announcement seeking additional information about the waiver.

Among the information sought was the actual language of the directive or waiver underlying the public announcement, along with any implementation instructions, legal advisements, procedures or other guidance being provided to current or former personnel considering making a disclosure to PURSUE.

That documentation would permit a direct comparison between the new PURSUE process and the statutory authorities, memoranda and verbal legal advisement previously used by AARO.

As of the publication of this article, the Department of War had not responded.

Without those underlying records, it cannot yet be determined whether the September 14 waiver materially expands the legal protections previously available to UAP witnesses or primarily establishes a new authorized recipient — PURSUE — operating under protections similar to those already available through AARO.

PURSUE’s Broader Disclosure Effort

The new waiver comes approximately four months after the Department launched the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).

On May 8, 2026, the Department announced the first PURSUE release, describing the initiative as an interagency effort involving the White House, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Energy, AARO, NASA, FBI and additional elements of the Intelligence Community.

The Department said the effort followed President Donald Trump’s direction to identify and begin releasing government records concerning UAP, UFOs and related subjects.

Five tranches had been published through August 7, 2026.

The government’s PURSUE portal contains historical documents alongside more recent UAP material from multiple agencies. The Department has said additional material will be released on a rolling basis.

The September 14 action adds another component to that process: instead of relying exclusively on records already residing within government repositories, PURSUE now has an expressly authorized channel through which individuals possessing protected information can provide it for review.

New Channel, Existing Precedent

The Department of War’s September 14 waiver therefore contains both a new development and substantial precedent.

The new development is the establishment of a PURSUE-specific disclosure channel and the Department’s explicit statement that civil and administrative enforcement provisions contained in NDAs and Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements are superseded for authorized communications with the PURSUE team.

What is not new is the broader proposition that a person possessing highly classified UAP information can be authorized to provide it to designated government investigators without violating an NDA.

Congress established such an avenue through AARO years earlier.

The Black Vault’s subsequent FOIA releases documented how the government attempted to put that authority into practice with one of the most prominent UAP whistleblowers, David Grusch. Those records included written government authorization, procedures for handling highly classified and SAP information, repeated assurances to Grusch and, eventually, the exact legal advisement AARO intended to provide before receiving his information.

The PURSUE announcement does not invalidate or contradict that history. Instead, it establishes another authorized pathway.

Whether the new waiver goes materially further, particularly concerning the overlapping conventional SAP information that Grusch said prevented him from speaking freely to AARO, remains unanswered by the public announcement.

The underlying directive, legal guidance and instructions being provided to potential PURSUE sources will be necessary to determine exactly what has changed.

###

The post Department of War Issues New UAP Disclosure Waiver; But Similar Protections Already Existed first appeared on The Black Vault.

The documents were released September 11, 2026, on the 25th anniversary of the attacks. According to the CIA, the collection represents the Agency’s “single largest release of declassified CIA PDB products related to 9/11” and contains more than 100 pages of intelligence analysis.

The newly released material spans from February 1998 through September 12, 2001, and includes assessments concerning Bin Ladin’s terrorist network, potential attacks inside the United States, hijacking threats, al-Qa‘ida’s overseas infrastructure, unconventional weapons efforts and the escalating threat environment during the months immediately preceding September 11. The collection concludes with a September 12, 2001, situation report examining intelligence that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. The CIA’s published index identifies 71 individual products and provides a 101-page compilation of the collection.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe announced the declassification Friday, calling it an “act of exceptional transparency” and saying the Agency was releasing the material to commemorate those killed in the attacks. The CIA described the records as tracing its analysts’ “evolving understanding of al-Qa‘ida” and their efforts to warn about Bin Ladin’s attack planning based on what the Agency characterized as “sparse, vague, and imperfect information.”

The release provides a broader documentary record surrounding one of the most scrutinized intelligence products from the period: the August 6, 2001, President’s Daily Brief titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US.” That document, portions of which became public during the investigations that followed 9/11, warned that Bin Ladin had wanted to conduct attacks inside the United States for years.

“Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and ‘bring the fighting to America.’”

The August 6 brief also addressed information then being developed by the FBI:

“Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”

It further stated that the FBI was conducting “approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related,” while the CIA and FBI were investigating a May 2001 call to the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates alleging that Bin Ladin supporters were inside the United States planning attacks.

The broader collection released Friday places that well-known August 6 assessment alongside years of earlier PDB reporting about Bin Ladin and his network. A September 4, 1998, memorandum, for example, warned:

“The most serious threat comes from Usama Bin Ladin, but affiliated extremist groups such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) and the Egyptian al-Gama’at-al-Islamiyya, which have a presence in North America and Europe, could conduct independent attacks or collaborate in terrorist operations against US interests.”

An August 28, 1998, PDB similarly assessed that Bin Ladin could draw upon “a network of individuals and allied groups in at least 60 countries to conduct attacks.” The document stated:

“Bin Ladin’s well-established infrastructure in North America, Europe, and East Asia lends credibility to reports that he also will target US interests in these regions.”

The documents also show intelligence reporting concerning hijacking scenarios years before September 11. A May 22, 2001, PDB titled “Captured Terrorist Details Hostage Plot” discussed an alleged operation involving Bin Ladin and Egyptian Islamic Jihad in which conspirators seeking the release of imprisoned extremists “may hijack an aircraft or storm a US Embassy.”

The assessment noted:

“Bin Ladin’s al-Qa‘ida organization and the two Egyptian groups previously have considered taking hostages—possibly including hijackings—to force concessions.”

The collection also documents the increasingly urgent threat reporting received during 2001. An August 10 PDB, “UBL Associate Planned To Attack US in Europe,” described information that a source had been instructed by senior Bin Ladin lieutenants to prepare a suicide attack against U.S. interests in France. CIA analysts wrote that the information was consistent with other indications that “al-Qa‘ida’s leadership is taking a more active role in directing mujahidin attacks.”

Other assessments addressed al-Qa‘ida’s interest in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capabilities. A February 12, 2001, PDB stated:

“Bin Ladin is actively trying to extend his capability to target US interests with more sophisticated unconventional means than the crude attacks with toxic chemicals and biological materials already at his disposal.”

The documents do not provide a single, continuous intelligence picture. Individual assessments contain extensive redactions, and the information available to analysts varied substantially in specificity and reliability. Some reports concerned threats overseas, others addressed possible attacks inside the United States, and numerous documents explicitly acknowledged uncertainty about targets, timing or operational details.

The collection extends through the morning after the attacks. In a September 12, 2001, situation report titled “Bin Ladin’s Tracks,” the CIA wrote:

“Mounting evidence indicates Sunni extremists in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf recently were aware Usama Bin Ladin-directed attacks were imminent.”

The report said a facilitator in Afghanistan had claimed that Bin Ladin left Kandahar for Kabul in anticipation of a probable operation. It also described reported friction between Bin Ladin and Taliban leader Mullah Omar:

“Bin Ladin and Taliban leader Mullah Omar late last month clashed over Bin Ladin’s determination to mount terrorist attacks. Bin Ladin told Mullah Omar he had operations in progress that would cause great damage to the US.”

According to the same September 12 assessment, an Arab in Kandahar said the attacks resulted from two years of planning and represented “The beginning of the wrath.” The document also stated that “the Capitol and the White House also may have been targets of the operations.”

The September 11 release does not eliminate the redactions remaining throughout the historical record, nor does the collection by itself resolve the longstanding questions surrounding how pre-9/11 intelligence was collected, assessed and acted upon. It does, however, place 71 presidential-level intelligence products into the public record together, allowing the progression of CIA reporting on Bin Ladin and al-Qa‘ida from 1998 through the immediate aftermath of the attacks to be examined as a collection.

The complete set was released by the CIA on September 11, 2026, with the Agency providing both the individual PDB products and a consolidated 101-page file, which is archived here on The Black Vault below.

###

Document Archive

CIA Releases 71 Presidential Daily Briefs Detailing Intelligence Before 9/11 Attacks [101 Pages, 41MB]

The post CIA Releases 71 Presidential Daily Briefs Detailing Intelligence Before 9/11 Attacks first appeared on The Black Vault.

The release stems from MDR case EOM-2021-00117, originally filed in May 2021 by The Black Vault. An initial response issued on February 9, 2024, resulted in only limited additional disclosures while continuing to withhold portions of the manual under Executive Order 13526, Sections 3.3(h)(2) and 6.2(d).

Following an appeal submitted by The Black Vault on March 1, 2024, the CIA’s Agency Release Panel conducted a second review. In a letter dated July 21, 2026, the Agency stated that its earlier determination “can now be revised such that the enclosed document previously released in part may now have more information released,” while continuing to withhold certain passages under the same Executive Order authorities.

Although many of the newly disclosed passages are administrative in nature, the release fills in several long-redacted sections, restores historical directive references, and provides additional context regarding CIA counterintelligence procedures during the Cold War.

Coordination with Other U.S. Agencies

Among the more notable restorations is language explaining how KUBARK coordinated certain clandestine interrogations conducted overseas by other U.S. departments and agencies.

The newly released text identifies ODAPSE Directive No. 5 as governing KUBARK’s responsibility for coordinating specific clandestine interrogation activities abroad. According to the newly disclosed passage:

“ODAPSE Directive No. 5 deals with KUBARK’s responsibilities for the coordination of ODYOKE clandestine activities conducted abroad.”

The restored section explains that clandestine interrogations involving espionage or counterintelligence conducted by other government components were, under certain circumstances, subject to KUBARK coordination. It further references previously redacted internal guidance including Chief/KUBARK Directives 5/1 and 5/2, which governed those coordination procedures.

While portions of the paragraph remain classified, the release provides a clearer picture of the administrative framework governing overseas counterintelligence interrogations than previously available.

Newly Identified Historical References

The appeal release also restores several references to internal CIA guidance documents that had previously been withheld.

One recurring reference directs interrogators to consult the Field Double Agent Guide of August 1960 when planning the interrogation of suspected double agents. The guide itself was not publicly available when the KUBARK manual first entered the public domain decades ago, but documents bearing that title were released as part of the National Archives’ JFK Assassination Records releases beginning in 2022. These newly restored references provide additional documentary connections between CIA counterintelligence manuals produced during the early Cold War.

Newly Released Statistic on Soviet Defectors

Another noteworthy disclosure restores a numerical estimate that had remained redacted in previous releases.

Discussing Soviet defectors, the manual now states:

“The most significant single fact to be kept in mind when planning the interrogation of Soviet defectors is that a certain percentage of them have proven to be controlled agents; estimates of this percentage have ranged as high as seventy percent during a period of several years after 1955.”

Earlier public versions of the document withheld the percentage entirely. While the manual presents the figure as an estimate used by CIA personnel during the period (not as an independently verified historical fact), the release provides additional insight into how the Agency evaluated the possibility of controlled defections during the height of the Cold War.

Much Remains Classified

Despite the additional disclosures, portions of the manual remain withheld.

Entire phrases, organizational identifiers, operational procedures, and references to internal directives continue to be redacted under Executive Order 13526. In its appeal decision, the CIA stated that the remaining deletions continue to be protected under Sections 3.3(h)(2) and 6.2(d), authorities cited in conjunction with statutory protections incorporated through FOIA Exemption (b)(3).

While the latest appeal does not fundamentally alter historians’ understanding of KUBARK, it does produce what appears to be the most complete officially released version of the manual currently available, restoring previously withheld directive references, administrative context, and several historical details that had remained classified until now.

###

Document Archive

 Download July 1963 KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual [132 Pages, 70MB]

The post CIA Declassifies Additional Portions of 1963 KUBARK Manual After The Black Vault Appeal first appeared on The Black Vault.

The post USPTO Official Tribal Insignia Database Released Under FOIA first appeared on The Black Vault.