So then, are all those NSA illgotten snooped files subject to FOIA requests?

[Duer 157099]

A scary thought: if Obama is really opening up all the records to be aired out, what about all those gazillions of bytes of data collected by the NSA during the TIA era?

[jkshaw]

1. A good, thorn-bristling question ...

[DCKit]

2. "Top Secret" and "National Security Issues" have been the excuses, to date.

It might be a real fight, but the whole thing is unConstitutional.

I've been wondering if the NSA serves a purpose other than spying on U.S.. Seems to be way too much overlap between CIA and NSA and we can hardly afford two such expensive agencies in these dire times.

[Duer 157099]

3. But Obama has reversed the protocol, apparently

saying that rather than to default to rejection of FOIA requests, they should now have to try to find a reason to reject them.

How can they reject a request when most of the data is probably unreviewed? Would this force them to review the data?

Don't they have to defend a designation of "Top Secret" or "National Security"?

If someone puts an FOIA for, let's say, the wiretapped records of, let's say, a certain phone number/email addy, or institution -- on what grounds would the FOIA be rejected??

I honestly don't know how this works, but the Bush crime family sure has opened a can of worms by having the government collect, AND ARCHIVE, all of that data.

Can't just ignore the issue and say it's all in the past -- they are now public records, aren't they?

[DCKit]

4. Won't they simply claim that such records do not exist?

That's been SOP for a very, very long time. Then, if they do get caught, it's always "Oops, we made an unintentional error."

The ability to end this fascist fuckfest lies with Congress and the WH.