This post is adapted from CJ Ciaramella's weekly Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

Keith Alexander's financial disclosure is vital to national security interests or something

Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf has an excellent piece on Jason Leopold's FOIA lawsuit to obtain former NSA chief Keith Alexander's financial disclosure statements.

Since moving on from the NSA, Alexander has parlayed his role as one of the nation's top spies into a lucrative consulting career. Like one does these days. However, the NSA has steered a novel course and argued Alexander's financial disclosure statements, which are required by law to reveal potential conflicts of interest, are exempt from disclosure because—brace yourself for government logic—Alexander's identity must be protected.

The law cited by the NSA serves a very real purpose: to shield the identity of intelligence community members. But here the NSA is arguing that the nation's security would be imperiled by revealing the details of how a public figure peddles his expertise for "as much as $1 million a month," according to Bloomberg.

But what's interesting is that, according to the very law the NSA cites, the disclosure statements can only be exempted at the direction of the president.

"The letter denying Mr. Leopold’s request for financial disclosure statements did not indicate that the President had in fact made a finding that, due to the nature of the office or position of the Director of the National Security Agency, the identity of the individual or other sensitive information, compromise the national interest of the United States," Leopold writes in his complaint. "Instead, the letter simply cites the exemption provision of the statute. It is not the case, however, that 5 USC app. § 105(a)(1) automatically exempts every employee of the NSA from the public disclosure requirement, and hundreds of NSA employees annually file publicly available financial disclosure forms. Absent evidence of a waiver, public disclosure is required."

Here's the money graf from Friedersdorf:

"The American people are entitled to see Alexander's financial conflicts of interest unless Obama himself declares that revealing them would somehow 'compromise the national interest of the United States.' Would Obama do so, despite pledges to run the most transparent administration in history? Sadly, those pledges stopped being credible a long time ago. It is nevertheless worth noting what Obama would be saying if he helps suppress Alexander's paperwork: that the national interest would be more imperiled by the public knowing how an extremely powerful government official earned money outside of his official duties than by that very powerful man, with a head full of classified information, selling his services to the highest bidder without meaningful public scrutiny."

And here we have a perfect encapsulation of government transparency in the current age: A wild disregard for the spirit of the law, a comically broad and advantageous reading of the letter of the law, and an insistence on fighting like a cornered wolverine to block or at least delay disclosure, despite lip-service to transparency—all to protect a former high-level administration official who has moved through the revolving door and is now enriching himself through his prior government work. Take a bow, Obama administration.

LAWSUITS

Judge seals filings in FOIA suit over DOJ investigation of Wikileaks

JFK researcher denied attorney fees in FOIA suit

Justice Dept. moves to shield filings in defamation suit involving United Against Nuclear Iran

U.S. Court of Appeals rules government must release cybersecurity directive to EPIC, vacates lower court ruling

Judge rules government must release Vaughn Index to Judicial Watch of Fast and Furious docs withheld from Congress under executive privilege

Circular reasoning: CIA tells FOIA requester he needs to know everything about emails he's requesting before he can request them.

ProPublica report: 'Lobbyists Bidding to Block Government Regs Set Sights on Secretive White House Office.'

Human Rights Watch dropped a big report, "With Liberty to Monitor All How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy." From the report: