After multiple seasons in which Game of Thrones premiered on file-sharing networks before it officially showed on HBO, the network finally decided to lock down advance access to the series this year. Even if you're a credentialed member of the media or a very, very good friend of Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, you can't ask HBO for a copy of the season six premiere ahead of its April 24 premiere... unless you're President Obama.

Refinery29 author Vanessa Golembewski noticed a report about a Game of Thrones press event in which a showrunner admitted that Obama was given a DVD screener copy. That set off a light bulb in her head: "If the president—and by extension, our government—is in possession of a file, surely that file is subject to my request to see it as a US citizen," she wrote.

As a result, last Friday Golembewski filed what may very well be the first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request specifically for a film or TV series delivered to the Oval Office. The author admitted she'd never filed an FOIA request before, which might explain her tongue-in-cheek responses to various prompts, including a diatribe about college loans and an "expedited" request chosen because "Jon Snow's life is very much in question."

Unfortunately for Golembewski, her efforts are probably for naught. Obama's office repealed the Office of Administration's duty to respond to FOIA requests in 2015, which appears to include such interactions as receipt of media. That decision came on the heels of a 2009 Federal court ruling in favor of the Office of Administration, which declared that the office "performs only operational and administrative tasks in support of the President and his staff and therefore, under our precedent, lacks substantial independent authority" that would require FOIA oversight. Scott Hodes, an attorney at law and author of the FOIA Blog, agreed in an e-mail interview with Ars that this episode isn't eligible for an FOIA request.

Further Reading Supreme Court rules states can limit FOIA requests to their own citizens

Had such a repeal not happened, the FOIA request probably wouldn't have processed before the show officially debuted, but it otherwise would have launched a good conversation about whether or not the White House would be legally compelled to provide the public with a copy of the show. After all, the screener entered the government realm the moment it was handed to the president (and could very well have come with a letter or even specific edits with the president in mind).

A 1983 report from the Office of Information Policy is full of ambiguity on the subject, declaring from the outset that "federal agencies are in the difficult position of being subject to potentially conflicting legal obligations: compliance with the FOIA on the one hand, and noninfringement of the rights of copyright holders on the other." It claims that there is "only [one] appropriate approach" to denying such an FOIA request, by way of claiming that the copyrighted material contains "trade secrets." A Game of Thrones plot twist may not quite land in that category—especially once the episode eventually airs.