MIT Ph.D. candidate Ryan Shapiro boasts the unusual title of the "most prolific" FOIA requester to the FBI. Using what Will Potter described in Mother Jones as a "a novel, legal, and highly effective approach," Shapiro has obtained thousands upon thousands of documents for his research into government persecution of animal rights activists.

As Potter reported, the FBI has gone so far as to call Shapiro's entirely legal mass-FOIA-ing "irreparably damag[ing] to national security." Much is at stake in Shapiro's story: In its efforts to curb Shapiro's work, the FBI may set a dangerous precedent in limiting the public's right to government information through FOIA.

Advertisement:

Potter, author of "Green Is the New Red" and also a longtime investigator into the ferocious government persecution of animal rights and environmental activists known as the "greenscare," details the challenge facing Shapiro and why it threatens civil liberties: