Militia Records and FOIA Obfuscation: FBI Edition
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pFor the better part of anbsp;year, it seems that on almost anbsp;weekly basis the Department of Justice (DoJ) is making public still more arrests and indictments against those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, a href=https://january6th.house.gov/news/press-releases/thompson-cheney-opening-statements-select-committee-hearingattempted coup/a in Washington. Among those defendants are members of various right‐wing or white supremacist organizations such as the Three Percenters. On Aug. 24, 2022, DoJ a href=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/feds-charge-members-b-squad-militia-allegedly-run-former-gop-house-can-rcna44621?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_mtpreleased/a anbsp;criminal complaint against five members of anbsp;Three Percenter faction known as the “B Squad” for their role in the storming of the Capitol./p
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pThese kinds of ideological or racially focused paramilitary organizations have been around for anbsp;number of years, and while the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have received the lion’s share of the media coverage, similar groups that may be as menacing have received substantially less. One such group is Patriot Front, which according to anbsp;previously released FBI Louisville, Kentucky Field Office a href=https://www.scribd.com/document/589125935/Louisville-FO-FD-1057-EC-on-Patriot-Front-041018-Copyreport/a, was formed after the “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017./p
pPatriot Front is anbsp;white supremacist offshoot of the equally white supremacist Vanguard America. In June 2022, over 30 Patriot Front members were a href=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61773358?at_campaign=64amp;at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5Damp;at_custom2=twitteramp;at_custom3=%40BBCWorldamp;at_custom4=1D5B3930-EA04-11EC-BE8B-1F914744363Camp;at_medium=custom7amp;xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5Darrested/a in Idaho for allegedly attempting to disrupt anbsp;North Idaho Pride Alliance event. The Idaho‐based a href=https://www.courierherald.com/news/ravensdale-patriot-front-member-pleads-not-guilty-to-criminal-conspiracy/Courier‐Herald/a and/p
pa href=https://bonnercountydailybee.com/news/2022/aug/25/6-more-patriot-front-members-appear-idaho-court-bo/Bonner County Daily Bee/a reported this past week on the ongoing arraignments and trial preparations for Patriot Front members involved in the June 2022 incident. Their coverage makes for chilling reading about the mindset, and apparent intent, of Patriot Front members./p
pFor over two years, the Cato Institute has attempted, via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), to obtain existing FBI records on Patriot Front and other militia‐style organizations (including domestic armed leftist militias). Anbsp;limited amount of fairly heavily redacted, previously processed material on Patriot Front and some other groups has been released, but even as it has been acknowledged to Cato that more information on Patriot Front exists, the FBI has used anbsp;bureaucratic tactic in violation of the FOIA statute to delay the release of additional records on Patriot Front./p
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It’s been six years since Congress revisited and revised the FOIA statute. It’s past time they took necessary oversight and legislative measures to end the FBI FOIA office’s obstructionist tactics.
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pOn Dec. 21, 2021, the FBI informed Cato that “Records responsive to your request will be made available in the FBI’s electronic FOIA Library (The Vault) on the FBI’s public website, a href=http://vault.fbi.gov/http://vault.fbi.gov/a. You will be notified when releases are available.”/p
pThe FOIA statute is clear: the agency or department that is the subject of anbsp;FOIA request must provide those records to the requester emdirectly/em—not simply post them on the organization’s website at an unspecified future date. The FBI’s actions represent anbsp;form of constructive denial, anbsp;delaying tactic to try to evade timely compliance with anbsp;request that clearly involves an extremely high‐profile public policy issue. Accordingly, on July 21, 2022, Cato a href=https://www.scribd.com/document/589127479/22-Cv-2152-Cato-v-FBI-Re-Patriot-Front-Vault-Response-Complaint-072122filed/a anbsp;FOIA lawsuit in federal court to compel the FBI to produce the Patriot Front records in question./p
pThe FBI’s actions in this case raise anbsp;host of critical questions that implicate not just public safety, but our commitment to the Bill of Rights and government transparency and oversight as well./p
pGroups like Patriot Front are, in the view of most Americans, anbsp;moral and political blight that the country would be far better off without. At the same time, the protection of offensive ideas and speech are at the heart of the purpose of the First Amendment. Just as critically, the failure of key government agencies or departments to share what they can about groups that, in the case of Patriot Front, represent anbsp;potential threat to public safety cannot be tolerated./p
pThe author is aware of other FOIA requesters who have received the same kind of treatment from the FBI’s FOIA office, the same kind of constructive denial tactic designed to delay, if not thwart, the timely release of information of public import. It’s been six years since Congress revisited and revised the FOIA statute. It’s past time they took necessary oversight and legislative measures to end the FBI FOIA office’s obstructionist tactics./p
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