“At least we’re better than Mexico in our FOIA policy, right?”

Here’s a good example of why we take the time to file access to information requests on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and how this strategy sometimes encourages governments to disclose information on migration and border security policies that they would otherwise withhold from release. One objective of our two-country FOI strategy was to … Continue reading →

Carmen Aristegui Tweets Story on Napolitano/Snowden Briefing Papers

This morning, Carmen Aristegui of Noticias MVS in Mexico essentially live-tweeted a story about the Napolitano briefing papers we published yesterday. These documents included a bullet point indicating that Mexico wanted to “put to bed” issues stemming from leaked documents on U.S. spy operations in Mexico. You can read the documents in our original post … Continue reading →

Mexico Privately Hoped to “Put to Bed” Tensions Raised by Snowden Leaks

This post was co-authored by Michael Evans and Jesse Franzblau. Just three months ago, Mexico wanted to “put to bed” bilateral tensions arising from the leak of sensitive intelligence information indicating that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) spied on Mexican citizens. The new information was discovered by the non-governmental National Security Archive among a set of … Continue reading →

FOIA NOTES: ICE’s Controversial Secure Communities Program

Recently, the Archive launched a new round of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on what has become one of the most controversial immigration enforcement initiatives in the United States: the Secure Communities deportation program. The data-sharing program requires participating state and municipal jurisdictions to run the fingerprints of arrestees through various federal law enforcement … Continue reading →