Legal Question in Constitutional Law in Hawaii
Freedom of information act
Under this act, can I request the minutes from briefings on water boarding now that only some of the papers have been released. Now that Speaker Pelosi has commented on it. is it in the public domain? what would it take to get these papers?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Freedom of information act
You can request whatever you want, but FOIA does not entitle you to classified information. You may get some documents in response to your request, but any classified information they contain will have been redacted.
Comments made by government officials about documents do not declassify the secrets those documents contain. This is especially true of comments made by officials -- including the Speaker -- who lack the authority to classify or declassify any information.