Fwd: Classifed info [in FOIA]

[coderman]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "James S. Tyre" <jstyre at jstyre.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2016 10:48:05 -0800
Subject: Re: Classifed info
To: FOI-L at listserv.syr.edu

Fun (if only in hindsight) and true story.

In the mid-eighties, the FBI and Naval Intelligence raided my law
office, sans warrant, claiming that I was in possession of classified
docs and that I could be prosecuted under the espionage act.

I did indeed have certain classified docs, but ....

At the time I obtained them, I got them through a valid FOIA request
made a day after they were declassified.  So it wasn't exactly a
secret that I had them, and I had obtained them completely legally.
But then the gov't went "whoops, we didn't really mean to declassify
them."  And then, while copies were in my possession, the docs were
reclassified.

Eventually, the gov't agreed that I could keep the docs, and that was
pretty much that.  But it was certainly interesting for a while.

(Everything about this was political, but deliberately I'm not giving
enough detail from which anyone can infer what the politics were.)

--
James S. Tyre [...]
jstyre at jstyre.com
Special Counsel, Electronic Frontier Foundation