FBI Ordered to Turn Over Lennon Files

CatDogLordOfTheRoot writes "CNN is reporting that a U.S. District Judge rejected the governments arguements to keep the secret records of John Lennon sealed. The FBI argued that releasing the last ten pages would pose a risk to national security as a foreign government (not identified) secretly gave information to the US Government. Looks like another big step in the Freedom of Information Act."

Exemptions

[acceber]

The FOI Act applies explicitly to government agencies, such as the FBI. The FBI challenged the act because they felt that the information was a threat to national security. There are nine exemptions to the FOI Act in which an agency can refuse to disclose information.

Here are the exemptions [rcfp.org]exemptions.

Re:I can see it now.

[rco3]

1) Greatest band ever. Sadly, White Zombie didn't make the final cut.
2) responsible.
3) anonymity.
3) amongst
Sorry to be such a pedant. One or two errors, I could overlook. Four became too egregious to ignore. After that, I kinda stopped counting...

On the bright side, you spelled the plural of Illuminatus correctly. However, you forgot to capitalize it. Technically, you shouldn't have hyphenated super-royal-bitch the second time; super-royal bitch would have been correct. You should have hyphenated single-handedly, though. Oh, and unless there's a lot more about Yoko we don't know, she is more likely a defected spy mistress.

No offense, I hope. :-)

Re:Good news? Bad news

[empaler]

Freedom requires dilegence. And action

Some dead guy [brainyquote.com] once said something similar, to some extent:

The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.

Re:Say What?

[ggvaidya]

It's not about his death (which was pretty straightforward, yeah). In the early 1970s, the FBI were investigating Lennon and other rock-n-rollers with political interests. You can get more information here [lennonfbifiles.com] and here [beatlesagain.com].

Re:Say What?

[iamdrscience]

The files in question are the files the FBI kept on Lennon while he was alive. He was watched by the FBI because of his antiwar stance and he was not a U.S. citizen. There is no controversy about his death.

Nothing to do with his murder

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Lennon was an outspoken member of the anti-war movement. He had planned several protests for the 72 GOP convention as well as a nationwide tour to register young voters for the McGovern campaign who was an anti-Vietnam war candidate. Nixon had the FBI trail Lennon and tried to build a case to have him deported. The FBI had gone as far as tapping his phone to try and get evidence of any criminal activity. They focused on any donations to Left-wing "terrorist" groups and any narcotic evidence.

Re:Finally...

[kerincosford]

I think you'll find that's Ringo, singing to John's children.

Re:Good news

[jfengel]

Clinton's Executive Order 12958 [fas.org] reduced that to 25 years in most cases. (The more recent version is Bush's Executive Order 13292 [fas.org]).

But there are many ways to get around that in the latest EO. It won't be released if it will (to quote the EO):

(1) reveal the identity of a confidential human source, or a human intelligence source, or reveal information about the application of an intelligence source or method;

(2) reveal information that would assist in the development or use of weapons of mass destruction;

(3) reveal information that would impair U.S. cryptologic systems or activities;

(4) reveal information that would impair the application of state of the art technology within a U.S. weapon system;

(5) reveal actual U.S. military war plans that remain in effect;

(6) reveal information, including foreign government information, that would seriously and demonstrably impair relations between the United States and a foreign government, or seriously and demonstrably undermine ongoing diplomatic activities of the United States;

(7) reveal information that would clearly and demonstrably impair the current ability of United States Government officials to protect the President, Vice President, and other protectees for whom protection services, in the interest of the national security, are authorized;

(8) reveal information that would seriously and demonstrably impair current national security emergency preparedness plans or reveal current vulnerabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, or projects relating to the national security; or

(9) violate a statute, treaty, or international agreement.

That determination is made by the agency head (e.g. CIA, NSA), not by an outside panel, and there's no appeal. So it's automatically declassified unless they care enough to stop it.

Re:Say What?

[Artifakt]

Actually, there IS some controversy, including a weird conspiracy theory, about Lennon's death, but for once, the standard weird conspiracy theory doesn't involve the FBI, or the U.S. Government in general.
This one runs approximately as follows.

1 Charles Manson based his Helter-Skelter massacree scheme on the Beatles song from the White album

2. Sharon Tate gets killed by the Manson family as part of that scheme.

3. Sharon Tate was married to director Roman Polanski.

4. Polanski directed the film 'Rosemary's Baby'.

5. Rosemary's Baby was filmed (in part) in the Dakota Building (The rest was shot in the studio).

6. Lennon lived in the Dakota Building, and was shot just outside it.

7. Supposedly, the first report of Lennon's being shot came from the then current occupants of the appartment where Rosmary's Baby was filmed. (This last claim is the only one in the chain that looks iffy).

It all adds up to a chain of strange coincidences, that don't even point to a particular bunch of conspiritors, or suggest a motive. People have looked to see if the little weasel who killed John Lennon could be tied to the Mansonites, to organized Satanism, or to anything else, and found basically nothing, but that doesn't keep people from trying to put it together into a controversy. It's a fair bet that the FBI files will have nothing that sheds any light on this, and that people will keep looking anyway.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Transparent Government

[Oddly_Drac]

"A Russian submarine officer disobeyed a direct order: he did not launch nuclear warhead tipped torpedos at the US fleet."

Actually he pointed out that the conditions for the SOP change to fire on other combatants were not met to another officer on the submarine. There were no direct orders to fire from the Supreme Soviet, but they do have discretion under certain circumstances, such as hull damage.

Valentin Grigoroevich was the officer that ordered the assembly under stressful circumstances (low air, high temperatures, no communications and constant depth charging from American destroyers enforcing the blockade).