In a rare judicial victory for open government, a federal judge has issued a ruling narrowing the permissible scope of records that CIA may withhold under the Freedom of Information Act.
As the legal cognescenti may know, Section 403g of FOIA allows CIA to exempt from release information concerning “the organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed by” the Agency.
Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists calls the decision by Judge Beryl A. Howell, “a rare judicial setback for the CIA” and “a reversal of the more familiar expansion of national security secrecy authority.”
See: Court Curbs CIA Use of a FOIA Exemption – Secrecy News.
The power of any judge, city, state or federal is enormous beyond comprehension by those not affected directly by their decisions on legal issues.
The fact that city, state & federal judges usually enjoy longevity in their tenures shoots a hole in the assumption that the big bad wolf in the USA is the CIA. Not even the CIA will tangle with a federal judge.