Fox News is reporting that they have once again been blocked by the Biden-Harris administration after requesting information regarding the goings on at America’s border.
Specifically, they were asking for the nationalities of migrants on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist who have been picked up by Border Patrol agents in their attempt to invade the United States. Bill Melugin, who has been monitoring the border crisis for Fox News, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the information in 2023. The agency recently sent a letter to the news network, denying their request on the basis of national security.
“[Customs and Border Protection (CBP)] is committed to protecting the identity of individuals and avoiding divulging information about any individual by either direct or indirect means,” reads the letter. “Releasing data for a particular nationality, or nationalities, that reflect a small number of individuals could lead to identification, especially by organizations familiar with the individuals.”
Fox explains that the FOIA request only inquired about nationality, not other potentially identifying information such as names or birth dates.
In May, CBP told Fox it would not provide the information, although it acknowledged the information is maintained in the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS).
The letter said then that it was applying exemptions to protect the disclosure of files that may create a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” and must balance a public’s right to disclosure against an individual’s right to privacy.
The August letter doubles down on their refusal.
“The privacy interests of third parties (being protected from public disclosure because they could conceivably be subject to harassment and annoyance in his/her private life) far outweigh whatever public interest, if any, exists in having their information released.”
They also claim that providing the nationalities would lead to revealing investigative techniques.
“By providing this information, it could allow targets to alter their behavior to avoid detection and exploit the gaps in CBP’s law enforcement intelligence, as well as compromise national security. Additionally, providing the requested information could disclose terrorist travel trends by geographic area which could help tip off terrorists about the government’s knowledge of travel plans, allowing the terrorists to take countermeasures against the investigators and their investigations,” the letter explains.
“If such an organization were to move ‘X’ number of operatives of one nationality over the relevant period, and the disclosed nationality numbers were substantially lower than X, the terrorist organization could infer a large percentage of its operatives from a particular nationality have been able to move undetected (thereby minimizing the deterrent effect of the TSDS),” it continues.
“This information could allow bad actors to reverse engineer effective countermeasures to facilitate undetected movement and activity and thwart CBP interdiction efforts.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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