I am writing from home tonight, off work until next Tuesday. Very briefly, I should mention that I received in the mail today a response from the CIA to my FOIA request for information and/or records about my Dad. I mentioned writing my request in a blog a little while back, and I had said that, now that I had lost my appeal for information about myself (concerning 1989) I was going to begin writing requests for subjects involved in or related to 1989 who are deceased. The only way you can get info on another person, without enclosing a signed and notarised release from said person, is if the subject of your request is deceased. Then all rights to privacy cease to apply. All you have to do is provide proof that the person is no longer alive.
So that's what I did with Dad, and I got the same response I got when I applied for my own records, almost word for word. It's called a "Glomar" response, and the way they word it is very tricky. First they tell you that they were not able to locate "any responsive records" on your subject (Dad), but then they add the qualifier "that would reveal an openly acknowledged CIA affiliation with the subject".
This does not leave out the possibility that they did locate responsive records that revealed a relationship between the CIA and the subject (Dad) that was not openly acknowledged.
Remember that I have been saying for over twenty years that no one besides myself has ever acknowledged What Happened In Northridge in September 1989.
So with the CIA, because even they have to follow the regulations of the FOIA, I get a Glomar response, which - from my Googling - is a response given mainly in two types of situations. One is when it is felt by the Agency that a person's privacy might be violated. My subject, Dad, is deceased, so privacy is not an issue.
The other time a Glomar response is meted out is when the subject involves National Security. This is what the Google information says. For instance, if you were to make an FOIA request about particularly sensitive areas of the 9/11 case, say having to do with Building 7, and you asked very pointed questions, you might get a Glomar response. After the Wikileaks thing began, many people FOIAed for info on Julian Assange, or for specific documents he had purportedly leaked, and most of them got Glomar responses.
The second and most famous part of a Glomar response is when the CIA (or another agency), refuses "to confirm or deny" having classified information on a subject. And again, this response is usually invoked for aspects of very sensitive subjects, Google "Glomar response" for more info.
But in my case, I wasn't asking about the Cuban Missile Crisis, or JFK, or 9/11.
I was merely asking for any information on myself, at first, and then my Dad.
And I got the same Glomar response in both cases, first saying that the CIA has no records revealing an openly acknowledged relationship with subjects (me or Dad), and then going further to state that they can neither confirm nor deny that any classified records exist, because to do so would violate several National Security exemptions and statutes in the United States Code.
Usually, from what I am Googling, responses of this type are reserved for requests about high-security issues. But I got these responses for two people who would seem to be rather anonymous (although Dad had a more conventionally ambitious life than I), but still.........we are not Julian Assange or Fidel Castro. So, why does the CIA not simply say (in so many words), "we are sorry but you are Joe Schmoe, and we have never heard of you"? I have just given you my basic analysis of the Glomar I've received twice now, but it gets even trickier when you figure in their final response to my appeal for the denial of information on myself, which took several months to process. I believe, and really I am certain, that they do indeed have information about me concerning 1989. The trick is in learning more about it, even if they won't yet release any of it. And to learn more, I have analysed the wording of the responses over and over again.
As far as Dad is concerned, he would have been on the periphery of 1989, but he had direct involvement with an incident as well, as a victim, and moreover as my father, I have speculated that he would have been made aware of what was happening to me, just as there is no doubt whatsoever that Lillian's father was made aware of her involvement, and in her case, her sister Ann was aware too.
I will leave it be for tonight, but will continue to examine the issue as my mental energy permits. There is no turning back now. I have just finished Michelle McNamara's book on The Golden State Killer, and she is my new hero, which I've probably said a time or two already. Catching that monster killed her, but she never gave up, and she and the equally heroic detectives did catch him.
And now he is toast. Good job, Michelle. You are a Hero, and you never gave up.
I, too, will never give up, but I know I must do more.
The problem in my case is that What Happened In Northridge is an issue no one has ever talked about, and in Lillian's case, it changed her entire personality. She became a different person, no joke, and that is because she knows more about what happened than I do, and she knows more about why it happened, and she knows the significance of it. And this knowledge frightened her to a high degree, and it changed her personality. This does not mean that she isn't the same person inside that she always was, but it does mean that 1989 caused her to put up a hard shell wall around herself that is not only impenetrable as far as the subject is concerned, but will also bring out a violent reaction from her if the subject is even broached. I last tried in 2007 and was shot down with fury.
So she is dealing with a lot of pain also, but instead of collaborating and trying to get to the bottom of it, she has chosen to exacerbate the tension and widen the division. She has proven herself as not a person to be trifled with, but in doing so, she has aligned herself with the secret keepers and bad guys in this story. If Lillian had no idea of anything that happened, that would be one thing. But she does know, and not only does she say nothing and do nothing, she also gets extremely angry if asked about it because she wants to simply "have her way" by pretending that it never happened.
That is no good, and it won't work forever. Telling the truth is a better way.
For myself, I side with the Michelle McNamaras and the cold case detectives like Paul Holes, who kept their heads down and worked, and followed the clues and finally caught a terrible killer.
What would the world be like if everyone ignored violent crime? I shudder to think.
What if we didn't have Robert Mueller and the Justice Department to protect us from criminals who become President? I shudder to think.
Michelle's husband Patton Oswalt says that when she got a discouraging response to some clue she had been working on, that she would be depressed for a bit, and then would get right back at it, begin working on a new angle. That's what I want to do, except my case is more tricky because no agencies, police or federal, seem to want to help me to find out what happened to me in September 1989. So unlike Michelle, I don't have any professional investigators on my side.
What Happened In Northridge is, as I have always said, the most Top Secret of all the Top Secret secrets. You would've had to have been there, but if you were, you'd know why I say this.
And if you were there, you should talk about what you know. No matter how much it scares you.
I see that I wrote about this much more than I intended to, but it is a volatile subject and also it needs to be written about.
I did watch a movie, "All The Money In The World", and it was tremendous, but it also made me mad because J. Paul Getty was such a horrible man, and so were the phoney-baloney communist kidnappers, and the poor guy who got caught in the middle was Paul Getty III, who after he was finally freed, had a rotten life and died young at age 55.
I am an easygoing person, but I hate criminals, and I have no respect for people who cover them up, and in my case I have no respect for people who have left me to twist in the wind just so they can save their own skin, for almost 30 years.
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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