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I feel like I got the bait and switch. Glomar is (supposedly) deliberately used in situations where they actually have no records in order to maintain the non-r
by chrisrhoden 15y ago
I feel like I got the bait and switch. Glomar is (supposedly) deliberately used in situations where they actually have no records in order to maintain the non-revelatory nature of the Glomar response, so your conclusion is not entirely accurate.
That having been said, I am not aware of any specific cases where that behavior has been confirmed (i.e. a request which received a Glomar response was later answered with a lack of records), only the eventual release of records. Not sure if this is selection bias or confirmation of intuition, which is that the only reason to say "We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of X" is because X exists.
- Mizza 15y agoI researched this article for 3 days before writing it and was unable to find a single instance where documents were Glomared in a case where they actually had no records, nor even a reference to this notion, so I don't know where you're drawing that conclusion from. The truth table should illustrate this point, and the conclusion should put it in a critical light, so I don't know if 'bait and switch' is really a fair assessment. I think this was pretty honest.
- chrisrhoden 15y agoI agree, and I am not aware of any cases of this having come forward (although, to be fair, they cannot declassify a non-record). The notion comes from the fact that the response is supposed to be fundamentally different from saying, "those records are classified," which is totally allowed by FOIA. The very reason for the existence (and general acceptance) of Glomar responses is that they do not confirm the existence of the records. So what that means is that a Glomar response could be made to a request for which the records do not exist.