A Freedom of Information Act request seeking National Security Agency records mentioning or cross-referencing QAnon has produced a limited set of material: an internal employee discussion in which QAnon was invoked casually as a joke, records associated with an earlier FOIA request filed by The Black Vault, and, more significantly, confirmation that the NSA located a separate three-page document that remains classified SECRET and was withheld in its entirety. The NSA’s March 25, 2026, response concerned a FOIA request filed on February 10, 2020, seeking records that “pertain or mention or contain cross references to QAnon.” The request covered records…
Author: John Greenewald
A mathematical study published inside the National Security Agency six decades ago has been released through the Freedom of Information Act, more than nine years after The Black Vault requested it. The paper, “Coupon Collecting and Cryptology,” was written by Marie Capozza and published in the Fall 1966 edition of the NSA Technical Journal. Although the title had been publicly identified for years in declassified indexes of NSA publications, searches conducted by The Black Vault did not locate a previously public copy of the paper itself. The 1966 study released in response to the FOIA request therefore provides a newly…
A collection of eight National Security Agency technology forecasting studies, spanning topics from privacy and anonymity to brain-network interfaces, advanced antennas and terahertz electronics, has been released through the Freedom of Information Act after a request that dated back to May 25, 2011. The original FOIA request sought ten documents described as “Point Forecasts issued by the Futures Intelligence Team.” The requested studies covered solid-state lighting for wireless communications, human interaction with computer networks, antenna technology, energy storage and ultrathin electronics, post-Moore’s Law materials, terahertz microelectronics, harvested power, bio-inspired computing, privacy and anonymity, and position-location technologies. The documents requested…
The National Security Agency has upheld its refusal to confirm or deny whether it possesses intelligence records concerning the alleged “Immaculate Constellation” program, rejecting a Freedom of Information Act appeal filed by The Black Vault. The decision does not establish that Immaculate Constellation exists, that NSA participated in such a program, or even that NSA possesses records about it. Instead, NSA maintains that simply answering the question on whether responsive intelligence records exist at all, would itself disclose classified and statutorily protected information. That distinction is particularly significant in this case. The Department of War has publicly denied having any…
On the night of September 11, 2012, armed attackers assaulted U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, beginning at the State Department’s Special Mission compound and continuing into the early hours of September 12 at a nearby CIA annex. Four Americans were killed: U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, State Department Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and security personnel Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. The attack occurred amid a deteriorating security environment in post-revolution Libya, where the central government had limited control over numerous armed militias and extremist organizations. The State Department’s independent Accountability Review Board later reported that there…