ICE under fire for dubious contention that documents on drone use are not newsworthy

Muckrock’s Freedom of Information Act request for documents pertaining to Operation Safeguard, a pilot project using drones to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border in 2003, has stumped ICE (the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement), to the point that they dismissed the request on the grounds that it “failed to adequately prove that any specific information regarding Operation Safeguard is of current interest to the public.” This statement came as the Homeland Security inspector general has publicly questioned whether current drone deployment was worthy of its hefty price tag. (Muckrock, March 16, 2015, by Shawn Musgrave)

In a story in techdirt, March 19, 2015, about ICE’s strange rejection of Muckrock reporter Shawn Musgrave’s FOIA request, Mike Masnick publishes the entire rejection letter and quotes Musgrave’s refutation of ICE’s contention that there is already enough information about Operation Safeguard online.