The U.S. Navy Department: Stonewalling its Own Stonewall
For more than a century, the unofficial motto of the United States Navy has been "Non sibi sed patriae" - "Not for self, but for country." It is inscribed above the doors of the chapel at the United States Naval Academy, where it has inspired incoming cadets since the cornerstone was laid in 1904. It speaks to the Navy's longstanding commitment to put patriotism above personal gain and the public good above political expediency.

That makes it all the more troubling that the U.S. Department of the Navy is providing cover for the Obama administration's continual stonewalling of attempts to ferret out the truth about its apparently politically motivated actions at home and abroad. In recent years, the top brass at the Navy Department have turned the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on its head, seemingly far more determined to find ways to circumvent it than to fulfill its legal mandate.

That's why on April 22, 2014, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the United States Department of the Navy seeking information about procedures for answering FOIA requests. The lawsuit was filed following the Navy's failure to respond for more than three months to a January 13, 2014, FOIA request seeking:

Any and all records concerning or relating to procedures for responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. Such records include, but are not limited to handbooks, guidelines, policies, rules or memoranda.

The Judicial Watch FOIA request, sent to the Navy's FOIA public liaison Robin Patterson, specifically called attention to President Obama's January 21, 2009, memorandum concerning the Freedom of Information Act, in which he stated:

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodies in the FOIA ... The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.

The request came on the heels of a January 7 news report, revealing that Patterson had mistakenly sent an internal memo to reporter Scott MacFarlane at WRC-TV, NBC 4 in Washington, DC, detailing a strategy for stonewalling his FOIA request for information concerning the Navy Yard shooting in September 2013. McFarlane tweeted out the Patterson memo.

In the memo, Patterson flippantly refers to the McFarlane request as a "fishing expedition," recommending several methods for FOIA staff to stymie his query, including "negotiating with requester" to limit his search for photos. Patterson also suggests that staff convince McFarlane that his search would be "costly" adding, "Just because they are media doesn't mean that the memos would shed light on specific government activities."

In perhaps the most striking statement in the Patterson memo, she advises her colleagues that she is also working on a separate response that could completely block MacFarlane's request for Navy officials' emails concerning the Navy Yard shooting. "This one is specific enough that we may be able to deny," Patterson writes.

Ironically, just hours after MacFarlane tweeted out the Patterson FOIA memo, the Navy's Twitter feed published a message reading, "The #USNavy remains committed to transparency & responding to FOIA requests in a timely and professional manner. CC @politico @Gawker 4:20 PM - 7 Jan 2014." That commitment has apparently been consigned to the same "File 13" as the century-old commitment to put the good of the country above personal gain or political expediency.

The truth of the matter is that it's a travesty that Judicial Watch had to file a FOIA lawsuit against the Navy to get information about how it responds to FOIA requests. Simply put, the U.S. Navy under President Obama is now stonewalling us about its own stonewall. And that is nothing short of theatre of the absurd.

The FOIA procedures lawsuit is not the first time Judicial Watch has been forced to file suit to compel the Navy to comply with a FOIA request. In March 2011, we filed a FOIA request with the Navy for records detailing "any funeral ceremony, rite or ritual" for Osama bin Laden prior to the terrorist's burial at sea. After the Navy failed to respond for 17 months, Judicial Watch in July 2012 filed a FOIA lawsuit to force compliance. In November 2012, the Navy finally produced 31 pages of heavily redacted emails confirming that the slain terrorist was given full Islamic burial honors.

The third stanza of the Navy Hymn Eternal Father, Strong to Save asks that in times of trouble "Bid its angry tumult cease / And give, for wild confusion, peace." The U.S. Department of the Navy can help calm some of Washington's "wild confusion" by following the law - which requires a truthful and timely response to FOIA requests and honors the public's right to know what its own government is up to.

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