Non-responsiveness by public agencies

When the CIA joined Twitter in 2014, its first tweet was: “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” This non-response response is known as a “Glomar”.  The CIA has used Glomar to obstruct attempts to obtain records that would publicly shine a light on the agency’s failures and abuse, even when that abuse is well documented, for instance the CIA’s torture program. 

In 2017, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a public records request seeking documents regarding the NYPD’s monitoring of protesters’ social media activity. The NYPD initially responded with a blanket statement that it could “neither confirm nor deny” whether such records existed, saying that even revealing the existence of records could harm national security. A New York court rejected this argument.