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Glomar Letter To A Reporter
- ProPublica data editor Jeff Larson filed a FOIA request asking whether the NSA had his metadata and received a surprising reply from the agency.
- The NSA responded with a
The Giant Claw Recovery Mission
- The CIA built a giant mechanical claw and a ship called the Hughes Glomar Explorer to lift a sunken Soviet submarine three miles up from the ocean floor.
- The mission succeeded in grabbing the hull but the missile section broke off and sank back to the seabed during retrieval.
The Origin Of 'Neither Confirm Nor Deny'
- The Glomar response — "we can neither confirm nor deny" — solved a legal dilemma by avoiding both disclosure and an explicit lie.
- It balanced FOIA transparency against protecting intelligence sources and methods under statute.