Reading Room Document

FOIA Appeal from Denial of Access to FBI COINTELPRO Files Regarding Professor Morris Starsky

As a matter of administrative discretion, the Department of Justice should grant the FOIA request of an attorney for the FBI's COINTELPRO-New Left files regarding his client, a professor at Arizona State University and an active member of the Socialist Workers Party. FOIA Exemption (7) is technically applicable to the withheld documents. However, like all of the exemptions, Exemption (7) is only discretionary, and should not be asserted unless such action is in the public interest. Assertion of the exemption is not recommended for these documents. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/20861/download.

November 27, 1974