Researcher D. Dean Johnson recently released FOIA’d emails between Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Public Affairs Officer Susan Gough and Public Affairs Officers from the United States Air Force. In the emails, Gough is allegedly trying to corral and control FOIA requests, which some people now think is an effort to circumvent and even thwart the Freedom of Information Act. Is this behavior unlawful, unethical or appropriate? Susan Gough has already reportedly become the only Public Affairs Officer to now comment on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, which in itself seems odd. Why would the OSD PAO speak for all branches of the government and armed services? Some think it is because many of the previous comments from various PAOs have been contradictory and this is an effort to not only consolidate them, but also muzzle unapproved information from reaching the public. The following are the emails in question:
After I questioned the legality of this behavior by Gough, James Greywood, who is an anonymous twitter user and seemingly a government insider responded in detail:
Another interesting tweet from Greywood:
Much more work has to been done on this front before any allegations can be proven or even brought up in a serious manner. If you are a lawyer, expert, or someone with a government background and have an opinion on this please contact me.
Update 1
Journalist George Knapp chimed in:
Update 2
More twitter comments:
Update 3
“The Evolution of Strategic Influence” by LTC Susan L. Gough
Silva Record 
I am the researcher who obtained the emails displayed here (which are taken from a much larger body of emails obtained through FOIA). Persons wishing to contact me about this matter can do so via my Twitter account @ddeanjohnson (use Direct Messages), or by sending email to a gmail account of the same name.
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Sounds like a basis for a complaint to the IG.
I would even try reaching out to Mark Zaid and The James Madison Project for some advice and guidance.
“The James Madison Project is a Washington, D.C. organization that was established in 1998, to promote government accountability and the reduction of secrecy, as well as to educate the public on issues relating to intelligence and national security through means of research, advocacy and the dissemination of information.
We are always looking for ways to better develop the laws and policies surrounding the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, and foster greater openness in our society without unnecessarily infringing upon any individual’s right to privacy.”
See here, http://www.jamesmadisonproject.org/ .
Mark’s DC practice specializes in NATSEC and FOIA matters. See here https://markzaid.com/ .
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Unfortunately this is the way the US government has worked for a long time. The department that processes FOIA requests is intentionally understaffed to delay requests as long as possible (preferably indefinitely). Once the gov saw what was getting out through the FOIA they cut back funding and internally started “vetting” releases because how are we going to prove it until we catch an email like this. Even now they will dance around it. Quite often they claim the search word requests didn’t get a hit when that’s virtually impossible with certain topics and word searches. As we have all seen, many documents that get released are almost completely blackout out with the excuse every single word is classified. Many researches will tell you they have to play the game and do creative searches essentially to “trick” the gov into releasing stuff. IE search a specific person you were told wrote a report around a certain date rather than search “UFO” on that date. If it isn’t abundantly clear already the government doesn’t work for you the way the constitution and laws say they should. The gov officials see themselves as better than us deciding what’s best for us to know and not know. Generally they don’t what us to know anything lol. Just keep working and paying your taxes!
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