Glomar response

So named because it was used in response to a request for records about the Glomar Explorer submarine-retrieval ship.^[1][2]

Glomar response (plural Glomar responses)

1. A response by a US government agency (etc) that it can "neither confirm nor deny" the existence of (secret) information which has been asked for.
   • 1985, United States House Committee on Government Operations, Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture Subcommittee, The Freedom of Information Reform Act: Hearings Before Ninety-eighth Congress, Second Session, on S. 774 ... May 24, 30; June 20; and August 9, 1984, page 908:

     Another legal basis for a "Glomar response" frequently available to the CIA is the provision in the current Executive Order 12356 allowing an agency to "... refuse to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of requested information  ..."

   • 1993, University of California, Davis. School of Law, U.C. Davis Law Review:

     If a requester knows that the CIA may use the Glomar response only for requests about covert operations, then a Glomar response to a FOIA [amounts to revealing that something exists as a covert operation].

   • 1993, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law:

     As an alternative basis for its holding, the District Court held that the CIA Information Act, 50 U.S.C. § 431, permits a Glomar response only when the FOIA request relates to a covert activity.

   • 1997, Ralph C. Nash, Leonard Rawicz, Intellectual Property in Government Contracts, George Washington University, Government Contracts Program

     This is a Glomar response, and exemption 6 must be cited in the response.

   • 2006, P. Stephen Gidiere (III), The Federal Information Manual: How the Government Collects, Manages, and Discloses Information Under FOIA and Other Statutes, American Bar Association (→ISBN), page 215:

     For example, with a "Glomar response," the agency neither confirms nor denies the existence of the requested records. Such a response is appropriate where revealing even the existence of the information would be tantamount to disclosing it.

   • 2008, Access Reports/freedom of Information:

     A federal court in New York has ruled that the National Security Agency properly provided a Glomar response to attorneys ' requests for confirmation of whether their ...

• Glomar denial, Glomarization