WHO: Russ Kick, 35, nonfiction author and founder of renegade archive The Memory Hole
BODY OF EVIDENCE: Kick appeared on government radar in April, when the Feds responded to one of his Freedom of Information Act requests with an Office Depot CD. On it were images of 288 military caskets containing personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and headed to Dover Air Force Base. Within hours of Kick's posting the images - and news agencies around the world downloading them - the Pentagon barred the public release of any more. No matter, the damage was done; visits to his site (www.thememoryhole.com) jumped from 15,000 to 5 million that day.
EXPOSING TORTURE: Two days after 60 Minutes II broke the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse story this spring, Kick posted the notorious torture photos online. Since then, the Memory Hole has become a major repository of public information the Pentagon would like to see disappear. And he's still waiting to hear back from government agencies regarding almost half of the 500 other FOIA requests he's filed since launching his site in 2002.
THE ULTIMATE GET: He wants to bag the CIA's so-called crown jewels, an internal report that the spy agency compiled of its own assassinations, drug running, and corruption during the Kissinger era. "People have been filing for that information for decades," Kick says.
"Governments have a tendency toward secrecy, it's inherent. But some administrations are worse than others."
- Aaron Clark
credit:Brandon Sullivan
Pentagon papers: Kick posts documents for all to see at TheMemoryHole.com.
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The Truth Is Out There
