The New York Times printed a front-page story in 2011 about a former CIA agent who claimed that the Bush administration asked the CIA to collect damaging information on University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole, a prominent critic of the Iraq War.
When the CIA refused to respond to the ACLU request for documents about the spying, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court under the Freedom of Information Act.
The case settled in July 2013 after the government released numerous documents and agreed to pay attorneys’ fees.
(ACLU v. CIA; National ACLU Attorneys Zachary Katznelson and Hina Shamsi; ACLU of Michigan Legal Director Michael J. Steinberg.)
