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# Government Noir, or When the Pentagon Meets Copyright Law
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/government-noir-or-when-the-pentagon-meets-copyright-law/
- Published: 2014-03-21T22:47:50.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:33:44.000Z
- Description: Over at Gawker, John Cook has posted a highly entertaining video commissioned by the Pentagon in 2001 to educate its staff on protocol for handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
- Author: Mostafa Heddaya
- Tags: Opinion, Copyright, fair use, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

![Screen Shot 2014-03-21 at 5.24.14 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/03/screen-shot-2014-03-21-at-5-24-14-pm.png)

(all screenshots via Gawker)

Over at Gawker, John Cook [has posted a highly entertaining video commissioned](http://gawker.com/the-foia-training-video-that-the-pentagon-redacted-1549037834?ref=hyperallergic.com) by the Pentagon in 2001 to educate its staff on protocol for handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Though the video gained notoriety when the Associated Press [reported on it in 2004](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-09-01-tape-censored%5Fx.htm?ref=hyperallergic.com), because the government wouldn’t release it without redacted portions of allegedly copyrighted material, it has a deeply strange, noir-style conceit, presumably meant to lighten up a mundane bureaucratic topic. But the actual effect is more sinister, or at least uncomfortable, kind of like the Transportation Security Administration’s [use of hashtags when it shares confiscated weapons on Instagram](http://hyperallergic.com/75324/normalizing-violence-and-loving-the-state-with-the-tsa-bigbrother/). And though it feels low-budget, the video reportedly cost $70,500 to produce, according to the AP report. (The origin of this particular copy of the video, which Cook gets into, bears reading.)

“FOIA is a customer service,” the video’s trench-coated pseudo–Humphrey Bogart protagonist intones, perhaps by way of explaining why the video uses the concept of diners at a restaurant to act out the transaction that takes place between FOIA requesters and the government. “May I please be allowed into the record room?” a femme fatale in a veiled red hat interjects at one point. Later, the scene inexplicably transitions to a ship, replete with canned-water sound effects. It’s not possible to embed the 23-minute-long video here, so you’ll have to [head to Gawker](http://gawker.com/the-foia-training-video-that-the-pentagon-redacted-1549037834?ref=hyperallergic.com) to see the full thing. Take in the stilted dialogue, the strange transitions from elevator jazz to noir-ish piano bits. Connoisseurs of government kitsch: memorize the script and regale your friends over the weekend.

![Screen Shot 2014-03-21 at 5.07.33 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/03/screen-shot-2014-03-21-at-5-07-33-pm.png)

![Screen Shot 2014-03-21 at 5.32.39 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/03/screen-shot-2014-03-21-at-5-32-39-pm.png)

![Screen Shot 2014-03-21 at 5.23.25 PM](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/03/screen-shot-2014-03-21-at-5-23-25-pm.png)