Glomar response ('neither confirm nor deny').
official-recordlegal_caseGovernment Concealment & Secrecy Architecture
The FOIA doctrine letting an agency refuse to admit whether records even EXIST, born in Phillippi v. CIA (546 F.2d 1009, D.C. Cir. 1976) over records of the Glomar Explorer. Named after the ship (Global Marine).
A records-concealment mechanism where the existence of the secret is itself the secret. A Glomar itself is a signal that a program's very existence matters. HONESTY: the 1976 opinion REVERSED and remanded (required a public justifying affidavit) — Wikipedia's 'affirmed' conflates a later post-remand ruling. Now durable government-wide precedent (Gardels, Wilner).