# The science fiction writer FOIA request > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The science fiction writer FOIA request," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-science-fiction-writer-foia-request/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The Freedom of Information Act request John Kiriakou filed with the CIA about a 1950s science fiction writer long rumoured to have been an undercover officer — answered only with a letter saying the agency lacked the manpower to meet its statutory ninety-day deadline. Fifteen years later, he says, he is still waiting.* The science fiction writer FOIA request is the personal example John Kiriakou uses when asked how much of the CIA's record remains secret. He offers it as the smallest possible test of the declassification system, and reports that the system failed it. ## The request Kiriakou wanted to write an article about a man from the 1950s who was a popular science fiction writer of the period, and about whom there had always been rumours that he was secretly a CIA officer under some kind of deep cover, roughly between 1952 and 1958.[1] The man then killed himself.[2] Kiriakou filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA. The agency wrote back saying that the law required it to respond within ninety days, but that it would not be able to do so because it did not have enough manpower.[2] That, he says, was fifteen years before the telling, and he is still waiting for the response.[2] ## The backlog behind it Asked how many CIA documents remain classified, Kiriakou answers: several billion, with a b.[3] He describes this as another of his standing complaints against the agency and the broader federal government.[3] American law, in his account, calls for mandatory declassification once a document is thirty-five years old, unless release would expose sources and methods, sensitive liaison relationships, or operations still under way.[4] Kiriakou's estimate is that more than ninety-five per cent of those documents should be declassified and have not been, and he attributes the failure to a single strategic decision: the CIA simply chose not to hire people to do the declassification work.[5] He says the position is worse at other repositories. The National Archives also holds classified documents going back to the origins of classification, and he puts the current wait on a Freedom of Information Act request filed there at six hundred years.[5][1] Elsewhere he has given the figure as a five-hundred-year backlog, and the [thirty-year rule](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/thirty-year-mandatory-declassification) rather than thirty-five. His conclusion is unqualified: all of this material is supposed to be declassified, almost none of it is, and there is no good reason, no legitimate reason and no legal reason for withholding it.[6] ## See also - [National Archives declassification](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/national-archives-declassification) - [Thirty-year mandatory declassification](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/thirty-year-mandatory-declassification) - [Kiriakou's FOIA request from prison](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/prison-foia-request) - [CIA crimes reports against Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-crimes-reports) ## Sources 1. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:36:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=5811s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/ 2. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:37:24. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=5844s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/ 3. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:35:14. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=5714s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/ 4. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:35:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=5746s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/ 5. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:36:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=5779s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/ 6. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:38:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=5880s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-science-fiction-writer-foia-request/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt