“Neither Confirm Nor Deny” Won’t Cut It This Time Around.
There is a phrase buried deep in American transparency law that most citizens only encounter when something has gone very wrong: “We can neither confirm nor deny.”
Known formally as a Glomar response, it allows U.S. government agencies to refuse even to acknowledge whether records exist in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The logic is simple: sometimes, admitting the existence of documents would itself reveal sensitive information—about intelligence sources, methods, or protected personal data.
That logic is real. It is also limited. And it is wearing thin.
The Glomar response takes its name from the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a massive ship built in the early 1970s under the guise of deep-sea mining. In reality, the vessel was operated by the CIA as part of Project Azorian, a covert effort to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine from the Pacific Ocean.
When journalists sought CIA records about the ship under FOIA, the agency refused to confirm or deny whether such records existed. The courts upheld that position in Phillippi v. CIA (1976), reasoning that acknowledgment alone would effectively confirm classified intelligence activity.
In that narrow context, Glomar made sense. The operation was secret, its implications were ongoing, and disclosure itself would have compromised national security.
But the lesson of Glomar was never that secrecy should be reflexive. It was that secrecy should be specific, justified, and rare.
Over time, the Glomar response has expanded far beyond its original Cold War roots. Agencies now invoke it across a wide range of contexts, sometimes even when substantial information is already public or officially acknowledged in other forms.
Courts have consistently warned that Glomar is not a blank check. Agencies must demonstrate that confirming or denying the existence of records would cause identifiable harm protected under FOIA exemptions. Judges retain the authority to scrutinize these claims, and in some cases, they have rejected Glomar responses that were overly broad or poorly justified.
Yet the practical effect remains the same: Glomar has become a powerful tool to shut down inquiry at the threshold—before any substantive debate over what should or should not be disclosed can even begin.
The Public Is Losing Patience. Americans understand that some information must remain classified. They accept redactions. They accept delays. They even accept that certain details may never be released.
What they increasingly reject is institutional silence in the face of matters of national consequence.
When the government responds to legitimate questions with “we can neither confirm nor deny,” it does not end curiosity—it multiplies it. It signals not careful stewardship of secrets, but fear of accountability. In the modern information environment, that response often fuels speculation more than transparency ever would.
The irony is that Glomar can undermine the very interests it is meant to protect. By refusing to acknowledge even the existence of records, agencies invite the public to assume the worst: that the truth is explosive, that oversight has failed, or that the government is more concerned with managing perception than safeguarding security.
There is a crucial difference between protecting a covert operation and stonewalling on issues that strike at democratic trust.
When the subject matter is already widely discussed, partially documented, or central to public oversight, the argument that acknowledgment alone would cause irreparable harm becomes harder to sustain. At that point, Glomar stops functioning as a shield and starts operating as a provocation.
The courts may still tolerate such responses. The public increasingly will not.
Transparency is not an all-or-nothing proposition. The government can acknowledge the existence of records while still withholding sensitive details. It can explain the boundaries of secrecy rather than hiding behind a legal incantation.
The story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer is often cited to justify secrecy. But its deeper lesson is the opposite: secrecy is fragile. It depends on public trust, legal restraint, and the belief that concealment serves the nation—not the institution.
The Glomar response was never meant to be a permanent escape hatch from accountability. It was a narrow exception, crafted for extraordinary circumstances.
If officials attempt to use it today to avoid answering questions of broad public importance, they should expect pushback—from journalists, from courts, and from citizens who understand that democracy cannot function on “neither confirm nor deny.”
Some secrets must be kept. But when silence becomes the message, it is no longer protecting the public. It is protecting power.
