WASHINGTON, D.C., December 17, 2008 — Barbara Feinman Todd, an associate dean of journalism at Georgetown University and co-director of the Pearl Project, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against eight government agencies this morning.

The decision to turn to the courts was reached after 27 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by Feinman Todd and her students yielded no useful information from the government.

The Pearl Project seeks to uncover the truth behind the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan. The project began as an investigative journalism course at Georgetown University and was co-taught by Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and friend of Pearl. The project is now sponsored by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.

The FOIA requests submitted over the course of a year and half sought specific information related to the Pearl investigation. Feinman Todd sees the lawsuit as a necessary step in the project’s investigation and the learning experience.

“The purpose of teaching is to have students follow every path until they end up at the truth. It’s sad and unfortunate that the biggest roadblock the students have encountered so far was erected by our own government,” said Feinman Todd. “We have taught our students to never give up and that’s the point of this lawsuit, that’s the point of good journalism, and that’s the point of justice.”

Among the 14 claims listed in the lawsuit is a request for information pertaining to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confession to murdering Pearl. The FBI responded to Feinman Todd’s request with a request for a signed privacy waiver from Mohammed, whom the U.S. government has identified as a 9/11 mastermind. The same privacy waiver was requested for Richard Reid, the British man convicted of attempting to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in December 2001. Pearl was investigating Reid for a story when he was kidnapped in 2002.

“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Richard Reid are two foreign nationals that have been designated as Al Qaeda terrorists with ties to 9/11,” said Brad Moss, an associate attorney for the lawsuit. “The notion that these individuals’ privacy interests somehow outweigh the public’s interest simply fails to pass the ‘smell test.’”

Another request sought information from the Defense Department regarding the detention or transport of Saud Memon, a deceased Pakistani national whose whereabouts from 2003 to 2007 remain a mystery. Memon allegedly owned the land on which Pearl was held, murdered, and buried. Memon’s family claims that Memon disappeared in 2003 after being detained by U.S. and Pakistani intelligence or law enforcement services. In 2007, Memon was dumped near his home in dire physical condition and died days later.

“This lawsuit emulates the very reason Congress enacted the FOIA more than 40 years ago, so that journalists can publicly expose what our government is up to,” said Mark S. Zaid, the Washington, D.C., attorney spearheading the lawsuit. “It also represents an important challenge to arbitrary government action to unlawfully refuse to process certain requests on absurd notions of personal privacy for terrorists or otherwise improperly withhold relevant records.”

Among the biggest obstacles for the Pearl Project has been the FBI’s denial of access to the investigative file on Pearl. Administratively open investigative files are exempt from disclosure, even if the investigation is no longer being pursued.

“The Pearl file is in danger of becoming like the case of Jimmy Hoffa, where no matter how little the FBI works on the investigation, it remains open and inaccessible,” said Moss. Hoffa was a Teamsters Union leader who mysteriously disappeared in 1975. Hoffa’s daughter, Barbara Ann Crancer, sued the Justice Department in 1991 because the government refused to release 15-year-old FBI investigative files, claiming the case was ongoing.

The Pearl Project now resides at the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan, independent organization that does investigative reporting on significant public issues. The Center is also listed on the complaint as an interested non-party. “It’s time for executive agencies to honor both the spirit and the letter of the law,” said David E. Kaplan, the Center’s editorial director. “It’s been six years since Danny Pearl’s death, and the public has a right to know what really happened.”

The Pearl Project is funded by the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation and represented in this case by attorneys Brad Moss and Mark Zaid of Mark S. Zaid, P.C., a firm specializing in national security and FOIA litigation cases.