Another of my recent FOIA requests got a response yesterday, this one from the US Marshals Service (USMS). I had asked them for a list of all films and TV shows that they had ever been involved in the production of, and received an email saying that this has never happened. The email says, ‘Pursuant to your request, the USMS conducted a search of the Office of Public Affairs and located no records responsive to your request.’ You can download a copy of the email here.
While this might be true it would be very unusual, given that the DOD have been involved in film production since the 1910s, and formally since the late 1940s, and the FBI have been actively monitoring and manipulating their public portrayal since at least the 1960s, and even the super-sneaky CIA have had a formal entertainment industry liaison since 1996. Are we really to believe that even when in 1998 Tommy Lee Jones, the cousin of the CIA’s entertainment industry liaison Chase Brandon, made a film called ‘US Marshals’ that the USMS did not try to use it to boost their public image and recruitment?