Just Cause

History

Peter Gersten, a New York attorney, founded Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS) in the late 1970s with a specific and confrontational mission: use the Freedom of Information Act to force U.S. Government agencies to release their UFO files. Where other UFO organisations wrote letters and passed resolutions, CAUS filed lawsuits. Gersten took the CIA, NSA, and other agencies to federal court, arguing that the public had a legal right to classified UFO-related documents.

Just Cause served as the organisation's newsletter, reporting on ongoing litigation, newly released documents, and the bureaucratic resistance CAUS encountered at every turn. The newsletter published redacted documents alongside analysis of what the blacked-out passages might contain. It tracked the legal arguments agencies used to withhold material, particularly national security exemptions under FOIA Exemption 1.

The newsletter circulated through the late 1970s and into the 1990s, documenting the slow, grinding process of government disclosure through legal channels. CAUS's litigation produced thousands of pages of previously classified material from the CIA, FBI, DIA, NSA, and State Department. These documents became foundational sources for UFO researchers and journalists investigating government involvement with the phenomenon.

Beyond the headline cases, Just Cause documented the procedural mechanics of secrecy: how agencies delayed, redacted, and reclassified material; how they invoked Glomar responses (neither confirming nor denying the existence of records); and how political appointees overrode career staff on disclosure decisions. This granular documentation of government information management has become increasingly relevant as new FOIA and congressional oversight battles unfold in the 2020s.