The Memory Hole (website)

For other uses, see Memory hole (disambiguation).

The Memory Hole was a website edited by Russ Kick; it was launched on July 10, 2002, with its last post on May 11, 2009,[1] with a successor website appearing in June 2016. Before being hacked in June 2009,[2] the site was devoted to preserving and publishing material that is in danger of being lost, hard to find, or not widely known. Topics include government files, corporate memos, court documents, police reports and eyewitness statements, Congressional testimony, reports from various sources, maps, patents, web pages, photographs, video, sound recordings, news articles, and books. The name is a tribute to the "memory hole" from George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, a slot into which government officials deposit politically inconvenient documents and records for destruction.[3]

One of the most noticeable actions was the publication of several hundred photos depicting the coffins of U.S. soldiers fallen in Iraq. These were obtained by Kick by filing a request based on the Freedom of Information Act. The photos sparked a controversy regarding the publication of war photos, public opinion and the behavior of the U.S. government.[4]

The website is the 2005 winner of the Project on Government Oversight's "Beyond the Headlines" Award.[5]

A successor website, The Memory Hole 2, was launched by Kick on June 16, 2016.

  1. ^ Kick, Russ. "About The Memory Hole". The Memory Hole. Archived from the original on 2010-04-23. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
  2. ^ Kick, Russ (1 June 2009). "Both my WP sites - Memory Hole and Books Are People Too - have been hacked, turned into attack sites". Twitter. Archived from the original on 12 January 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2010.
  3. ^ McNichol, Tom (2003-11-13). "Peeking Behind the Curtain of Secrecy". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2013-05-07. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
  4. ^ Shanker, Thom; Carter, Bill (2004-04-24). "Photos of Soldiers' Coffins Spark a Debate Over Access". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-06.
  5. ^ "Beyond the Headlines Award Project On Government Oversight". Project On Government Oversight. Archived from the original on November 16, 2012. Retrieved 2010-06-25.