Dan Siminoski, a gay activist living in California, was the target of what appeared to be an FBI cover up. While touring through Arizona for a speaking engagement, Siminoski discovered one evening that the car belonging to his host had been broken into. Nothing in the car had been stolen except for a brief case which belonged to Siminoski. Its contents included several thousand dollars worth of plane tickets, travelers checks, and documents which dealt with a controversial lawsuit Siminoski was filing against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Several days after the robbery, police returned the brief case to Siminoski. Neither the travelers checks nor the plane tickets had been taken. What were missing, however, were the FBI documents regarding Siminoski’s lawsuit—crucial to his attempt to force the release of “documents of alleged illegal spying sorties against gay and lesbian activists and organizations.”

Immediately following the robbery, Siminoski canceled the remaining stops on his nationwide tour but later resumed traveling.  Acting on Siminoski’s behalf, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California filed suit in a Los Angeles federal district court. The suit was filed under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in which the FBI was being asked to release documents which concerned unlawful FBI surveillance of gay and lesbian activists and organizations since the 1950s. Also included in the suit was an injunction to force the FBI to grant Siminoski’s request for a fee waiver.

The ACLU co-sponsored many of Siminoski’s speaking engagements. Siminoski had been in the process of writing a book on the impact of gay and lesbian politics on the 1984 national elections.