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Tag Archives: FOIA
Criticism of FBI records retention and destruction
It isn't often you see a discussion FOIA, FBI, NARA, and Records Retention Plan and Disposition Schedules in the popular press. This article describes the frustrations of one researcher when he discovered that records had been destroyed by the FBI.
- The Department of Forgetting: How an obscure FBI rule is ensuring the destruction of irreplaceable historical records, By Alex Heard, Slate, June 24, 2008.
The system's fundamentals make sense, I guess--very complicated sense--but to me the disturbing part comes at the end of the line. At some point 25 years after a case closes, a file that isn't marked "permanent" gets pulled and looked at by one or two people inside the FBI. There are no "knowledgeable representatives of the NARA" monitoring this crucial moment. If it's decided internally that the file isn't important, it's gone. Michael Ravnitzky, an FOIA researcher based in the Washington, D.C., area, is no fan of the Records Retention Plan and likens it to an open-ended manual for strip-mining a priceless public record. "The FBI got a list of exceptional files given to them by historians, and they said, 'We'll keep that,' " he says. "We'll keep large files. Smaller files, we'll keep a sampling. Everything else gets tossed. That's what the plan is." Based on documents Ivan Greenberg obtained from the FBI, he estimates that 250 million pages were destroyed between 1986 and 1995.Continue reading
Pentagon Posts Documents on its “Military Analysts” Propaganda Program
In April, the New York Times broke a story about the now infamous Pentagon information apparatus that used retired military officers in a "campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance" (Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand By David Barstow, New York Times, April 20, 2008). The Times also published some of the documents it obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests on its web site (NY Times publishes some FOIA documents). Now, the Pentagon has published documents it released. This collection appears more complete than what the NYT released.
- Military Analysts "These documents were released to the New York Times regarding the Pentagon's Military Analyst program." (last updated 28-May-08)
National Archives Reticent About Broadening Mission
National Archives Reticent About Broadening Mission, by Dan Friedman, CongressDaily, Jun. 2, 2008. [subscription required]. Update: NOW AVAILABLE from NextGov WITHOUT SUBSCRIPTION: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080602_6498.php The National Archives (NARA) is being put in an awkward position. Viewed as nonpartisan and professional, it is being tasked by Congress with new enforcement duties. Late last year, a new law passed that set up an "Office of Government Information Services" within the NARA to help set federal Freedom of Information Act policy. Another bill that is expected to pass the House would give NARA a new role requiring NARA to monitor White House e-mail archiving. This would change NARA's role from that of passively receiving records to actively monitoring and enforcing rules. National Archives Inspector General Paul Brachfeld said that "NARA traditionally has not viewed itself as an enforcement entity but rather one that focuses upon collegiality and relationships." From the article:
Chafing at Bush administration secrecy, congressional Democrats are handing the National Archives and Records Administration new jobs promoting government transparency. Officials at the records agency appear to be balking at taking on unfunded mandates beyond their traditional role. If Congress wants the Archives to become open-government cops, archivists may prefer to remain librarians. "They have always had a narrow view of their mandate and have never been particularly inclined to seek any expansion," said Patrice McDermott of OpentheGovernment.org, a coalition of groups urging government transparency. "They see their mission as providing access to historical records. They see [overseeing] contemporaneous records as a shift."Continue reading
FOIA drop-box
A tweet from John Wonderlich (from the fabulously cool Open House Project!) yesterday got me thinking. He posted about submitting his first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. I'm not sure what the request entails, but my thought was that it'd be cool if there was somewhere on the net that folks who got documents via a FOIA request could submit copies of both the request and the documents. Now maybe there already is, although I don't think the Memory Hole does this (hey Russ Kick, is MH defunct? I don't see any new content since Oct 2006!). My library is already gobbling up and preserving the FOIA reading rooms, but I don't have any sense about how many FOIA request documents make it into those agency sites. Does anyone have an answer to that? So, if you've got any FOIA documents laying around your hard drive, send them over to FGI at admin AT freegovinfo DOT info. We'll post them on this site and on the Internet Archive's US Government Documents collection. We'll make sure they get on the 'net and get preserved for long-term access! Continue reading
NY Times publishes some FOIA documents
In an investigation on how the Bush administration uses retired military officers to promote its message on the Iraq war, the New York Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantanamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation. The story based on these documents (Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand By David Barstow, New York Times, April 20, 2008) is supplemented online by "Audio, video and documents that show how the military’s talking points were disseminated" (How the Pentagon Spread Its Message and a "Document Archive," which allows users to read and download documents and parts of documents. Of the 8000 pages, only a few are available online, but these include emails, a "Talking Points Memo," excerpts from a Transcript of meeting with Mr. Rumsfeld, and a Pentagon document that reports "Monitoring of Analysts." Together, the audio-visual presentation and the documents are a small model for how newspapers could be using the power of the web to enhance their coverage and utility. I would certainly like to see all 8000 pages online! The story itself is a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of the daily news.
Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as "message force multipliers" or "surrogates" who could be counted on to deliver administration "themes and messages" to millions of Americans "in the form of their own opinions." ...Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.Continue reading
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