Slashdot Mirror
FBI Investigates Open Records Request
GrooveMoose writes "A university student at the University of Texas
makes an open
records request for information on the underground tunnel system at the school.
A few months later the FBI and Secret Service come knocking on his door to see
if he's a terrorist. He's still under investigation by the federal government
regarding a completely open request."
Clearly, some paper-pusher at the university office freaked that somebody was using The Freedom of Information Act to force them to release information about their underground tunnels... most likely because the feds told universities to call them if anybody makes requests for information about campus infrastructure.
And, let's face it... even though it's perfectly legal to file a Freedom of Information Act request, doing so for topics like this totally out of the blue is certainly suspicious activity.
One thing to point out is that the agents called and said they wanted to speak with the student, but it doesn't appear they ever arrested him. That means he could have told them that he wasn't interested in meeting with them, or he could have walked out of the room at any time. He also could have at any time brought in a lawyer.
The moral of the story is that if you ask for some creepy information, and it's not exactly clear why you asked for it, then the FBI and Secret Service are going to have some questions to ask you, and they'll open a file on it. They won't deprive you of any of your freedoms over that alone... being confronted by men with badges who are looking for you may be a scary thing, but he could have just as well told them to leave him alone and they would have had to. He agreed to meet with them, so that's that.
Consider what people would say if a terrorist requested the information for a tunnel system under a school, and the FBI didn't investigate it? It's not like they were tracking this guy's every move. He requested someone rather unusual, and they checked it out as they should.
So now everytime someone requests info through the FOIA they will be questioned by the FBI or CIA? Is the government trying to discourage this?
Its kinda usless to have a right if you are harassed every time you use it.
FOIA = government honey pot?
Think about it.
You know I'm right.
Maybe because real threats are likely to come from within rather from outside?
Its almost impossible to enforce complete border regulation, and making it strict only flies in the face of the US policy of being open to immigrants.
Most of the real threats come from people who have entered US through legal means, or are already inside the US. And the reason they questioned this guy is not because he sought some information, its the kind of information that he sought - they merely thought that kind of information could be used for other purposes, and were careful.
But then who is it to determine what a legitimate reason is for wanting the information? After all, someone who is researching the tunnels for a civil engineering paper may have a very valid reason, but is everyone going to think that? The Freedom of Information Act is meant to let you have access to this information without necessarily saying what it is or isn't going to be used for... it prevent's the government from arbitrarily saying "you can't know that" in most cases.
Granted, in the post-9/11 world, it has become a lot harder to draw the line between security and the free flow of information, but I believe the policy should still basically be one where the government must show why you *don't* need (non-classified, obviously) information, as opposed to you showing why you should be allowed to have it.
This is one time someone requested information about apparently sensitive information.
It's an abnormal request - a student doesn't have an obvious need for information about the tunnels at his school. If you went and bought 10x the amount of ammonia-based fertilizer that anyone would need, they'd investigate that too. Not because owning a lot of fertilizer is illegal, but because purchasing that amount of fertilizer is a decent sign that you may be about to do something illegal.
I'd much rather have the FBI taking the time to ask some intelligent questions when confronted with suspicious activity than letting universities be blown up.
paintball
Have you never just been curious about something?
Maybe I read a little too much of Infiltration, but I am really interested in underground tunnel systems, abandoned subway lines, etc. If there were any in my area, I would be checking them out too.
If he's got a perfectly legit reason to want to know, then he should tell us.
Papers please, citizen.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
People should only be investigated after they are proven guilty?
That's gonna work real well!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Why should the student have to tell you anything? It's his right as an American citizen to make a perfectly legal request under the Freedom Of Information Act, There's no law requiring people to justify their requests, and just because he's not authorized to access them doesn't mean he should be investigated for being curious about their locations.
He does have perfectly legit reason and he's told them (as stated in the article): he was curious about the underground tunnel network, and wanted to know its dimensions.
And, how exactly should he have "known that'd happen for making such a request without a clear reason for doing so."? What next? Someone being investigated for looking up the whitehouse on a map "without a clear reason for doing so"? Why should anyone who doesn't work there, or is planning to visit, look it up on a map? He was simply curious, and made a legitimate request for the information, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
"Knowledge makes us accountable." - Che Guevara
I go to utexas.edu. I can vouch for the administrative craziness that all too often plagues this school. :)
;)
;)
This is the same place where the suits did everything they could to keep the FOIA and other legal mechanisms from revealing information about the post-9/11 surveillance system. UT even went after our state attorney general over this. A friend of mine said it best: "Never sue someone when they have a law school."
The whole reference to UTWatch in the article creeped me out. UTWatch is a student-run organization which follows up on what the regents and other suits do. Like Ralph Nader in the 70s, its a mere watchdog organization checking if proposed policies will adversely affect the student body at large. Recently they have been very vocal speaking out concerning tuitition deregulation and the involvement of UT managing the Los Alamos laboratories. Not simply fact checkers, UTWatch does get involved when it smells something fishy.
I applaud what Mark Miller did. There is all sorts of cool things under the ground here at UT. Under ENS and RLM you can find a retired tokamak! More than just he are interested in whats buried. Simply put, what UT did (assuming it did something to spur this) simply lacked honor.
"But, assuming he's not a terrorist, why did this student want to know about the underground tunnels?"
Replace "underground tunnels" with anything else, and you realize exactly how inane this question is.
The point is you shouldn't be investigated just because you want some information. You don't see FBI questioning bio majors or chem majors at colleges, do you? (Not happening yet but if this terorism BS keeps up then maybe they'll imprison them).
There's no good information or bad information. There's just information. The problems arise when you start introducing people.
If I want to learn about something or want to know something, it's nobody's god damn business other than my own. You don't tell the government when you learn a new programming language, even though you could write viruses in it. You don't tell the government where you're going when you buy a car, even though you could use it to smuggle explosives.
Your stand-point on this issues is chilling to say the least. Do you actually want to provide a reason to big brother everytime you want some information? Do you want to file a report everytime you search the web for fertilizer?
~X~
"Clues on eBay! Starting bid is $.01!"
~X~
Now if he is denied the right to board an airplane from this point forward and put on one of the terrorist watch lists the government wishes to share with private industry and hence potential employers, then yes, I would see a VERY SERIOUS issue here.
I fully expect that the FOIA will be repealed or severely scaled back within the next few years. It won't happen during an election year but it will happen.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
The feds should never have been visibly involved in something so trivial unless there was an indication of something else.
It seems that without another cause, this would constitute coersion in order to deny access to information which is otherwise not secret. Even if they "approve" the request, there is a chilling effect on other requests. Probably the intent.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
September 11 could have been prevented with the information that was available at the time, before the patriot act or any other recent erosions of civil liberties had taken place. The problem, according to most of the evidence at the inquiry and a lot of analysis and commentary, both official and unofficial, was not that the police/FBI/CIA didn't have the information, but that they were unable to put it together due to cross-institutional barriers and a general lack of cooperation and coordination.
Read Pynchon.
But if all they did was ask and he volentarily answered then not a big deal as far as I'm concerned.
The problem there is that we no longer have any real rights. Now, before you dismiss me for taking some kind of extremist view, think of it this way:
The governemt currently can, at its option, declare you an "enemy combatant", with no due process or judicial review. Then they can detain these "enemy combatants" indefinitely. Hence, if he told them to bugger off when they questioned him, they may see that as being suspicious, and decide he'd make a good Enemy Combatant.
Rights that can be arbitrarily taken away at any time aren't rights at all. They're an illusion. What it boils down to is that you have a right to due process, except when the government says you don't.
I am a liberal, and I can't stand Bush, but I can't possibly fathom your stance, (poster or moderator,) which I feel actively encourages terrorism.
For Someone who can't stand bush, you already bought into his fear mongering and propaganda.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
This may be the single most short-sighted and ignorant post I have ever seen on Slashdot.
Al Qaeda does not blow shit up for "fun" or because it's "cool." They do it for many reasons, and these reasons are not difficult to comprehend. They attack in protest of America's support of Israel. They despise Israel for both occupying one of their holiest lands (Jerusalem) and for oppressing their brothers (the Palestinians.) Regardless of the political motivations involved in keeping the Palestinians as a stateless people, followers of al Qaeda do consider this a serious issue. Usama bin Laden's biggest stated issue is of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the Muslim holy land. He's said as much time and again.
Of course, the solution is not to give in, because the crimes have already been committed. We have already defiled their holy land, and have already supported Israel, and this will be used as continued justification for their attacks far into the future. There are two main problems, though, in combating terrorists like al Qaeda. The first is that we have no realistic win-win method for dealing with them. If we kill them, they're martyrs, and they only inspire more to join their cause. If we capture them, they don't care if they die or not, so the humiliation of captivity will drive them (more or less) to suicidal acts, and like-minded individuals will see it as further justification for more violence. If we do nothing, they will still seek to destroy us. The second problem is that they are not bound by any "rules of war" we try to observe. Their specialty is asymmetrical warfare. They cannot compete with us on grounds of technology or training, but they absolutely surpass us in the sheer gutsiness and spectacle of their attacks. It is difficult to fight someone who does not share your rules of engagement or care what government you represent. This is a major, major problem that people often fail to understand. Al Qaeda does not simply stand against the USA and our military. They stand against Western civilization itself. They do not want to endure cultural imperialism, and may see violence as the only means to hold it off. This is not as simple as Bush's claim that they "hate freedom." They do not share the same concepts of rights and freedoms as we do, but that does not make them bad people. That they kill civilians to achieve their ends makes them bad people.
Al Qaeda is only the tip of the iceberg as terrorism goes. We will never be able to defeat them or those like them as long as there is a division between Western civilization and the Islamic world. No amount of war will ever unite us, unless we simply kill them all. And if we can't kill them all, maybe it will suffice to conquer and demoralize them. And even that won't work for long.
Check out my world simulator thingy.