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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.
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.
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.
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
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.