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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."
I know the guy (Mark A Miller) being described in this article. I use IRC mostly as a contact list, and have a channel for users of my unremarkable non-profit server. Mark has been a regular in my small (under 20 people) channel for months. I know this is the same guy as the Mark Miller in this article because the user in my channel talked incessantly about these freedom of information act requests, months ago.
[04/13 00:16] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Ah.
[04/13 00:17] <@Mirell[Mobile]> District Attorney Office. Forgot to go by that.
[04/13 00:17] <@dyfrgi> Why do you want/need to?
[04/13 00:17] <@Mirell[Mobile]> To file a writ of mandumus against UT Austin.
[04/13 00:18] <@Mirell[Mobile]> They are ignoring one of my open records request.
[04/13 00:18] <@Mirell[Mobile]> To find out how much they pay for their Internet service.
[04/13 00:18] <@mspencer> "one of"?
[04/13 00:18] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Okay, several of.
[04/13 00:18] <@Mirell[Mobile]> They initiall complied.
[04/13 00:19] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Now they're ignoring me hoping I'll go away.
[04/13 00:19] <@mspencer> I'm surprised you've filed even one open records request, let alone several.
[04/13 00:19] <@mspencer> What are you using the data for?
[04/13 00:19] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Er?
[04/13 00:19] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Why are you suprised?
[04/13 00:20] <@mspencer> I mean, as long as you're being adult about it, and making sure your need for the data is worth the time they need to put into filling those requests.
[04/13 00:20] <@dyfrgi> Writ of Mandumus?
[04/13 00:20] <@Mirell[Mobile]> mspencer,
[04/13 00:20] <@mspencer> So what are you using the data for?
[04/13 00:20] <@Mirell[Mobile]> To satiate my curiousity.
[04/13 00:21] <@Mirell[Mobile]> I'm not sure if that's how you spell it, dyfrgi.
[04/13 00:21] <@mspencer> Do you think those requests are having any kind of negative effect on the University or its staff?
[04/13 00:21] <@dyfrgi> I'm just wondering what it is.
[04/13 00:22] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Let's see...I requested initially any contracts or invoices detailing the cost the University entails in gaining Internet connectivity.
[04/13 00:22] <@dyfrgi> Mm. I assume you want to file a petition for a writ of madamus.
[04/13 00:22] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Then I filed another one for something they withheld on an invoice.
[04/13 00:22] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Then another one for another thing they left out..
[04/13 00:22] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Then one about the UT Classroom Web Cams they deny knowledge of
[04/13 00:23] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Then one about the UT Information Security Council briefs, since we had the Social Security Number scare.
[04/13 00:24] <@Mirell[Mobile]> And I'm not at all sure what you are trying to say by "Negative Affect" when they have a position who's sole purpose is to manage Open Records Requests.
[04/13 00:25] <@dyfrgi> I think he is implying that you should not ask, because it costs money for them to tell you.
[04/13 00:25] <@mspencer> I was deliberately vague: any effect, emotional or financial or otherwise, that is more significant than the benefit you get from satisfying your curiosity.
[04/13 00:26] <@Mirell[Mobile]> No.
[04/13 00:26] <@mspencer> hopefully there isn't one, but if there is, I'd like to think you considered that.
[04/13 00:26] <@bl0d> i dunno, i'd really be curious about the Webcam one...that's just fucked up...
[04/13 00:26] <@mspencer> Ah, OK then.
[04/13 00:26] <@Mirell[Mobile]> http://www.dailytexanonline.com/main.cfm?include=d etail&storyid=620962
[04/13 00:27] <@Mirell[Mobile]> They pull crap like this as well.
[04/13 00:27] <@Mirell[Mobile]> And this: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/main.cfm?include=d etail&storyid=657367
[04/13 00:27] <@Mirell[
I'm an undergrad at Caltech and here at least it's really popular to illegally enter the underground tunnel system for various reasons. There are all sorts of reasons for it -- you can get to classes when it's raining, you can get into buildings that would normally be locked at odd hours to turn in homework, etc. Also, some of our parties and other events have components in the tunnels and there's a bit of a cultural legacy associated with them as well -- people who attend the school are often given midnight tours highlighting various murals and the like. I've heard that this is popular at Carnegie Mellon as well.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
Scene: Interview
Interviewer "So have you ever been convicted of a felony"
Mark "No"
Interviewer "Have you ever been investigated for terrorist activites?"
Mark "well.. there was this one time in college..."
Interviewer "OK thanks we'll call you" (calls security)
I've seen comments saying "he could have denied the meeting or walked away". I'm sure that wouldn't inflame the agents curiosity even more. The question about the ACLU was really out of line. Personally I think he should join the ACLU before making any other requests and then pull the card out if any other agents stop by.
the sentiment that I have to agree with is American citizens making FOIA requests should NOT trigger investigations.
I used to be a resident of the UT system and heard all about the tunnels - even got to pass through one between ENS and RLM on a tour once. Would have loved to have gotten a big map of the tunnels to overlay the standard UT map just to see how quickly I COULD get from RLM to anywhere else but never thought to file a FOIA request ... Duh!
.. not surprised the SS got involved ... Y'all know one of the Bush twins attends UT right ... The SS has been all over UT since summer of 2000. They're discrete but not exactly in hiding.
But
First of all, my government's power would not be the product of my people, but rather would be the product of myself. Freedom would be a priveledge extended by the state, not by the Almighty Creator. In fact, if any religious propaganda, such as a plaque of the Ten Commandments, be found anywhere, said propaganda would immediately be removed.
Second, everybody would be my slave. Nobody would be allowed to do anything without government approval in the form of licenses (from driver licenses to business permits to rental unit occupation permits), because otherwise they would be considered terrorists and would have all of their property seized for my use.
Third, a tax system would be put into effect to steal half of everybody's income, from a numeric standpoint. I would pass legislation to make it extremely difficult to purchase and own property, and renters would be affected by high prices because their landlords would similarly have to make ends meet. Thus, with this tax system and property ownership legislation, both parents would have to work very hard to feed their children, and would be so concerned with making ends meet that they would ignore the above, because there are more pressing matters (food) to worry about. (The same tax system would further benefit me by providing detailed information, down to the finest detail, of everybody's business, because they would need to detail the source of every penny of income, and back it up with evidence. Failure to do this would constitute a felony, and would be selectively enforced to strike fear into peoples' hearts.) To steal the other half of everybody's money, the money itself would not be backed by anything of value. Thus it would be easy to continuously print money, thereby constantly increasing the total amount in circulation. This way, my government would steal the peoples' money, without reducing the amount they have from a numeric standpoint, by stealing the value of their money.
Fourth, the educational system would basically turn out people who can barely read, so they won't be smart enough to figure out what I'm doing to them.
Fifth, there would be propaganda all over the place telling people how free they are, etc.
That's how I'd run a government, if I were the king of my own country.
This reminds me of a kid I knew when he was in high school, back in the Vietnam War era (when the internal security systems of the various levels of government in the US had gotten 'WAY out of control).
..."
His use of a university's computer while a high school student (something he got started on as a guinea pig in a University program doing research on learning and teaching) had attracted the attention of the FBI.
A couple years later he decided to use the shiny-new FOIA to see what records the FBI and the state and local cops had on him. And while he was at it, he sent FOIA requests to several other agencies.
The first one he sent to the CIA was a classic self-referential hack: He requested their internal document describing their procedure for responding to FOIA requests. B-) (Obviously useful for generating the next round of requests, too.)
Needless to say the agencies involved didn't respond as required by the law. So with the aid of a Libertarian lawyer he started suing them. He won, and they eventually were ordered to give him what he asked for. Then they flaked on that, too, and he got a contempt citation and more court orders. Eventually he got much of his info (with big chunks blacked out). Then he sued them for his lawyer's fees and won that, too.
After a few iterations of this he was sitting on quite a number of interesting documents. So he started a newspaper to give them wider circulation and created a business of generating FOIA requests and publishing the results. This became quite popular with the CIA watcher, privacy advocate, private detective, and tinfoil-hat sets. Advertising revenue flowed in from such folk as buging and debugging equipment manufacturers.
At one point he got the petty cash records from a New York area CIA office. Items he found in it charged to one project (air compressor, flit guns, briefcase, auto exhaust system, washing a car) led to blowing the lid off a project to obtain information on how a biowarfare plague might spread in an urban environment by exposing the citizens of New York City to a "mostly harmless" bug that caused severe enough respiratory system symptoms that it could be tracked by hospital admissions. (Spread techniques included spraying subways with the bug from the gimmicked briefcase and spraying commuter traffic via the car's exhaust system.)
He also got hold of and published one year's version of the IRS procedures manual. And put out a pamphlet on how to use the FOIA. (Eventually he was enjoined from distributing either of these.)
Eventually the FOIA was modified to give the security agencies some loopholes against such requests.
Bob Dylan had something to say about this: "You have to pay to keep from going through these things twice." Also Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of Liberty must be watered, from time to time
He's still out there doing stuff like this, by the way. Last time he looked he had a web site dedicated to exposing personal information trading in the information age.
The above-mentioned kid was part of the Boomer's round. I guess now it's Generation X's (or maybe Y's) turn to pay some dues. (Sigh.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
9/11 wasn't really terrorism, either. At least not how it's conventionally thought of. Al Quaeda has about as much in common with Hezbolla or something as the US Army does.
None of these people really felt harmed by us, even in their own heads. The motivation is more along the lines of a script kiddie. The US is the target because it's the greatest challenge. The logic of the attacks isn't to cause damage, death, or even really fear. It's more the elegence of the plan itself that's the deciding factor. Hence the embassies exploding simultaneously and trying to film your exploding tugboats. There's no reason to do that, other than that it's cool.
That's pretty much Ramzi Yousef's fault. He's tough to understand, but he's the guy behind pretty much everything big Al Quaeda's ever done and/or tried. The first WTC bombing, the dozen simultaneous exploding airliners crashing into the CIA building at midnight on New Years, and then sticking those two together, 9/11. This is why Osama looked so much like just a fundraiser up until recently. You have trained engineers coming up with crazy shit like that, and then you also have tens of thousands of 6th-grade-educated gun-nuts from the Arab equivailent of Michigan running around doing obstacle courses and then training random bunches of people in what are essentially US military tactics. They end up meshing pretty damn well, but it's not intuitive.
This is why Al Quaeda gets so much attention. They're just very, very good at blowing shit up and killing people, and they have no ideology. It's "the base", the vision is that they teach anybody who wants to know how to cause as much damage as is humanly possible. The Anarchist's Cookbook transformed into a university with grant money and facilities and everything.
Because that's there (and it just moved in with the Pashtuns now, invading Afghanistan did about shit) it's doubly important not to piss anybody off. It's ok to kill Luke's dad as long as you're the Empire, but once fucking Obi-Wan is hanging around in the caves in western Pakistan handing out free lightsabres and midichlorians to every dumbass that wanders in, you better make damn sure not to give anybody a reason to head down there.