FBI Wants To Limit Document Searches

An anonymous reader writes "In what seems to be in opposition to the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI is seeking to limit document searches. It seems since now that a lot of documents are in electronic form, searching them is much easier than before, and for that reason the FBI is taking this action."

Comments

Wow.

[Tavor]

Sounds like they have something to hide.

FBI needs to...

[Anonymous Coward]

do a better job of covering up their classified documents.

Not so bad, but not so good either

[the_mad_poster]

That's not exactly what's going on here. The FBI is in hot water because they didn't dig up already-released documents in a later FOIA request. Their argument is that the search was sufficient, not that they shouldn't have had to do it at all.

While they may be intentionally stunting their software search capabilities, it seems less likely that this is some malicious attempt on our freedoms and very likely that it's pure laziness on their part. The government has never been too happy about having to handle FOIA requests because they take time and money. When someone comes along and makes one, it's often easier for them to fight it than to use the resources required to dig up the info.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[nnappe]

The government has never been too happy about having to handle FOIA requests because they take time and money.
Yeah, of course that's the reason. Not that they have anything to hide.
After all, everyone knows the government HATES to spend money, right?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sarcasm is lost on people who actually understand how government works...

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[nwbvt]

Well in this case, the issue is whether or not an automated search that (like any automated search) will once in a while miss a document or two is adequate (don't just read the summary, the submitter failed to RTFA and has no clue what the actual issues are). If it is determined that it is not adequate, that would require individual people to manually sift through each and every document, carefully reading each one, for each document request made. That would require a lot of time and money.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[medelliadegray]

While you could attribute this to laziness. I would not like the government to be in the position of deciding what point a FOIA request is sufficently fulfilled, especially if it skips over previously released FOIA docs. Just because a doc is released under the FOIA act, it does not necessarly become released to the public unless the requestor makes it available.

Now, if they limited it to not retrieving the same document twice for the SAME requestor in which two requests overlapped. that i think would be acceptable. so long as there's still a "hi i lost said documents i previously requested, can i get another copy" kind of fallback.

call me paranoid, but if the govt filtered any document previously relesed... they just have to have someone with close ties to the govt request said document which they do not want in public hands, and it'd never get released again. woot, easy coverup!

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[ScentCone]

Yeah, of course that's the reason. Not that they have anything to hide. After all, everyone knows the government HATES to spend money, right?

You don't actually spend much time understanding how agencies work or are funded, huh? There really isn't much of an entity called "the government." Each agency or department operates with funding that is dictated from the outside (usually with congressional authority, sometimes with some discretionary authority from the executive branch). Even when the judicial branch orders that the other branches do something, normal funding procedures have to kick in.

The point is, each agency has a budget. They can't exceed it. A single FOI inquiry can occupy several or even dozens of federal employees for days or weeks. One request, from one person. Now: every time some activist organization sends its troops to DC to make a stink about something, you end up with dozens or hundreds of requests for much the same data/documents, but all worded a litte differently, and requiring redundent attention. Essentially, every agency of the government has had to hugely expand its staff, filing, IT, etc., for the sole purpose of honoring these requests.

Note: I don't think that's a bad thing - the government's operations should always err on the side of transparency, except where doing so would jeopardize lives or important strategic issues surrounding defense, security, and personal privacy. But: the very same people that like to bitch about the government are also happy to spend thousands and thousands of all of our dollars doing what amounts to Denial Of Service Attack on the agency they're nagging. They should ask for information they rationally need, but they should also consider this:

If a typical FOI request to, say, the DOD (perhaps for "all records related to person X and his immediate supervisors/command") occupies half a dozen record clerks for several man-hours each, plus communications/infrastructure costs and the other overhead... the person making that request has probably just "spent" more money than they even paid in federal taxes that year. People who make dozens of such requests during a year are basically forcing dozens of us taxpayers to put all of our taxable effort into covering those requests. To the extent that many of them are frivalous, that's something those people should keep in mind. Of course, those are often the same people that keep thinking "it's only the government's money" (when it's really yours and mine), and then also bitch about budget deficits. Moderation in all things, please, and please note that the conspiratorial tone doesn't sound as pursuasive without the X-Files soundtrack playing in the background. Watch less TV and read some actual information - it will make you want to vote for people that are trying to streamline and minimize the government, not bloat it more and more to service interests that don't actually produce anything.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

that would require individual people to manually sift through each and every document, carefully reading each one, for each document request made

Not "for each document request made". Just once- to index all the documents.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[ScentCone]

Now, if they limited it to not retrieving the same document twice for the SAME requestor in which two requests overlapped. that i think would be acceptable. so long as there's still a "hi i lost said documents i previously requested, can i get another copy" kind of fallback.

Of course, I can only imagine the infrastructure and beaurocracy needed to track that requirement. It may be easier for some agencies just to dig for the info again than it would be to see for whom they've dug and for what, how often and how recently... that sort of thing is hard enough (money-wise) in a commercial setting where customer service like that is the mission. When your mission is, say, preventing forest fires or tracking down currency counterfeiters, you'll be more inclined to spend what budget you have on fire prevention equipment, more detectives/agents, etc. Or just to pay your people better so that the best ones will stick around, run a better agency, make everyone happier, and cut down on the whining need for all of these FOIA requests in the first place!

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

A single FOI inquiry can occupy several or even dozens of federal employees for days or weeks.

Then maybe they should get their shit together and electronically index all their documents. Then a FOI request would take a single clerk a few seconds typing into a search engine.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[ScentCone]

Then maybe they should get their shit together and electronically index all their documents. Then a FOI request would take a single clerk a few seconds typing into a search engine

Do you have any idea how many billions of dollars that would cost? Many FOIA requests are for information produced, on paper, generations ago. In the case of the FBI, for example, the records from a single investigation 20 years ago could involve tens of thousands of documents stored in boxes all over the country. But those may never be requested, and indexing/imaging all of that would be even worse than what they've got now. Better to do it right going forward, and save us all those billions.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[demachina]

I'd agree the situation here is not clear though I imagine the FBI, or more probably their masters in White House and the Pentagon, developed a strong desire to frustrate and stonewall FOIA seraches when these. surfaced.

Of concern, DOD interrogators impersonating Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI told a detainee that REDACTED. These same interrogation teams then REDACTED. The detainee was also told by this interrogation team REDACTED. These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee. If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done the FBI interrogators. The FBI will be left holding the bag before the public.

Not sure how much truth there this is to Seymour Hersh's recent expose on Pentagon special ops in Iran, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bush administration is duping Hersh' and feeding him all this to rattle cages around the globe and at home. If its true though it tends to suggest the Bush administration is making one Presidential finding after another in which they are giving the Pentagon a blank check to wage the war on "Terrorism" without congressional oversight, with complete disregard for the integrity of borders of sovereign nations, some probably ostensibly American allies, and most probably with complete disregard for the Geneva conventions and U.S. law against torturing prisoners. I'm pretty sure you send an FOIA request to the Pentagon you will get back sheets of wide black magic marker lines.

From Hersh's article:

"The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia."

"The Presidents decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the booksfree from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A. domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.) The Pentagon doesnt feel obligated to report any of this to Congress, the former high-level intelligence official said. They dont even call it covert opsits too close to the C.I.A. phrase. In their view, its black reconnaissance. Theyre not even going to tell the CINCsthe regional American military commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)"

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[anon*127.0.0.1]

But if a search misses a document, someone should go back and figure out why the document was skipped, and if that's a situation that needs to be addressed. People "miss" documents because they're human. Computers don't miss documents, they fail to select them because there's a hole in their search parameters.

In this case, the document requestor provided several relevant and unique pieces of information in his document request. The FBI failed to produce all the documents pertaining to that request, and the requestor only learned about the documents because they surfaced in another case. The FBI can't explain why they didn't produce the documents intially, but they still maintains that it performed a proper search and it's not their fault that the documents were missed.

Sorry, that does not compute.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[nwbvt]

If you search on Google for something and don't get what you want, do you call up Google and accuse them of intentially leaving something out? No, because any search engine is not going to be perfect. Whether or not this particular engine is adequate, I'm not willing to argue as I have not studied it. However, you cannot argue that search engines have to be perfect because that simply is not possible.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Doc Ruby]

Google is not the FBI. Google's profits depend on "good enough" searches - that's one of their secrets to success. The FBI is required by law to do certain things exactly. That's why we spend billions of dollars on them, and give them such wideranging powers to infringe our freedom, to protect us and preserve our open society. When a Google search isn't good enough, of course you don't complain to Google (unless you're perhaps a giant customer). You use their competition. The FBI is a monopoly. So when a FOIA search isn't good enough, of course complaints must feed back into improving the search. This is yet another example of how government isn't like business, when it works.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[emotionus]

So uh...as documents are requested you scan them in the database?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[nwbvt]

I'm not arguing whether or not the FBI is abusing their monopoly over accesss to certain information by making a half-assed search engine. I'm arguing that a perfect search engine simply does not exist. A perfect search algorithm simply does not exist. Thus you cannot require the FBI (or anyone for that matter) to implement a perfect search engine.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[demachina]

"Watch less TV and read some actual information - it will make you want to vote for people that are trying to streamline and minimize the government, not bloat it more and more to service interests that don't actually produce anything."

If you can cite some numbers showing how much the DOD actually spends on the FOIA maybe I'll subscribe to your arguement, I personally wager its a fly speck in their budget but I can't immediately find the figure in Google. Whatever it is its a really small price to pay to allow the public and watchdog groups to shine some light on the workings of the government. I am pretty confident the actual fraud, waste, abuse and pork in our government, which the FOIA is designed to help root out, far outstrips anything we spend on the FOIA.

I assure you it does produce priceless information especially in the hands of experienced watchdog groups like EPIC and the ACLU, that more than make up for all the frivolous requests. Here are EPIC's annual FOIA summaries.

Here are some recent gems uncovered by the ACLU. The only thing that suggests the FOIA is a waste of money is dynamite like this comes out, its in the news a day or two and then it disappears in to a black hole. These discoveries indicate our government is violating the most basic tenets of what our country and its Constitution stand for and we as citizens just don't care, neither we or elected representatives do anything about, and it just continues on unchecked. The DOD assembles a jury of biased soliders and hangs a few grunts for Abu Graib and we as citizens choose to ignore that the use of torture is OBVIOUSLY widespread and a matter of policy in the DOD and the FOIA shows this. It is no doubt endorsed at the highest levels and we do nothing about it.

All in all it sure would be interesting to find how much fraud, waste and abuse has been uncovered by the FOIA and whistelblower laws to see if they in fact pay for themselves, many times over, though much of it is intangible, if for example it stopped people from being tortured by our government and in our name, what price tag would you put on that.

So even if it is costing us a lot its a small price to pay to weed out corruption, abuse and incompetence in our government. On the other hand if the Bush administration in particular manages to completely frustrate legitimate FOIA requests as they are want to do then yes, it is a complete waste of money. If that becomes the case that is not the fault of the law but of the people whose legal duty it is to implement it, and those people are working against the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives in Congress and when that happens we don't live in the representative Democracy we've been led to believe we do.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Doc Ruby]

I'm not arguing for perfection, either. I'm arguing only for mandatory feedback to improve the system, not a policy of "take it or leave it" when searches fail at the FBI. The Constitution itself is established only "in order to form a more perfect union". No more, and no less.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[w9wi]

Does this quote bother anyone else?:

" Hardy acknowledged, however, that the indices are not complete. "The FBI does not index every name in its files," Hardy told the court. Other than the subject, suspects and victims, names in FBI files are indexed at the discretion of the investigating agent and supervisors if they are "considered pertinent, relevant or essential for future retrieval." "

If a deficient index makes it impossible to answer FOIA requests from outside personnel... doesn't it also make it impossible to answer internal requests from the FBI's own agents? What happens if the investigating agent misjudges the relevance of a name to future investigations?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[kjamez]

which is why real men "backup their files to an ftp site and lets others mirror it" ... if the information was readily available (assuming they DON'T have anything to hide) to search/index, they wouldn't have to occupy their employee's to do these searches. Let the people search for themselves, they have nothing to hide, right?

erase the fbi.gov/robots.txt file, let google crawl the entire archive, and bam: FOIA-hand-delivered.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[radish]

All of which might make some kind of sense if the people in question (inmates at Abu Garib) were actually terrorists. They're not. Even by the US governments own admission these are people arrested for things like looting, stealing food, maybe being friends with someone the US doesn't like. Just imagine, if you will, being in their situation. Some other country has invaded your country, supposedly to "liberate" you. But your family is short of food so you go and take some from a burnt out supermarket down the street. The soldiers arrest you, and you vanish to this hell hols jail. Where a bunch of uniformed kids entertain themselves by abusing you.

How do you feel? Pretty pissed I would imagine. What the US is doing is wrong, plain and simple. Even if these people are involved with fighting (and I repeat, the US has itself admitted most are not) then they deserve a trial. What happened to justice? What happened to innocent until proven guilty IN A COURT OF LAW? Doesn't that apply to people with brown skin? Not to mention that the US has basically turned the whole of Iraq into one big terriorist recruitment camp. Don't you see how you're sealing your own fate to be fighting the absurd and useless war forever?

You sicken me, and I am ashamed to be part of the same species as you.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[ftzdomino]

If you truly hate the Iraqi people, then surely you support an immediate withdrawal from their country?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

While they may be intentionally stunting their software search capabilities, it seems less likely that this is some malicious attempt on our freedoms and very likely that it's pure laziness on their part. The government has never been too happy about having to handle FOIA requests because they take time and money. When someone comes along and makes one, it's often easier for them to fight it than to use the resources required to dig up the info.

As one who works for the federal government, the word came down from the Department of Justice a while back that agencies would be supported if they decided to resist FOIA requests. Here's a link to the most public declaration of this policy:

http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/2001foiapost19.h tm

Also, FOIA requests are NOT free to the requestor --- the agency is allowed to bill for its time and reproduction costs.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[demachina]

"I still can't get over this Abu Graib thing."

Maybe you should be locked up in a prison on suspicion of a crime, especially a crime you didn't commit, and be tortured and sexually humiliated in front of a camera and then have those pictures shown to your friends and family if not the whole world.

Here , read this, its the testimony of one of the people tortured at Abu Graib. He was and is being held on "suspicion" of theft, not terrorism or decapitating people or anything he had been convicted of. Try putting yourself in his shoes while you are reading it and maybe you will stop being such an arrogant American dick.

I don't think ANY of the people tortured in Abu Graib were "terrorists" that had decapitated peoples. Most of them were people arrested for ordinary crimes, especially looting which EVERYONE in Iraq was doing after the invasion, or innocent people just caught up in dragnets when the U.S. was rounding up people looking mostly in vain for insurgents and Saddam loyalists.

Its key, NONE of the people in Abu Ghraib had been "convicted" of anything. They were suspects. You are basicly dropping the bar so low that the U.S. government can arrest and torture anyone, anywhere on suspicion, and maybe torture a confession out of them that isn't worth the paper its printed on. If they aren't found to be guilty of anything how do you justify torturing them?

You are in fact endorsing EXACTLY the same thing the U.S. has been so indignant about Saddam doing and used as an excuse to overthrow him. The stuff you are taking about is the antithesis of the "Freedom and Democracy" the Bush administration cons everyone in to thinking we brought to Iraq. It is a key reason the Iraqi people have become to despise the U.S. occupation force so much because it managed, with ease, to put itself at the same level as Saddam with arbitrary arrests, torture and killing innocent civilians, often women, children and wounded, unarmed combatants.

All in all you should probably turn in your U.S. citizenship because you have NO CLUE what your country is supposed to stand for, in particular due process is the most basic underpinning of the rule of law and if you chose to cast it aside for some people its a matter of time its thrown aside for everyone, you included, and you have a police state no different from Saddam's.

As for Geneva conventions not applying in Iraq they most certainly do. Its legal hair splitting if they apply to Al Qaida but they sure as hell apply to Iraq. When your nation invades and occupies a sovereign nation there are most definitely rules on how you treat the civilian population of that occupied country, they most definitely apply to the U.S. as a signatory no matter how much you and the Bush administration want to pretend they don't. They forbid:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; ...
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

The U.S. has done EVERY one of these in Iraq.

If you want to cast aside U.S. adherence to the Geneva conventions then DON'T get mad if American's are taken as prisoners of war, in the upcoming war in Iran for example, if they are tortured and sexually humiliated, you've given every American adversary the rationale to do it and the world which just say America is getting what it deserves. You better also hope that you are never in place that is invaded and occupied because again you are giving the invading army a blank check to arrest, torture, sexually humiliate and kill you because you are an American who has chosen to cast aside the Geneva conventions.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[karmatic]

http://www.fbi.gov/robots.txt

What robots.txt?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[PPGMD]

You really think that everything is on a public web server?

What about the millions of pounds of paper documents that are still sitting in warehouses across the country, or the thousands of reels of microfiche?

This is the stuff that they are talking about, when they want to limit the search, each FOIA request is not like some clerk going to google, they have to look up paper or microfiche archives for most stuff that is more than 20-30 years old.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. It's time lost that could better be spent eating donuts and spying on political enemies.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. If the state is innocent, then why does it always hide things?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[kjamez]

no, i was just pointing out HOW easy it could be indexed. they say they have digitized 'some' but can't be accountable for making sure all the appropriate words are x-ref'd and/or indexed. google seemingly has no trouble finding a single keyword in a mass ammount of data. if the archive were digitized, it *could* be searched with no problem, but the public, or by the FBI themselves. no manpower required (except the cost of digitizing/maintaining the archive, which admittingly would not be an easy task)

my reference to robots.txt was simply symbolic, and if everything in the fbi archives WERE online, we'd have more privacy issues arrise than problems solved regarding the FOIA.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[symbolic]

But: the very same people that like to bitch about the government are also happy to spend thousands and thousands of all of our dollars doing what amounts to Denial Of Service Attack on the agency they're nagging.

I wonder if you truly have any idea of the cost involved in an FOIA search. I don't. Here's the key though- the government wastes so much money in so many different ways- this particular form of waste, assuming it even exists, is one I'm certainly willing to tolerate. The day we can't find out what our own government is doing because it "costs too much" is the day that we should start planning to live with a very different notion of what it means to be "free".

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how many billions of dollars that would cost?

You tell me- would it cost more or less than "dozens of federal employees for days or weeks" for each and every request?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[dossen]

One simple problem could be, if the files were scanned, but not (perfectly) OCR'ed. Maybe the budgets do not permit reentry of the data in (fulltext) searchable form. Maybe all that is possible is scans and keywords. Just thinking out loud.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[ScentCone]

You tell me- would it cost more or less than "dozens of federal employees for days or weeks" for each and every request?

Actually, my informal estimate would be, yes, it would cost more. My inclination is to define policies that cut down on frivalous requests agains older, analog records, and to move full steam ahead with newer recordkeeping as the government's business proceeds. Over time, the expected inquiries will be against digital material, and we'll have avoided indexing untold hundreds of millions of documents.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[wsloand]

At least part of FOIA request costs must be paid for by the requester. It really doesn't cost the agency much.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

How 'bout using the 35%, read 140 billion 350 million, increase to the DOD budget since 2001? Would that be enough?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy20 05/defens e.html

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

...which is how, exactly? Please enlighten us ignorant plebians...

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[kjamez]

that's where the whole community that is OSS comes in and makes it work.

pipe-dream talking: 'open source' all of government (full disclosure, which is, in turn, my whole 'higginsforpresident' campaign [vote, 2028]) and there would be no question ...

i want to live in a world where my government is acting in my best interest, has ABSOLUTELY nothing to hide, and listens to it's people for answers. to me, OSS does that. the stuff is there for a reason, has nothing to hide, and public patches modifications and improvements are WELCOME. if only our government worked in such a manner, it's just not in their 'best interested' to make readily availble all the things they have done, because under the scrutiny that is 'the masses' sooooo many flaws and shortcomings would be pointed out.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[AstroDrabb]

Huh? If you search Google with the _same_ terms and get A,B,C as results the first time and someone else searches the same terms later and get A,D,E. Wouldn't you be a little suspicious? I know I would.

Oh, and Google is not a _government_ organization paid for by the tax payers money (our money). The FBI, NEED to be held to higher standards. "We" the people have given the FBI certain authority over us, and that authority comes with some restrictions. That means that the FBI _should_ never hide information from us. Sadly, the FBI and the CIA hide information from us U.S. citizens all the time.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, my informal estimate would be, yes, it would cost more.,/i>

For what time period? IF you spens a Billion today to index everything, that money only gets spent once. Your way, you'd have to spend money for EACH and EVERY request in the future. Eventually, those would total more than a Billion dollars.

My inclination is to define policies that cut down on frivalous requests agains older, analog records ...thereby allowing the FBI to bury it's past mistakes. "Did we shoot teargas at Waco? Sorry,I can't be bothered to look that up." "Did we suspend the normal Rules Of Engagement at Ruby Ridge? Sorry, I don't wanna get off my butt to look it up. But were gonna start indexing any new abus... er, actions, sometime Real Soon Now. Come back next decade, and we might be able to tell you what happened this year."

frivalous requests

Who defines "frivolous"? The FBI?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn tags...

Actually, my informal estimate would be, yes, it would cost more.

For what time period? IF you spens a Billion today to index everything, that money only gets spent once. Your way, you'd have to spend money for EACH and EVERY request in the future. Eventually, those would total more than a Billion dollars.

My inclination is to define policies that cut down on frivalous requests agains older, analog records ...thereby allowing the FBI to bury it's past mistakes. "Did we shoot teargas at Waco? Sorry,I can't be bothered to look that up." "Did we suspend the normal Rules Of Engagement at Ruby Ridge? Sorry, I don't wanna get off my butt to look it up. But were gonna start indexing any new abus... er, actions, sometime Real Soon Now. Come back next decade, and we might be able to tell you what happened this year."

frivalous requests

Who defines "frivolous"? The FBI?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

If I could moderate a post as "Heroic" I would do so for the parent.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[strikethree]

Not to be nitpicking or anything, but I would not call what happened at Abu Ghraib torture. Torture is a bit more severe: branding irons, severe electrical shocks, mutilation, etc. Let's call it abuse so we do not under-react when real torture occurs. This watering down of terms is getting quite annoying.

strike

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[sg_oneill]

i want to live in a world where my government is acting in my best interest, has ABSOLUTELY nothing to hide

I want to live in a world where government goes away and leave me alone.....

*dreams*

also, hell yeah on your idea. Open source government. Its gotta happen!

Hell, even the soviets, pre collapse with the whole glasnost and peristroika thing where far more open than our current western democracies. And thats saying something. :(

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[demachina]

I guess you'll be OK if I drop over and do some of that stuff to you then. It was most decidely psychological torture, sexual humiliation has a particularly sharp edge in the Arab world, that is a key reason it was being used to soften up Arab prisoners, and I wager people higher up than Sargents figured that fact out:

Maybe you didn't read the testimony of one of the victims:

"What do you think our feelings are? This has never happened to us before. I think I'm going to have an emotional breakdown. I want to kill myself because my friends, my family, all people in my neighborhood knew about this incident. When I get released how would I go and see these people? What's ironic is that the Americans are taking my rights. How would I go out right now and face the public with myself?"

The guy wants to commit suicide. I think you are the one watering down what happened there. Besides which the only torture that has come out of Iraq so far is the torture that someone was foolish enough to take pictures of. You have no clue how bad it might really be in places where no pictures are being taken. Thats the problem with opening this pandora's box, you really dont know how far out of hand its gotten. The only approach a civilized nation should have for abusing prisoners is zero tolerance and the Bush administration has instead repeatedly rationalized it and trivialized it just like you are.

Americans in various places have beaten prisoners to death, and in one case threw prisoners off a bridge. I think there were twenty or so known cases of prisoners killed at the hands of American soldiers between Afghanistan and Iraq back when Abu Graib broke.

NBC has video, which we've managed to forgot so soon, of a Marine walking up to a wounded, prostate and unarmed insurgent and summarily executing him in a Mosque. Americans forgot it and brushed it under the rug but Iraqi's and the Arab world won't.

CNN has footage from the original invasion of Marines shooting an obviously wounded and incapitated insurgent, with no weapon, in the back and finishing him off while they cheered the fine marksmenship.

I think one of the lessons here is if you are going to commit war crimes don't do it in front of a camera, or if you do destroy the film.

It is another one of those Geneva convention things, that American's are so indifferent to, that you provide medical care to the wounded, you don't kill them. You are also supposed to provide medical care to the civilian population. Here is another good interview of an Army medic who served in Iraq and is now speaking against the war. He indicates he was ordered to deny medical care to Iraqis unless it was a matter of life or limb. That is again a violation of the Geneva conventions on treatment of civilians in occupied countries.

All in all I think Americans really aren't a civilized people any more.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[arose]

First off they are SUBHUMAN to engage in that kind of behavior and deserve to be treated like the animals they are, plain and simple.

And what does this tell us about you?

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention: This is a damn good ocr'ed and EDITED file ! Now give me the ORIGINALS!

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

If your mother knew you'd turn out this way, I suspect she'd have killed herself before you were born.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Pubb]

"If you can cite some numbers showing how much the DOD actually spends on the FOIA maybe I'll subscribe to your arguement, I personally wager its a fly speck in their budget but I can't immediately find the figure in Google."

Perhaps we should file a FOIA request asking for the figures.

Pudd

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[raile]

"Torture is a bit more severe: branding irons, severe electrical shocks, mutilation, etc."

So Chinese Water Torture isn't torture? Solitary confinement for months on end isn't torture? Since when does the skin have to be breached before it can be called torture? Look up torture in any dictionary and make sure you know the meaning of what you're up in arms about being "watered down" first.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sooo much easier to just lop their heads off isn't it. I think that's the answer. Forget the hazing treatment from the prison where in the end you can still live.

We need to be more like the terrorists! Let's start lopping off more heads.

I don't believe the Geneva Conventions apply here as we aren't fighting an army. These are individual terrorists.

Re:Not so bad, but not so good either

[demachina]

Why don't you read the post before you starting running off at the mouth. If you read the post you might see the section where it says there is a whole section in the Geneva conventions, to which the U.S. is a signatory, on treatment of the civilian population in an occupied country. That is exactly what Iraq is and occupied country because the U.S. invaded it. This section has nothing to do with combatants uniformed or otherwise. It explicitly forbids degrading and humiliating civilians. Most of the people held in Abu Ghraib were civilians, being held on civil crimes, looting in particular and were not combatants uniformed or not. They were entitled to all the protections of the Geneva conventions on civilians in occupied countries.

Even if they weren't protected it just basic human decency to not torture and humiliate people for sport.

It just amazes me how ignorant Americans are or how desperate they are to engage in denial that their country does bad things and it isn't the towering pillar of perfection they think it is. Grow up.

Good thing it isn't up to them

[Dancin_Santa]

The government is much more than a little agency like the FBI. I'd rather keep my ability to get information about the comings and goings of my government, thank you very much.

Re:Good thing it isn't up to them

[Mistlefoot]

What is even scarier is the any agency could theoretically electronic archive ONLY materials that they don't mind being shared. Or since you can't convert everything immediatly - archive stuff you want hidden once you've archived everything else. This would actually seem the logical way to do things. Articles that "may" be secret should be read and re-read before being made public. An agency could simply create "3 piles". PUBLIC, TO BE DETERMINED, and SECRET when converting. They could they convert them electronically in that order.

Then if a request is made, do an electronic search, come up with nothing, and claim they 'did their best', while effectively not searching for anything that fit into the second category.

Re:Good thing it isn't up to them

[serutan]

Post early and get modded up! Obviously the poster didn't read the article. The issue is how hard the FBI should have to work to perform a given document search before giving up, and in particular it involves a lawsuit against the FBI for not searching hard enough. The FBI says that in this case they looked as hard as could be reasonably expected, the plaintiff says they didn't. It's a judgement call, and "thoroughness" is hard to quantify.

Useless data

[roseblood]

Maybe the FBI has problem with storage. With multi-GB HDDs out there they must be getting tired of storing the same VxDs and DLLs in their evidence lockers, not to mention all the storage taken up by porn. Or maybe their agents are spending all their time examining the already mentioned porn files for hidden messages.

Re:Useless data

[magefile]

Hidden what now? We're looking at these pictures for a reason?
-- G-man #6233629

Re:Useless data

[ScrewMaster]

Well ... I'll agree that they're probably examining the already-mentioned porn files, all right.

One Question?

[xPosiMattx]

Why should our ability to find the information that is available to use be limited? If this information is public shouldn't we be able to use it how ever or as efficiently as we wish?

Re:One Question?

[Scrameustache]

Why should our ability to find the information that is available to use be limited? If this information is public shouldn't we be able to use it how ever or as efficiently as we wish?

Then you would be watching the watchers, and they don't want that.

Re:One Question?

[KingPunk]

i smell some dirty laundry that the FBI doesn't want to be aired out by any joe-blow who wants to know after 18 months.

Re:One Question?

[St. Arbirix]

We pay them. Let google keep of their data for them.

Re:One Question?

[ScentCone]

If this information is public shouldn't we be able to use it how ever or as efficiently as we wish?

But are you willing to pay part of the billions of dollars (annually!) it would add to the federal budget to make all of that info that available? You can't run hundreds of federal activities involving millions of people and their records/transactions, and represent all of that data in some pleasant, "free" clearinghouse without someone footing the bill. Ask Google what it costs to do what they do every month... and then remember that most of what they index is only indexable because people running all of those web sites have prepared (frantically, and at often at great expense) their information exactly so that Google will find it and like it.

Then, think about every handwritten document, notepad, video tape, scan, or other arcane government-generated scrap of information, and what it would take to put it up in that way. I'd much rather see my tax dollars spent in better ways, and just make sure that those agencies, going forward, head towards the use of more natively researchable record keeping. They're already doing that, but at a manageable pace and cost.

Re:One Question?

[demachina]

"But are you willing to pay part of the billions of dollars (annually!) it would add to the federal budget to make all of that info that available?"

Yea actually I am. In fact I think it would be a small price to pay and it would actually result a dramatic improvement in government efficiency and probably pay for itself many times over in the long run. Maybe its not feasible to put all old paper docs on line but you sure could put all new documents on line and it would be a huge benefit, as long as they secure it properly.

The FBI is a great example. Well they did waste $170 million to try and create an on line system to make all their cases and records available electronicly to their agents, agency wide. They botched it completely but that is because of incompetence of government contractors who are there to soak up your tax dollars instead of doing a good job. It was a great idea just badly executed and they should have used off the shelf open source software put together by a small team of smart, probably unemployed, open source programmers and not a pork laden government contractor.

If you got someone competent to do it, like Google for example though they would never get entangled in a government contar, and all the FBI's records were available online then:

A. The could quickly answer FOIA requests, especially moving forward (putting all the old documents on line is still problematic but at least you are fixing the problem from this point on).

B. The FBI, if it had this system in place in 2000 might have actually caught on to the fact muslim extremists were training in American flight schools to take off and not land airliners. They had the information in their files it just wasn't being communicated throughout the agency. If the FBI had all its information online in an internal google they might well have stopped 9/11 and how much would that have saved this country, that price tag is probably in the trillions by now if you count wasteful government spending, two wars and the untolled economic damage since.

The FBI..

[neo_mushroom]

...Takes every opurtunity they get to cover up or to hide things, thats the nature of their business. It scare people that they know stuff that we don't, but if they were perfectly open, they would be a useless waste of tax money ;-)

Re:first post!

[Tavor]

Doh. Forgot I had it set on "highest scores first"...

the FBI just doesn't get it

[Lawrence_Bird]

The beuraucratic culture at FBI headquarters and regional
offices are to blame for this and many other woes. I know
a retired field agent that was in counter-intel and he has
nothing good to say about agency management.

I don't think this is so much an overt effort to hide any
one particular document(s) but just a widely prevalent
'we don't give a damn what you want'. Laziness and CYA
mentality are to blame.

Re:the FBI just doesn't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this is so much an overt effort to hide any one particular document(s) but just a widely prevalent 'we don't give a damn what you want'. Laziness and CYA mentality are to blame.

The problem seems to be the 'we don't give a damn what you want' attitude goes so far as to justify a complete ignoring of the FOIA. It's definitely not particular to one document request, but seems to be systematic.

As another example, in the late 1990s I requested files from the FBI under both the FOIA and the privacy act that contain information on myself by following the instructions on the ACLU website. Rather than actually search their records, the FBI simply replied that since I had never been charged with a crime, there weren't any files.

The problem goes beyond laziness at the FBI. Performing the search is certainly easier than filing a court motion. Yet challenging it in court is what they decided to do. It is clear to me from the article that the search in question wasn't even close to a reasonable effort.

Part of the problem with future electronic searchs of FBI records will be names in FBI files are indexed at the discretion of the investigating agent and supervisors if they are "considered pertinent, relevant or essential for future retrieval." (TFA) Perhaps full text indexing would normally produce a lot of hits, however for the keywords that the requestor supplied, it should have narrowed it down. Yet the FBI has decided to leave the indexing upto the discresion of the agents and supervisors, who don't seem to want scrutiney.

The FOIA is under assult from a lot of other government agencies too. One of the big changes is that now most documents are "For Official Use Only" (FOUO) which makes them exempt from FOIA for a large number of years.

Re:the FBI just doesn't get it

[lew3004]

What's wrong with the CYA scenario? I do it every day I go to work. It should be SOP.

Re:the FBI just doesn't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is that the FBI is a political organization (that is the admin has a lot of control). Good example was the spying that the FBI did recently on a democrat gov. in the northeast recently.

OTH, the NSA and CIA have prided themselves on not being under the admin's control and remaining above politics. With the new changes, I do not think that either will be so.

Re:the FBI just doesn't get it

[Lawrence_Bird]

you bring up some good points. I'll toss in part of the
problem too is that the time and money involved in properly
indexing and then acting fully on FOIA requests is probably
not there. Congress should (and wont) mandate seperate
budgeting for this archival and retrieval process.

And as for the FOUO docs, I wasn't aware of that. I do know that the past 10-15 years have been a horrible slip sliding
away of public access to just about anything

Usless roseblood

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA BITCH!
MOD THE PARENT DOWN!
RTFA BITCH!
MOD THE PARENT DOWN!
RTFA BITCH!
MOD THE PARENT DOWN!
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.

How long until the FOIA is dissolved?

[stealth24]

Let's see, there's the Patriot act, and now this is being considered... This sounds doubleplusungood to me. (sorry, had to get my paranoia quota for the day)

Re:Balance

[necrogram]

FIOA makes some provions for secuirty and the like. The problem with FIOA isnt what it covers, but the vaguess on how it should be intrested. Its not just the FBI that has issues implementing FIOA, but many other Federal and state agencies.

UK version

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, our version of the FOIA came into force on 1st January, it has some similar "loopholes".

For a start, just before Christmas, a memo went around whitehall (around government offices, basically) instructing civil servants to delete emails over 3 months old, unless vital. (i.e. just before they become available to the public via the act, destroy them!)

Notably if this 3 month rule had been in force before, the evidence that lost former home secretary David Blunket his post (for misuse of public services, basically) would not have been available to be made public...

Also our version allows as a valid response to a request for information a simple declaration that another government department has that information (i.e. go get it from them). This does NOT have to imply that the original department does not have the requested information; it is a simple buck-pass.

Of course the second department can give the answer that the first department has the information. This counts, under the act, as your request having been satisfactorily dealt with...

(so information in 2 departments can be withheld without being designated as "secret" should the departments wish...)

Wow. Summary couldn't be more wrong.

[daveschroeder]

But kneejerk slashdot sensationalism as usual.

And, the statement "It seems since now that a lot of documents are in electronic form, searching them is much easier than before, and for that reason the FBI is taking this action," is the diametric opposite of what is actually happening.

The story is that an individual made an FOIA request to the FBI for some specific information.

The FBI claimed that no such information was available.

The claimant found out in the meantime that such information WAS available, and, as such, requested a court order the FBI to provide it.

The FBI is arguing that its search was reasonable within department regulations and guidelines, and that it cannot and should not be expected to always undercover every single possible document. It's precisely BECAUSE documents are indexed electronically that is creating the difficulty: the FBI is claiming, essentially, that it can't predict every possibly keyword it should associate with a document for search purposes, and therefore shouldn't be held accountable if it misses documents during a good-faith search.

Whether or not the FBI was intentionally hiding OKBOMB memos, etc., is another story altogether.

Re:Wow. Summary couldn't be more wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

nonetheless, if it has since come to light that the agency DOES possess the documents in question, why have they not been produced since this discovery?

Does this mean that if the FBI does not admit knowledge of a document, legally it does not exist? Rather too convenient...

Dammit...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought for a second they meant MY documents.
Yes. I am high.

Information Act

[nurb432]

Is superseded by the (un)Patriot act..

Think its bad now, wait a few years when even the discussion of what used to be public knowledge will get you tossed in jail:

"remember when the constitution protected....?" and they whisk you away as a terrorist or something.

Whats the answer? Other then a total revolt of the people, i donno. And yes i realize that is unlikely as most of the population are now simply trained sheep, believing what they are fed on TV.

Re:Information Act

[nwbvt]

The very fact you think this has something to do with the USA PATRIOT Act illustrates that you have no idea either what the act actually says or what the issues are surrounding this case.

Re:Information Act

[nurb432]

You just proved my point, comrade. Baaaaaah.

Re:Information Act

[nwbvt]

"Baaaaaah"

Yes, I see that you are a sheep. In fact, I could see that easily in your last post and was part of the reason I suspected you thought a story about the adequacy of automated searches has something to do with the USA PATRIOT Act.

Re:Information Act

[Anonymous Coward]

And your statement shows that you do not understand the patriot act II(and actually it is PATRIOT ACT).

Re:Information Act

[nwbvt]

" And your statement shows that you do not understand the patriot act II"

No, he was bitching about the USA PATRIOT Act passed in October 2001.

"and actually it is PATRIOT ACT"

No, its the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (or USA PATRIOT) Act.

Next time you try to correct someone, make sure you are indeed correct. Failure to do so just wastes everyone's time.

Re:Information Act

[Anonymous Coward]

interesting to note that, under USA law, only US citizens are permitted to disagree with US government. Anyone else disagrees with US government policy, there is no legal impediment to bombing to shit out of them.

Remember - terrorism is enshrined in the constitution....

Re:Information Act

[nurb432]

I dont see a problem with that.

All the FBI Needs is...

[Albinofrenchy]

The FBI should just install google desktop. Problem solved.

Re:All the FBI Needs is...

[AndroidCat]

I dunno. Stories like this one might worry them. (Like, how many web cams does the FBI have?)

Re:All the FBI Needs is...

[PoiBoy]

The OP was moderated as Funny, but it raises an interesting point. If Google can index millions of documents, included some in Word, PDF, etc., why can't the FBI?

Perhaps the FBI should buy one of those Google applicances!

Re:All the FBI Needs is...

[jacksonj04]

I'd say because several million paper documents don't just digitise, OCR and index themselves automatically.

I have some 3000 pieces of paper floating around my desk, I'm slowly digitising them:

a. When a document is used, it is scanned and digitised and
b. I digitise on average a folder every week just as background

I reckon it'll take me a while yet. Now, even if every desk clerk in the FBI was employed digitising documents it would take a very, very long time.

A Real Problem

[Thunderstruck]

Actually, all of our wonderful database technology and document scanners have created a problem that goes far beyond the FBI. This is news just because the FBI has tried to do something about it.

The real problem is that over the past 200 years or so, a lot of records have been generated that, while technically public, were never intended to be widely known. Consider for example, court documents. Many states require the social security numbers, home phone numbers, job information, or other very personal stuff to be included in pleadings filed with the courts. This is particularly common in divorce cases.

In the past, it wasn't much of a concern that some identity thief might go to the courthouse, ask for file C-200-87 and make some copies. Now, however, that thief can log on at a library in another state, and often request documents by the truckload without any human involvement.

Perhaps we, and the FBI, need a middle ground. Something like a "quasi-public-information" standard, where you can get the documents, but you have to show up in person and ask for them.

Re:A Real Problem

[demachina]

Not sure how the law reads for access to court records but for FOIA requests it is well established practice the FOIA office in the agency answering the request, and every agency has to have one, has to review the documents and censor all information that is classified or would violate the privacy of individuals.

At least as far as FOIA requests go your argument is a red herring.

Unfortunately this censorship can be abused to wipe out information that should be made public but the responding agency just doesn't want the public to know. FOIA requests on the TSA no fly list were answered this way, when they did release documents on the heart of the matter, who ran it, how names got on it, how names get taken off or names on the list, the documents were either censored in to oblivion, and many were simply withheld because they were "classified".

The content of this list should be public information, and how its managed MUST be public information because it directly impacts everyone who flies, especially innocent people unfortunate enough to have names that match names on the list and even aliases of suspected terrorists on the list, which is what they claimed when Senator Kennedy was prevented from flying by the list. Its a complete crap shoot if you can be accused of being a terrorist and prevented from flying because of the random chance your name is on the list and the mechanism for an average citizen to get there name off the list is ill defined. You are better off just slightly mutating your name until it stops matching. It would be trivial for an actual terrorist to circumvent this list, and the only way to fix that would be to make it an even more intrusive invasion of privacy as has been attempted several times with CAPPS.

Re:A Real Problem

[CrackerJack9]

And this is why they make those special little black lines that you can't read through when you publicitize a document with some sensitive information in it...most intelligence agencies have photocopiers that scan for SSNs and such automatically and under FOIA a decriptive blurb is automatically printed explaining why it was blacked out...I don't see why this is so complicated and is keeping documents from being made public.

EFF Similar Report

[Me-The-Person]

This report was published earlier this month by http://www.eff.org/

January 14, 2005
Can the FBI Monitor Your Web Browsing Without a Warrant?
EFF Demands Answers from DOJ about PATRIOT Act Surveillance

Washington, DC - Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI and other offices of the US Department of Justice, seeking the release of documents that would reveal whether the government has been using the USA PATRIOT Act to spy on Internet users' reading habits without a search warrant.

At issue is PATRIOT Section 216, which expanded the government's authority to conduct surveillance in criminal investigations using pen registers or trap and trace devices ("pen-traps"). Pen-traps collect information about the numbers dialed on a telephone but do not record the actual content of phone conversations. Because of this limitation, court orders authorizing pen-trap surveillance are easy to get -- instead of having to show probable cause, the government need only certify relevance to its investigation. Also, the government never has to inform people that they are or were the subjects of pen-trap surveillance.

PATRIOT expanded pen-traps to include devices that monitor Internet communications. But the line between non-content and content is a lot blurrier online than it is on phone networks. The DOJ has said openly that the new definitions allow pen-traps to collect email and IP addresses. However, the DOJ has not been so forthcoming about web surveillance. It won't reveal whether it believes URLs can be collected using pen-traps, despite the fact that URLs clearly reveal content by identifying the web pages being read. EFF made its FOIA request specifically to gain access to documents that might reveal whether the DOJ is using pen-traps to monitor web browsing.

"It's been over three years since the USA PATRIOT Act was passed, and the DOJ still hasn't answered the public's simple question: 'Can you see what we're reading on the Web without probable cause?'" said Kevin Bankston, EFF Staff Attorney and Bruce J. Ennis Equal Justice Works Fellow. "Much of PATRIOT is coming up for review this year, but we can never have a full and informed debate of the issues when the DOJ won't explain how it has been using these new surveillance powers."

The law firm of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary assisted EFF in preparing the FOIA request and will help with any litigation if the DOJ fails to respond.

Contact:

Kevin Bankston
Attorney, Equal Justice Works / Bruce J. Ennis Fellow
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston@eff.org

Posted at 09:27 AM

Re:Balance

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution to this would supposedly be to not piss the terrorists off all the time...

One more question

[nwbvt]

Would you take this same stance if the issue was the FBI (or some other group, not necessarily the government) giving out unlimited searching of databases of freely available personal information (such as each citizens address, SSN, criminal history, credit report, your whereabouts last Friday night, ect.)? Would it then still be the case that since the information is public, people should be able to use that information how ever or as efficiently as they wish?

Note that I'm not trying to trip you into making yourself into a hypocrite, merely that if this is how you feel I've found myself an ally next time there is a story involving public information databases or surviellence cameras in public areas. Normally those stories are full of people arguing that just because the individual pieces of data are public, that doesn't mean access to the data as a whole should be public.

How will this affect applications?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm astounded that the FBI will go to these lengths!! Why would they care to know what words I search for in Notepad, Homesite or Internet Explorer.

This is just crazy!

FIOA, AFOI, OFAI...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if it stand for Freedom Of Information Act?

Re:FIOA, AFOI, OFAI...

[kyouteki]

AFLAC?

Sounds good - no more seizures

[originalhack]

When the FBI wants some record (they sometimes call it "evidence") from me, they can serve me with a subpoena or a warrant. I then perform a cursory check for the evidence they seek and turn the results over to them. I think that sounds much more civilized than many of the current practices.

Oh, wait...

This only applies to lawful requests for them to produce documents.

Computer Problems linked

[Papa Legba]

I have to wonder if the FBI's recent revelation about their computer woes is linked to this. They may take the tact that since their computers are not up to snuff they are not required to find the information. Saying that they do not have to do a paper search and that a computer search is enough, but unfortunatly the computers are all down so you get nothing. Typical Lawyer finegling of the spirit of the law IMHO.

Papa Legba

Re:Balance

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's always about balance... just a little further towards security, tighten a little more, just a little more.... ta da, police state.

Kooks are a problem too

[AndroidCat]

There are also wackos who request all sorts of information (over and over again) from every FBI office and then sues them because it doesn't match her delusional reality.

Re:Kooks are a problem too

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice empty chair ad hominem against someone who disagrees with you on Usenet and the Factnet Scientology Message Board. What a good use for Slashdot, to extend one side of your personal feud. Do you talk about your friends behind their backs on here, too?

BTW, do you ever wonder if Scientology is watching you?

Re:Kooks are a problem too

[AndroidCat]

Ms Schwartz's record abuses of the FOIA and the courts against the FBI (and others) are related to the topic. I think wacko and kook are pretty factual too.

BTW, do you ever wonder if Scientology is watching you?

No. (BTW, I don't post to Factnet.)

Bookmark whoring

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, you would think that since less and less work goes into FOIA requests, simple if you only have to write letters to deny access, there would be plenty of time to do thorough searches for the few that are still granted. But then again FBI digital document projects arent inspirational unless you are a contracter ofcourse.

For those who want to know what kind of requests this is about, lists of FOIA request are subject the the freedom of information act and are avaiable here. Its funny to see the "all little green men info" requests right next to legitimate historical research inquaries. (or should that be other historical research ;-) )

To stay up to date on what data is kept secret there is always secrecy news run by the federation of american scientist. You can join their fight to open up overall budget totals of the inteligence agencies.... during the cold war! Its always the paranoid lunies that want an open goverment. Its like these people think they know better what they are talking about then the politicians...

There is good news as well, cryptome.org demonstrates that classification policy is often that, policy(weekly DHS memo`s) ;-) And this will only get better when more and more information gets digital.

Anyway, this is an ongoing battle and since shrub and gang are past half time, have pissed of everyone who has to keep these secrets, demonstrated just how powerfull a political tool classification policy is and the 911 rapport was pro-openness things can only get better from here right?

Re:Bookmark whoring

[AndroidCat]

Or the nazi martians:

Plaintiff's FOIA requests in that case related to the Rathbuns, their attorneys, Hubbard, an independent or special counsel, Germans, schools in a submarine village in Great Salt Lake, and Rosemarie Bretschneider. That case was dismissed on the ground that it failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted and was frivolous or malicious. The Court concluded that the complaint was "not based on legally arguable challenges to actions on Plaintiff's FOIA requests. Rather, it [was] based on Plaintiff's misunderstanding of reality and therefore must be dismissed because it both fail[ed] to state a claim on which relief can be granted and [was] frivolous.

Google?

[jhines]

Perhaps the FBI needs to hire Google to do the indexing?

FOIA had become worthless anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good for (some) stuff from the pre-FOIA era, but now that everyone knows about it you can be assured nothing juicy will exist in the post-FOIA era. The CIA coined "plausible deniability".

The Trentadue Case -- A Cover up ???

[Anonymous Coward]

The Trentadue case which is mentioned in the article is in my opinion most definitely a coverup. Not long after the Oaklahoma City Bombing Ken Trentadue was arrested for a simple parole violation. He was apparently put in an adjacent jail cell to Timothy McVeigh. There are allegations that McVeigh told him something. In either case, Trentadue shortly after was found dead in his cell. The various authorities ruled it a suicide. However, even a cursory glance at the photos show Taser burn marks over his entire body, bruises over his body but especially on his face, his hands and on the bottoms of his feet. There have been a number of senators and congressmen who have looked into this and in every case, the FBI has stonewalled.

A quick search turned up this site: http://www.geocities.com/prisonmurder/ken_trentadu e.html but I am sure there are many others. The photos on this page are not particuarly good but you can get the idea. I was shown poster sized photos of his Trentadue's body by a congressman from Idaho not long after this happend and the Taser burn marks and bruising inconsistant with a suicide are clearly visible.

I can understand why the FBI would want to cover this up. People are shocked when they hear about Abu Garab in Iraq and yet do not seem to realize that it can happen to you, an American citizen, here if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If there was ever a case that deserved more scrutiny this is it. While I am not a big believer in "conspiracy theories", this one not only has me convinced but a number of senators and congressmen as well. Unfortunately, until significant pressure is placed on the FBI and similar agencies, we will not get to the bottom of this.

DEAR JOE PUBLIC...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Joe Public,

We regret to inform you that every right given to you shall only be granted until actually taking advantage of it becomes feasible. At which time we shall revoke said rights on the basis that you might actually use them.

We hope you understand this is for your own safety and is not meant to indicate any wrong doing on the behalf of federal officials.

We apologize in advance for any resulting inconvenience.

Trust us,

Your Local Friendly Federal Agents.

Information wants to be obscure.

[Anonymous Coward]

What next, now that anybody can mass communicate are we gonna need regulations on speech too. It'll be free like always, you just go to the same place they give you a liscense for automatic weapons...
Have to take a test & all; make sure understand that you're liable for the actions of those you influence.

RTFA YOU FUCKING SLASHTARD IDIOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what's going on, the FUCKING SLASHTARD SUMMARY IS WRONG! Some of you LEMMINGS need to be kicked in the head repeatedly.

Read about the case behind the request for info

[PureFiction]

The mysterious death of Kenneth Trentadue

The body of Kenneth Trentadue lay in a coffin in an Orange County, Calif., funeral home. His family had been told by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons earlier that week that the man hanged himself with a bed sheet on Aug. 21, 1995, while in federal custody at the Federal Transfer Center (FTC) in Oklahoma City. But Trentadue's family members who viewed his corpse-his wife, mother and sister-doubted the story. ...

the prison had gone to the trouble of putting Kenneth in a suit and applying makeup to his face-departing from the no-frills way the BOP typically releases dead inmates to their families-but had not bothered to mask his slashed throat.

Then the women noticed Kenneth's wrists and knuckles were black and swollen, strange injuries for a hanging.

Trentadue's sister, Donna Sweeney, clutched a camera she had brought with her. Taking a deep breath, she directed an attendant to strip Kenneth's body and scrub the heavy makeup from his face.

What the women saw shocked and disgusted them. Kenneth's head bore three massive wounds, two of which had ruptured the flesh to expose the skull. Below his left arm were fingerprint marks suggesting he had been propped up and held by someone else. Patches of skin had been ripped from his back. Bruises and welts lined the entire body, from his eyelids to the soles of his feet. [cont.]

I wouldn't be surprised if Homeland Security Operations Morning Briefs that we leaked are also part of their inclination to avoid digital record keeping (and comprehensive FOIA searches)

These reports show an interesting view of the domestic intelligence gathering being done at the DHS.

... what happened to the America I used to know?

Re:Read about the case behind the request for info

[PureFiction]

I meant to say "that were leaked". I had nothing to do with those documents appearing in google. No spooks please.

Re:Read about the case behind the request for info

[illumin8]

The mysterious death of Kenneth Trentadue

Citizen... you have learned too much. Please report to your nearest church, synagogue, or other re-education center where you will be rectally probed by Pat Roberts and forced to sing patriotic songs. To try our new online re-education service, please remove all clothing or hats containing aluminum and hold your tongue to your cable or DSL line for approximately 30 seconds, or until our mind-control waves take effect...

Re:Read about the case behind the request for info

[iminplaya]

... what happened to the America I used to know?

The America you "know" never existed. That was an illusion maintained by your parents, teachers, and people on the TV. It's business as usual, but the veil of civility is wearing thin and becoming a bit more transparent. Nothing has really changed at all, except the mail doesn't take three months to go from New York to California anymore.

Re:Read about the case behind the request for info

[illumin8]

You wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if Homeland Security Operations Morning Briefs that we leaked are also part of their inclination to avoid digital record keeping (and comprehensive FOIA searches)

From the linked Cryptome article: 3. (FOUO) NEW YORK: Passenger Arrested for Artfully Concealed Prohibited Item. According to BTS reporting, on 30 November, at JFK International Airport, TSA screeners detected a "Leatherman" tool artfully concealed in a quart jar of hair gel in a passenger's carry-on bag during x-ray screening. LEOs arrested the named U.S. passenger on the state charge of criminal possession of a weapon in the 4th degree. (BTS Daily Operations Report, 1 Dec 04; HSOC 4583-04)

Wow, I'm sorry but you just know our government has gone too far when they are arresting people under felony charges for carrying a Leatherman!!! This is nuts... The guy was probably just thinking "oh shit, I don't want to lose my Leatherman at the security checkpoint because they'll make me throw away an expensive tool, so I'll hide it in here", and they throw him in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. How many lives have to be ruined before people will wake up and stop this nonsense.

Re:Read about the case behind the request for info

[Anonymous Coward]

or rather , what happened to what you used to know about America?

I'll tell you what happened.. you learned more about it.

Re:Read about the case behind the request for info

[Eminence]

I don't get it, where do you see nonsense? For me someone trying to conceal a knife in a jar of hair gel is suspicious. After all you can put all the knives you want into your luggage and no one would say a bad word about it. If the guy wanted to take his Leatherman on the trip with him then that's what he should have done. But hair gel? Sorry, but your explanation is less plausible that the one that he planned to take it out during the flight and threaten the crew.

Anyway, when I'm flying I prefer that someone ensures that people concealing knives of any kind in any way in their carry-on bags are not with me on the plane. Thanks to all those who do their job and stop nuts like the one described about.

Re:Read about the case behind the request for info

[Eminence]

I wouldn't be surprised if Homeland Security Operations Morning Briefs [cryptome.org] that we leaked are also part of their inclination to avoid digital record keeping (and comprehensive FOIA searches)

These reports show an interesting view of the domestic intelligence gathering being done at the DHS.

I've read a few pages of these reports. This is mundane information about security incidents (suspicious behavior, bomb threats, security rules violations etc.) which are from what I saw mostly handled by the police. Sometimes there is some information about more grave incidents from abroad (like the guy in Norway who attacked the flight crew with an axe). Nothing suspicious here, just reports about security people of various type doing their job on a daily basis.

And certainly no intelligence - maybe I didn't read enough but I didn't find anything there that could be described as intelligence information or intelligence gathering - reports about suspicious behavior are not intelligence. Reports about aircraft crashes or bomb threats are not intelligence. Reports about security regulations violations (the guy with a knife in this hair gel in his carry-on bag) are not intelligence.

I hate even thinking about this

[digitalgimpus]

If the American Public can't monitor the FBI to ensure they are doing their job... and doing it correctly... who will?

Internal Affairs? HA! That's a laugh.

IMHO it's a fundimental right for Americans to see that their tax dollars are being used efficiently and Federal Employees are doing their job.

If you run a business, I dare you to tell your investors they don't get to look at your operations anymore. They will pull the plug quicker than you can end that sentence.

Unfortunately, us tax payers can't end the FBI that easily.

This is a key aspect of preventing abuse.

They exist to serve us we don't serve them.

Americans ahve the right to make sure they are doing their job.

Re:Balance

[YrWrstNtmr]

The solution to this would supposedly be to not piss the terrorists off all the time...

Unrealistic. Consider two diametrically opposed factions, and the fringe militant groups in each.
Israel/PLO. The PLO wants the Israelis pushed off into the sea. Israel obviously does not want this.
China/Taiwan. China considers Taiwan as merely a rogue province. Taiwan considers itself an independant, sovereign country.
India/Pakistan. India considers a particular bit of land theirs, Pakistan considers it theirs.
Osama/USA/Saudi Arabia. OBL wants the US out of Saudi and the Holy Land. Why should we accede to his demands, if the host country (SA) wants us there?

Appease one, you piss off the other. Do nothing, and you piss off both sides. And you can't help both sides get what they want, because they want completely different things. 'The terrorists' is not a monolithic block with common goals.

Sometimes, there is no way to not piss them off, no matter what you do. And often, they want to be pissed off, so that those in power can retain that power.

Re:Balance

[Anonymous Coward]

No you fascist apologist son of a bitch - the issue here is freedom and transparent government.

Your excuse doesn't hold any water when you consider that *known* targets, such as chemical plants and nuclear labs are not protected by the military today, and that only cursory examinations are going on by the customs inspectors at the major ports.

We should have nothing to hide, but we do, and do you know why? Because we are responsible for every petty two bit dictator since for more than a century and a half. Read some history. The United States' "Manifest Destiny" and "Sphere of Influence" has been the reason why there are very few stable, non-colonial governments in the western hemisphere.

The CIA is responsible for pieces of shit like Pinochet, Pol Pot and Hussein. We don't want freedom, we want dictators, because dictators are easier to control.

It was about keeping the "red menance" in check, and now its about how corporations abuse their influence in the halls of government to subvert the economies of third world nations so that fat stupid Americans can drive SUVs and shop at Wal*Mart.

So stop being so farking naive - this has never been about freedom vs. security - this about how a corporate controlled fascist state balances the appearance of an open democratic forum (whoo hoo - you can even choose between two thouroughly corrupt and ethically bankrupt parties!) against the needs to squeeze every penny out of the working classes.

DEAR SLASHTARD FUCKING IDIOT,

[Anonymous Coward]

don't jump to conclusions based on the INCORRECT SLASHTARD WRITEUP. Not that I expect CowboyNeal to actually get off his ass and research submissions or anything.

Not Classic.

[sglider]

Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. -- Thomas Jefferson The Freedom of Information Act is another check in the checks and balances of our nation. Specifically, it insures that the people (for whom the government is supposed to serve) have control over the government, and not the other way around. The whole terrorism bit is simply an excuse to keep the people from controlling their government. That isn't to say that terrorism doesn't exist -- it does. What I am saying is that sacrificing our liberty for security isn't the best way to combat terrorism, although it is the best way to give us an Orwellian society.

Re:Not Classic.

[Sir Lurkalot]

You mean Ben Franklin... Check the facts

Why choose?

[Doc Ruby]

The government, the FBI, is not a person. It's not "lazy", or "malicious"; it's an organization, with people who might be either. So when they get together in a policy meeting, a lazy person alone might be ignored, as might a malicious one, when deciding whether to follow the law (FOIA, in this case). When they agree, the FBI is more likely to go that route, as is probably the case here.

Re:Why choose?

[h4rm0ny]

There's certainly scope for behaviour varying between individuals within an organization, but bear in mind the pressure that can be exerted from the top in an hierarchical organization such as the FBI. It doesn't have to be explicit, just the common sticks that a boss can apply on an employee will often do the job. And if the employee has the notion that the pressure is coming from way-up-high then it might be a very brave employee indeed that breaks ranks.

Incidentally, the British Ministry of [Off|Def]ence has it's own ways of not complying with the Freedom of Information Act.

Re:Why choose?

[Doc Ruby]

What, like a President who tells the world he doesn't read newspapers, and makes clear through endless public (and private) acts that he doesn't want anyone to ever learn the truth of anything that makes him look bad, no matter how catastrophic his actions? This setup is just another reason the Attorney General (FBI boss, director of the Justice Department) should be nominated by a joint Justice Branch (Supreme Court) and Legislative Branch (Congress) committee, confirmed/vetoed by the Executive (President) and voted by the full Congress, subject to challenge by lawsuit in the Court. And, as important, to be fired only with a repeat of that process. If we'd learned anything from Watergate, that would be it. Obviously we didn't, and we're right back in 1974, as if it never happened.

Re:Why choose?

[the_mad_poster]

I'm not going to inconvenience myself by jumping through pedantic hoops to discover what individual set what policy. There is no point to it.

Therefore, until it becomes a significant part of the discussion; for the sake of convenience, "the FBI" is what will be referred to as acting malicious or incompetent or however else "it" is acting.

If you would prefer to take the time to uncover the individual or committee which has set this direction so that you can refer to it explicitly, however, be my guest.

Re:Why choose?

[h4rm0ny]

What, like a President who tells the world he doesn't read newspapers, and makes clear through endless public (and private) acts that he doesn't want anyone to ever learn the truth of anything that makes him look bad, no matter how catastrophic his actions?

Well, if you want to name names, yes - that's the sort of thing. And over here a certain Prime Minister is up to similar tricks.

Re:Why choose?

[Doc Ruby]

I generally agree (though I don't think the hoops are "pedantic"). But it does help to understand the enemy, in order to change it (or adapt to it). This insight isn't an excuse, it's just the mechanics of what we're up against, in the hopes of dealing with it.

Re:Why choose?

[arose]

If you would prefer to take the time to uncover the individual or committee which has set this direction so that you can refer to it explicitly, however, be my guest.

Sorry, we couldn't find that document...

Re:Why choose?

[4of12]

If we'd learned anything from Watergate, that would be it.

1974? I wish. We have a lot of influential people in power that could stand to learn historical lessons about Vietnam from the 1960's, Chile in 1973, Bay of Pigs, etc.

Re:Why choose?

[Doc Ruby]

They learned practically everything they know from Vietnam. How to run an unnecessary war of choice by invoking the paranoia paradigm of the moment. How to make billions of dollars for their industrial cronies, dominate global politics with "he's crazy, he'll do it" chicken diplomacy, how to win elections by invoking the whole scheme, how to avoid any accountability amidst global mass murder, how to destroy the US domestically and internationally, politically and economically, instead of fighting the actual threat invoked to cover the scam. The parallels are exact. It's the American people who have learned nothing from Vietnam and Watergate - partly because we didn't teach our children before we died as the generations turned over. That's why all this is prelude to a repeat of the fascist 1930s, with a fascist 1940s to follow - because the more distant memory of that debacle is merely more memorable, not nearly absolute.

Re:Balance

[ScentCone]

The solution to this would supposedly be to not piss the terrorists off all the time...

Ah, great idea! In fact, why don't we see about actually pleasing them, instead? That would definately keep us out of any trouble with them. Espcecially once we've pleased them by making sure that all of our women are ignorant, house-bound, burka-wearing slaves, and all of our would-be musicians have been executed, and all of artists are doing only religious calligraphy (no drawings of people on pain of death!), and all of our ancient history - at least, that which celebrates anything other than their favorite myths - has been defaced or destroyed. Right about the time all that's taken care of, they should be happy, or at least not pissed off. Yeah, that's definately a fair trade for not having to be vigilant.

Oh wait... what if some other terrorists want it a slightly different way? Well, we wouldn't want to piss them off either. Gosh, this is complicated! Maybe we should just consider doing things our way! You know: liberty, democracy... all that noisy, crass stuff that most of the people in the world want, but which the extremists would like to squash. But let's not piss them off by doing anything about it. Maybe the braver people from the Ukraine or Georgia will help protect us - they seem to get the big picture.

Some answers

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, though "unlimited" is a purely theoretical wildcard that could mean anything. Why should only profitable operations, or other highly motivated searchers, get access to such public info? SSN is not public, nor is credit report, and many others - they can be released only with explicit agreement by the person in a specific transaction. The real issue is how to control personal info that must be shared occasionally to function, without making it public. The simple way is to apply copyright to personal info, which does not carry a transitive right to recopy outside the specific transaction in which it was given. The other important aspect is the relations among these data, many of them private (both the basic data and the relations) that government agencies control. Those private data and relations of course should not be searchable outside the transactions of the agency which legally maintains them. And that means that interagency queries across many of these data violate the privacy under which the data were collected by those agencies, so are prohibited. The clear, consistent application of those simple policies is imperative in maintaining our open society, without collapsing under either secrecy or exposure.

Re:Some answers

[nwbvt]

Actually Social Security Numbers are not private, and its not that hard to find one out. The problem is that organizations sometimes treat them as if they were private, often using them as ways to authenticate users.

I suppose technically a credit report is the property of the agency collecting the information, but they are free to do with that information as they wish. If you fail to pay a bill on time or repay a loan, you have no right to force those to whom you owe money to keep that information secret.

Re:Some answers

[Doc Ruby]

What makes you say that SSNs are public? The SS Administration privacy policy states:

"Who we will share your personal information with

We may disclose information you give us (e.g., to Railroad Retirement Board, Department of Veteran's Affairs) if authorized or required by Federal law, such as the Privacy Act or the Social Security Act.

Your choice about who we share your personal information with

If Federal laws (e.g., Privacy Act, Social Security Act) do not allow us to share information, we must get your written authorization before we can discuss your information with anyone else."

Unlike businesses, the SSA is required by law to follow its declared privacy policy. And credit reports are similar, though probably subject to looser interpretation, both by definition and as private businesses:

Credit Report Privacy

"Who has access to my report?

Anyone with a "legitimate business need" can gain access to your credit history, including:

• 
  
• Those considering granting you credit.
  
• Landlords.
  
• Insurance companies.
  
• Employers and potential employers (but only with your consent).
  
• Companies with which you have a credit account for account monitoring purposes.
  
• Those considering your application for a government license or benefit if the agency is required to consider your financial status.
  
• A state or local child support enforcement agency.
  
• Any government agency (limited usually to your name, address, former addresses, current and former employers).
  

Generally, only an employer or prospective employer needs your written consent to obtain a report. An exception is Vermont where any user needs your oral or written consent. In practice, most potential creditors ask for your permission to review your report. Your permission is not required when inquiries are made in connection with a pre-approved credit offer."

In short, those specific personal info disclosures are distributable only within the transaction in which they were disclosed, and most legitimate further disclosures require notification of the person. That should be the default copyright term on personal info, just like on commercial (eg. media) info. But meanwhile, SS and credit info is already quite private. By law, if not entirely in practice - so the needed fix is "merely" to enforce the law.

Re:Some answers

[nwbvt]

SSNs are used in many more places than just by the social security administration. And in many of those places, the documents containing the number are not confidential.

As for a credit report, a "legitimate business need" can be interpreted fairly broadly. And generally speaking, if you have a reason to not want someone to know your credit report, that probably means they have a legitimate business need to find out about it. No, its not posted on the Internet for anyone to see, but then again neither are documents covered by the FOIA.

Re:Some answers

[Doc Ruby]

Which is why you don't give people your SSN, which is why the SSN law states you're not required to give it to anyone except the SSA. Which is why companies that take your SSN must have a privacy policy. Of course, in practice, those SSNs can be obtained by flaky corporations, but not because they're public. Because those corporations are flaky, and the state of privacy is a shambles.

Credit reports obtained under a legitimate business need are also controlled by specific rules, like the ones I quoted for certain business needs. They cannot be redistributed. "Legitimate" is further defined in the law summarized. But again, it relies on flaky corporations, who won't keep them secret. SSNs and credit reports can be bought easily on the info "black market", even though their status is "private". Which is why I called for copyright protections on personal info to be enforced meaningfully, which got us into this whole subthread.

Re:Balance

[kjamez]

make the entire thing fully accessable from a terminal at government buildings (federal courts, etc, etc) and when you file for a FOIA document, they let you sit down (monitored?) and run some searches. If you find it, it's yours. If not, you lose. allow the courts to determine wether or not someone has a rightful reason to be reading said documents ... then give them (monitored?) access to the database. The manpower required is 1-1, little to no extra expense.

before the conspiracy theorists start to rant...

[maxpublic]

...let's remember this is a government agency. Having worked for and with various government agencies, I can tell you right now that there is no grand conspiracy afoot to hide truckloads of documents from the general public. In fact, you can pretty much boil down the FBI's position in four ways:

- like most government agencies (federal, state, local - it doesn't matter) a good many of the people in management really don't give a shit what you want, despite the supposed goal of serving the people who sign their paychecks - meaning you, the citizen. Egomania is fairly rampant among management and they take it as a given that you're nothing more than a bunch of irritating, ignorant proles who should keep their mouths shut and do as they're told. The fact that you'd file a FOIA request in the first place annoys the hell out of these people - who are you to question the government, you stupid serf? And that means they aren't at all inclined to put anything more than the minimal amount of effort required into fulfilling your request. Sometimes they'll even deliberately hide information for no other reason than to spite you. I've actually seen this done. Yes, it's pissy and childish, but that tells you a good deal about the people you're dealing with.

- most management types are heavily invested in making sure as little information as possible gets out to the public, especially information that hasn't been vetted by house PR. This is true even if the information appears to be harmless. Why? Because in order to get ahead in the game, a fair number of these folks have done things they don't want anyone to know about (or have screwed up royally, and are trying to hide the mistake), and citizens have this surprising knack for discovering patterns in otherwise innocuous bundles of information - patterns that sometimes point fingers. The less information the citizen has, the less likely it is to come back and bite someone in the ass. This isn't an agency conspiracy, it's the local management playing CYA. The more incompetent that local management, the more likely they are to do this sort of thing (because they have more fuckups they're trying to hide).

- FOIA requests tread on someone's turf. Every manager has turf, represented by budget and personnel. When you make an FOIA request you commandeer some of that budget and a certain amount of personnel for a period of time. This is annoying to someone who views himself as the absolute ruler of his particular fiefdom.

- general incompetence means that searches will miss documents even if they aren't difficult to find. The best government workers (in my experience) are the low-level schmucks whom no one pays attention to even though they're almost entirely responsible for keeping their department afloat, but even so a good many of these people are in government because they can't cut it in any other job. It's a crapshoot whether the person or persons designated to actually do the searching will be one of the competent ones or one of the morons.

These behaviors aren't specific to government, of course. You see them in any large organization, including corporations. But they are more prevalent in government simply because government a) makes the laws and has little to fear, and b) government has a secure revenue stream backed by the threat of violence. Remember, your ability to vote politicians in and out of office means nothing to these people since it'll have no effect whatsoever on them personally; they'll still be employed at the end of the day regardless of who you put in charge of the government as a whole. In a very real sense they aren't accountable to anyone.

Max

Make records available on the web.

[cagliost]

A couple have people have said that the FBI should get Google to index their records. They should go one step further - make all public (not secret) records available on the internet. This would solve all the problems mentioned about a single freedom of information request taking up hours of civil servant time (and therefore using up taxpayers' money). The FBI and other agencies could say "You want the information: search for it yourself." Whether they would want to do this or not (citing the expense (even if they really just don't want to make it easy to get records)) is another matter. I doubt it.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's okay if the gov't makes a program to search all public databases on the coutry's citizens and to correlate the data, but they want to limit the citizen's access to information about them because it's in "easy to search electronic format". Why am I not surprised?

Ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark?

[attemptedgoalie]

Remember the big room the Ark is put in at the end?

There are rooms like that, all over the country, filled with documents from every branch of gov't, from the beginning of each location's existance.

I worked for a county government as a temp one year out of high school. They had me filing, making copies, and the other mindless stuff you give 18 year old temps.

The county was sued, and they needed documentation from 5-10 years ago as part of their defense.

My boss drove me over to a warehouse big enough to be an airplane hangar. Floor to ceiling boxes with enough room between the shelves to get a forklift through.

My job, search boxes for materials marked "X".

This was a county government, for a city of 20,000, in a town that had only been around since the 40's.

Do some multiplication, and you can imagine the time, space, and manpower you'd need just to maintain a database for all of these kinds of things.

As the requests come in? Try funding for that one. They ask for funding, and then slashdot goes bonkers as the gov't is trying to gather all info into one place. Enter the skynet freaks, etc.

It would be cool. And this will work. When a country is started on Mars. Every shred of what's done from the very beginning can be indexed right away. Here, now? Not so much.

Re:Ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark?

[emotionus]

but thats the point. if a document is already out, being studied. Why not archive? Even for just the sake of reduduncy rather then a practical one.

Digital

[Lord_Dweomer]

You know, I can't help but think of the irony when all of us Slashdotters used to say that the Patriot Act and CAPPS are bad because for the first time they allow the government to gather all of that information digitally and combine it, whereas before they had to go out and get each piece individually.

Now they have all their info digitally, and they don't want us to be able to go through it.

What could possibly be the problem?

[astrodawg]

If they have done nothing wrong, what do they have to worry about?

Re:Balance

[ScentCone]

Holy schlamoley! That's a troll, when the AC post it responded was not? I don't like to waste time or burn karma, but methings the moderator's political underwear is showing on this one.

I can see some good reasons for this (read)

[i41Overlord]

Yes, this action could be viewed as the government wanted to conceal stuff, etc.

But let me bring up a not-so-exciting reason for this. There are people out there who are lunatics and have nothing better to do but to barrage the government with FOIA requests to "uncover" whatever government/alient conspiracy is being waged against them this week.

A small number of people probably consume a huge, totally disproportionate amount of government resources. These aren't people who simply are working on a valid case and want info, these are people who probably submit FOIA requests every month to find out how the president's dog is controlling their mind with a secretly implanted transponder acquired by aliens.

Have you ever met a schizophrenic person? I have, and you CAN NOT convince them that the government/aliens/Jesus is not after them and waging a secret war against them. They are often very intelligent, but they have little to no concept of reality and let me tell you- they have no lack of motivation or persistence. They'll bug the gov with FOIA requests repeatedly.

Here's a link that I saw on another reply on this thread that demonstrates this clearly:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/schwarz.html

"A second case, Schwarz v. United States Department of Energy, Civil Action 99-3234, named an additional 72 federal entities, various subdivisions, and many individuals, a total of 807 separate defendants.21 Plaintiff's FOIA requests in that case related to the Rathbuns, their attorneys, L. Ron Hubbard, an independent or special counsel, Germans, schools in a submarine village in Great Salt Lake, and Rosemarie Bretschneider."

^This is just ridiculous, but a lot of government resources were consumed coming up with that report. Someone with a valid case probably had to wait because the government office was busy trying to disprove this wacko. A school in a submarine village in the Great Salt Lake? At what point can we all agree that a request needs to be ignored?

Re:I can see some good reasons for this (read)

[Legion303]

"A second case, Schwarz v. United States Department of Energy, Civil Action 99-3234, named an additional 72 federal entities, various subdivisions, and many individuals, a total of 807 separate defendants.21 Plaintiff's FOIA requests in that case related to the Rathbuns, their attorneys, L. Ron Hubbard, an independent or special counsel, Germans, schools in a submarine village in Great Salt Lake, and Rosemarie Bretschneider." ...

That's it! Oh my God, it all just fell into place!

Re:I can see some good reasons for this (read)

[Shadowlore]

Have you ever met a schizophrenic person? I have, and you CAN NOT convince them that the government/aliens/Jesus is not after them and waging a secret war against them.

Yes, I have. And not a single one of them believed the government/aliens/Jesus was out to get them. None of them were involved in FOIA requests, nor did they care to be.

Maybe you meant to write "paraphrenics" or "paranoid schizophrenics" instead of just "schizophrenic"? Or maybe you just didn't know the difference and were pretending to know something you didn't? Your choice.

Re:I can see some good reasons for this (read)

[i41Overlord]

Maybe you meant to write "paraphrenics" or "paranoid schizophrenics" instead of just "schizophrenic"? Or maybe you just didn't know the difference and were pretending to know something you didn't? Your choice.

Yes, I meant paranoid schizophrenics.

Re:I can see some good reasons for this (read)

[adamdeprince]

Even if this were true, being that FOIA requests are not free as in beer, how is this a problem? You do realize that the requester has to pay for the cost of performing the query. Part of a FOIA is a form in which you indicate how much you are willing to pay for the information. Absuive request volumes are "solved" by using said fees to hire additional staff.

Of course, with electronic indexing, the cost of a search drops considerably. Few people can afford manually conducted searches; few people can't afford a query on a google appliance. When searches are conducted manually their cost alone could suffice to prevent the answering of a otherwise embarrasing questions. Think about how much more dirty underwear can be aired when you don't need the fianncial resources of your law firm or newspaper behind your request.

As for the contention that "too much information" could be disclosed I wish only to point out that exemptions for valid secrecy needs (ongoing investigations, state secrets, etc) are already provided for by the FOIA. Putting the shoe on the other foot we should ask "what do you have to hide?"

Hot Young Blondes

[Anonymous Coward]

Blondes always turn me on! Very sexy lady

Re:Not what you think

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think most people have RTFA, the FBI is basically doing this because their system is absolute crap and they just can't handle allot of searches.

Actually I think most people HAVE RTFA and they want to know if the FBI's system "is absolute crap" by design in order to get around FOIA requests.

"Oh my, we can't have anyone finding this document, lets index it under QKSJMDJHSGFFE!"

The final paragraph anyone?

[Alsee]

FBI spokesman Mike Kortan said that after Trentadue supplied the two documents the FBI was able to find them and would provide him copies.

Am I hallucinating? Does that actually say Trentadue handed the FBI the two documents, the FBI "found" them in their hand, the FBI then dropped them on a Xerox and handed the duplicates back to Trentadue? Oh gee thanx!

Oh wait, it only says they would do so. They haven't gotten around to it yet. Complying with the extensive and complex FOIA process takes time you know! We have to search through all the relevant documents, errr, we have to search through the two documents he handed us. We'll get right on it!

-

FBI is stupid

[Prodigy Savant]

Why do some guys--usually establishment guys-- have to screw things that are headed in the right direction?

apply cop mentality to this problem

[Alien Being]

The FBI is required by law to make documents available. They claim that there's too much info to be able to do that. Well, I guess they should have thought of that before they started spying on so many innocent people. They have no excuse.

There's no excuse for the Patriot act either. I guess it's not just a Republican thing because the Dems are all too willing to go along with them. Wake up America. Stop waving the flag long enough to see where we're headed.

The executive and legislative branches of the federal government have sold us out. The "terrorists" who founded this country warned us that this could happen. It's our duty to fix it, but I'm not optimistic that we can. We can protect ourselves from foreign enemies. It's the enemies in Washington we're powerless against.

Screw you George Bush. I hope some shell-shocked veteran comes back from Iraq and blows your lying, born-again head off. How's that for "supporting the troops"?

If The Oklahoma Federal Detention Death Case

[Master of Transhuman]

is the one I think it is (and it may not be), the FBI has good reason to hide its records of that death.

The inmate was beaten to death by two guards. The BOP refused access to the site by the Oklahoma City coroner who got a court order and went in anyway. Using blood detection instruments that illuminate blood stains, the word was the "cell lit up like a Christmas tree." The FBI was called in, then proceeded to cover up the case by removing the bloodstained prison clothes and throwing them in the trunk of an agent's car, who proceeded to drive around with them for a month until he had to complain to his supervisor that the clothes were "stinking up his car". The DOJ called the Oklahoma state Attorney General and threatened to cut off law enforcement funding unless the case was dropped. The family pursued the case which eventually wound up on federal court. There, the judge decided that despite the FACTS that the BOP lied about the circumstances and the FBI mis-handled the evidence, the inmate "committed suicide".

Yeah, right...US "justice" prevails...

This is not the first time the FBI has covered up instances of BOP abuse of prisoners as a favor to a fellow federal law enforcement agency. There as a prison riot in a midwest Penitentiary in October 1995 which entailed numerous instances of brutalization of inmates by corrections officers. The FBI came in and seized vidotapes of the incidents which had been made by the officers (the BOP mandates videotaping incidents so they can be used to defend officers when accused of brutality). When the FBI "crime lab" got through with those tapes, the quality was sufficiently bad they could not be used as evidence in the inmates' federal complaint against the officers. The inmates' legal team recommended settling. The officers walked.

Anything who thinks the FBI operates like Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (if you're old enough to remember that show) or Scully and Mulder (for you younger nerds) hasn't got a clue.

Re:If The Oklahoma Federal Detention Death Case

[dabigpaybackski]

[On this week's exiting episode of "Full Disclosure," our hero stumbles upon a savagely mutilated human corpse. Nearby are several hulking, nervous-looking men bearing trunchions.] Our hero inquires:

"What happened in here?"

"He fell."

"Oh, okay."

[Stay tuned for the next nail-bitingly suspenseful installment of "Full Disclosure!"]

Re:If The Oklahoma Federal Detention Death Case

[lifespan]

How the hell did they convice an entire jury that this man beat HIMSELF to death?! It's more insulting than irritating to be lied to in such an blatantly incompetent manner. The govt should have sufficient resources to at least come up with a plausible lie....

Re:Not what you think

[t_allardyce]

In order to be crap on purpose they would need to in fact be very smart, organised, efficient and motivated to get this cover-up working perfectly. Which means Bush would probably also have to be some sort of genius who can trick people into thinking he's a red neck hick?

The connection.

[Grendel Drago]

Well, the USA PATRIOT Act is part of a growing cult of paranoia and secrecy. "Fortress America", some have called it. So this is part of that same movement. Hell yes, it's apropos.

--grendel drago

Simple solution

[dbIII]

want to vote for people that are trying to streamline and minimize the government

What we need is a ministry of information. Maybe not - but there appear to be a lot of agencies that are not under any sort of control - otherwise that prison camp in Cuba which is not subject to US law would never have been set up. We need acountability, clear areas od responsibility and a chain of command. Adult supervision may also help, but even Colin Powell couldn't keep the kids under control.

What we really need is checks and balances, we need to be able to spot embezzlers, theives and incompetants. Currently there are too many secrets for all the wrong reasons. Iran-Contra was secret simply for the reason that everyone would object to it, and Ollie North used that secrecy to embezzle a bit of extra cash for himself as well. I seem to recall that North and Poindexter were not caught by any sort of law enforcement, but by a press investigation. FOI requests help us have an external check and balance. When the FBI was pissed off about torture in DOD prision camps, they couldn't do anything but send memos which were ignored - it took disturbing photos in the newspaper before anything was done.

Make the information free

[theguywhosaid]

How about making the all information free in the first place, and having a gigantic library in DC dedicated to it? Make people do their own searching, eliminate the request system, and do not do anything you dont want the people to know about?

Re:Not what you think

[quarkscat]

Unfortunately, TFA is a bunch of cow huey.

This is only an effort to justify what has
become a top-to-bottom Bush directive since
first taking office in 2001. Secrecy for
secrecy's sake. If a potential press release
has not been vetted by the appointed "political
officers" for the department, that press release
gets squashed. What the USA Patriot Act (I)
and subsequent directives have done is to raise
the secrecy bar (to cover their political message)
for all information. This is why government
whistleblowers now are threatened with criminal
charges (and some have gone to jail), rather than
just having problems with their (1) annual review
or (2) keeping their job.

This is just one more brick in the wall that
Bush & Co. have erected between the oversight
of government and the rights of the people to
know what their government is doing. Look (for
example) at the Bush administration's response
was to (1) the initial formation of the 9-11
commission, and then (2) providing all requested
information in a timely manner. It is a pretty
sad state of affairs when Congressional oversight
committees are given the cold shoulder by the
Executive branch -- and under Bush's reign this
has happened repeatedly.

IMHO, the Bush administration represents (in the
absolute worst way) the erosion of democracy in
the USA. It neither started with the USA Patriot
Act (I), nor will it end with the end of the
second Bush term. Bureaucracies have a tendency
abide by the physical law of the conservation
of energy. The inertia right now is toward a
more secretive government that is unresponsive
to the will of the poeple (as opposed to the
will of the corporations).

Slightly OT, but does anyone out there in /.land
know of any FOIA inquiries regarding the total
Executive branch expenditures aimed at the flood
of propaganda that has hit the 4th estate to
promote Bush administration "agendas"?

Re:before the conspiracy theorists start to rant..

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant. I can corroborate your observation about publicly-funded bureaucracies. They are ineffectual and parasitic institutions and the hallmarks of a decadent civilization.

Why is it that there seems to be an inverse relationship between the competence of a bureaucratic manager and his egotism?

Not supprising though

[zora]

If you check out the robots.txt you will notice that it is not there, but a look at the most recent listing from the archive will show

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

I guess that they don't wany anyone archiving their site, but it is just part of a much larger picture, Just check out the Whitehouse robots.txt file.

# robots.txt for http://www.whitehouse.gov/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /query.html
Disallow: /help
Disallow: /360pics/iraq
Disallow: /economy/iraq
Disallow: /firstlady/newborn/iraq
Disallow: /government/images/iraq
Disallow: /president/statevisit/window/iraq
Disallow: /president/ridge/iraq
Disallow: /911/911day/iraq
etc...

Pretty much anything that mentions iraq is Disallowed

Re:Not supprising though

[BeerCat]

It looks as though someone has been told "disallow everything ending in 'iraq' ", and reckoned that the quickest way was to append '/iraq' to every item in the directory. Now, I don't know about you, but it could be useful to know the folder structure for an entire organisation, for example to find all the bits that are present, but don't get linked from the site. This is an example, as I don't think it is linked from the main site.

Censoring Documents: my experience.

[mangee]

Reminds me of a FOIA-equivalent request I did a while back. Along with the 3 reams of paper I got, was a letter i'd been posted from the angency previously. The letter had contained contact information for the people involved in the case. What I got was a piece of paper, entirely covered with black censorship, with only my name un-blanked. Some protection of privacy I suppose, but the letter was addressed to ME!

When I made the request, I was trying to discover details of other correspondance, but the agency in question had know way of specifying exactly what you wanted, just "all" documents relating to X. By law they are required to fulfil the request within 28 days or request an extension. I got no less than six requests for extensions, and finally got the documents I was after about 7 months after the request.

I do recall speaking to one of the staff at the agency, and there was at least one, and sometimes 3 staff sorting thru the files for those 6 or so months, busy with black highlighters and photocopiers.

The agency's problem was that less than 3 months before, four other people had made a similar request. I think the words I heard were "Oh, shit, not another request from that case".

I have no sympathy really. Without the agency's interferance, they wouldn't have this problem.. which to date has comtinued for over 12 years, and still continues to cost them a fair chunk of my taxes each year.