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

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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

What could possibly be the problem?

[astrodawg]

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

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.