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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."
Sounds like they have something to hide.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
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...)
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.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
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
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.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
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!
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
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.
The mysterious death of Kenneth Trentadue
...
... what happened to the America I used to know?
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.
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?