FOIA Rundown: Ferguson's ongoing stonewall, majority favors release of CIA torture report, and more
CJ Ciaramella
October 3, 2014
This post is adapted from CJ Ciaramella's weekly Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
Ferguson's ongoing stonewall
The AP's Jack Gillum reports that Ferguson officials are using the tried and true method of charging exorbitant fees to discourage news orgs and individuals from pursuing records requests:
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Ferguson told the AP it wanted nearly $2,000 to pay a consulting firm for up to 16 hours of work to retrieve messages on its own email system, a practice that information technology experts call unnecessary. The firm, St. Louis-based Acumen Consulting, wouldn't comment specifically on Ferguson's contract, but said the search could be more complicated and require technicians to examine tape backups.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a public records lawsuit days after the shooting for Brown-related police reports, but ultimately received a censored report that omitted officers' names and other details usually released in such documents.
Over at VICE News, Jason Leopold and Alice Speri dig more into Ferguson's transparency failures. Besides the public records stonewalling, there are also missing use-of-force reports and other incident reports redacted to the point of being useless.
"If transparency is meant to be the foundation on which Ferguson's mostly white officials and police hope to rebuild their relationship with their disillusioned and mostly black constituency," VICE News writes, "the relationship's prospects aren't looking so great."
LAWSUITS
Everyone wants the CIA torture report released: A PPP poll found large, bipartisan support for releasing the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's now-discontinued interrogation and rendition program. Key findings: "69% of voters think the Senate Intelligence Committee should release its report on the interrogation and detention of terrorism suspects after 9/11, compared to only 22% who don’t think the report should be made public. This is a rare issue in these polarized times where voters are pretty much in agreement across party lines: 71% of independents, 69% of Democrats, and 67% of Republicans think the report should be made public."
IRS flubs FOIA Compliance: "In a review of IRS compliance with the Freedom of Information Act released Thursday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) reported the agency 'was not consistent in its service to individuals who requested information under the FOIA/Privacy Act.' Full IG report here.
Redaction of the week, courtesy of the CIA:
As Steven Aftergood writes, redacting the price of the CIA's first Amiga is kind of silly.
Pretty Please?asks to destroy emails of non-senior agency officials.
Transparency groups press White House on FOIA delays: From my report at the Free Beacon: "In a letter to the White House released Monday, 25 transparency organizations said the Obama administration’s policy of reviewing FOIA requests that contain so-called 'White House equities' has 'caused significant confusion and delay among agencies in their compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.'"
Interesting article on FOIA tech from NextGov:
Last year, federal agencies received a total of 704,394 FOIA requests, with more than 230,000 going to the Department of Homeland Security alone.
The Transportation Department took in 10,552 requests in 2013, with most -- 6,650 -- going to the Federal Aviation Administration and its 18 full-time FOIA employees, according to a request for information about FOIA systems on the market.
To process its requests, Transportation relied on 11 separate FOIA operations running simultaneously. Six used a FOIA-tracking software system developed within the department, one used a separate in-house system, two used store-bought systems, one used a jerry-rigged correspondence system and one just uses Excel spreadsheets, according to solicitation documents posted earlier this year.
Documents of Note:
Meanwhile ...
The Chicago PD has denied my FOIA request for all officer-involved shootings in the last two years saying it would be "unduly burdensome."
— jg (@JustinGlawe) September 30, 2014
STATE NEWS
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