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Privacy United States

FBI Wants To Limit Document Searches 182

Posted by CowboyNeal from the too-much-freedom dept.
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."
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FBI Wants To Limit Document Searches More

FBI Wants To Limit Document Searches

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  • Wow. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Tavor ( 845700 )
    Sounds like they have something to hide.

  • Not so bad, but not so good either (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the_mad_poster ( 640772 ) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:04PM (#11441360) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • 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?
      • 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.
        • 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
          • 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.
            • 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 FO
              • 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.
                • 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.
            • 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 infor

      • Re:Not so bad, but not so good either (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:58PM (#11441622)
        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.
        • "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
        • 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 wh

        • 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 ch

        • 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?
        • At least part of FOIA request costs must be paid for by the requester [af.mil]. It really doesn't cost the agency much.

    • Re:Not so bad, but not so good either (Score:5, Interesting)

      by medelliadegray ( 705137 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:57PM (#11441612)
      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!
      • 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
    • 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.

      • 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
        • 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)

          • 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.

          • 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.

            • 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

  • Good thing it isn't up to them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:04PM (#11441363) Journal
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mistlefoot ( 636417 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:45PM (#11441534)
      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.

    • 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.
  • 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.

  • One Question? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xPosiMattx ( 797462 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:05PM (#11441370) Homepage
    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? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:11PM (#11441396) Homepage Journal
      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? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by KingPunk ( 800195 )
      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.

    • One more question (Score:2, Insightful)

      by nwbvt ( 768631 )
      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 ma

      • 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 inf
        • 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 secre

          • What makes you say that SSNs are public? The SS Administration privacy policy [ssa.gov] 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 you
            • 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 a

              • 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 c
    • 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 mon
      • "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 s

  • the FBI just doesn't get it (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lawrence_Bird ( 67278 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:08PM (#11441383) Homepage
    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.
  • 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)

  • UK version (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:12PM (#11441406)
    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. (Score:5, Informative)

    by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:19PM (#11441438)
    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.

  • Information Act (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:21PM (#11441447) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • 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.
      • You just proved my point, comrade. Baaaaaah.
        • "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.

      • 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

  • All the FBI Needs is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Albinofrenchy ( 844079 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:23PM (#11441450)
    The FBI should just install google desktop. Problem solved.

  • A Real Problem (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Thunderstruck ( 210399 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:23PM (#11441452)
    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 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by demachina ( 71715 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @01:32PM (#11441866)
      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.

  • EFF Similar Report (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Me-The-Person ( 852147 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:26PM (#11441460) Homepage
    This report was published earlier this month by http://www.eff.org/ [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

  • Sounds good - no more seizures (Score:5, Insightful)

    by originalhack ( 142366 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:35PM (#11441496)
    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.

  • 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

  • Google? (Score:5, Funny)

    by jhines ( 82154 ) <john@jhines.org> on Saturday January 22, 2005 @12:57PM (#11441613) Homepage
    Perhaps the FBI needs to hire Google to do the indexing?

  • The Trentadue Case -- A Cover up ??? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 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

  • DEAR JOE PUBLIC... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 22, 2005 @01:04PM (#11441660)
    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.

  • Read about the case behind the request for info (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PureFiction ( 10256 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @01:12PM (#11441718)
    The mysterious death of Kenneth Trentadue [thepacc.org]

    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 [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.

    ... what happened to the America I used to know?
    • I meant to say "that were leaked". I had nothing to do with those documents appearing in google. No spooks please.
    • 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...
    • 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
      • 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 so

  • 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 e

  • before the conspiracy theorists start to rant... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by maxpublic ( 450413 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @02:23PM (#11442260) Homepage
    ...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
  • 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.

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

  • I can see some good reasons for this (read) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i41Overlord ( 829913 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @04:10PM (#11443148)
    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?
    • "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!
    • 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 kn
  • 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!
  • 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

  • If The Oklahoma Federal Detention Death Case (Score:4, Informative)

    by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Saturday January 22, 2005 @05:24PM (#11443694) Homepage
    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.

  • Not supprising though (Score:3, Informative)

    by zora ( 570189 ) on Sunday January 23, 2005 @01:23AM (#11446086) Homepage
    If you check out the robots.txt [fbi.gov] you will notice that it is not there, but a look at the most recent listing from the archive [archive.org] 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 [whitehouse.gov] 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
    • 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 [dangerousl...tories.org] is an example, as I don't think it is linked from the main site.

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