FBI, DOJ and DEA stall release of records on bid to expand surveillance laws

from Electronic Frontier Foundation --

EFF filed a reply brief in its FOIA lawsuit seeking records from the FBI, DOJ and DEA that would justify the Administration’s need to expand federal surveillance laws like the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). The proposed expansion would require communications providers like Skype, Facebook, Blackberry and Twitter to build wiretapping capabilities right into their systems, and although we know Congress intends to turn to this issue early this year, FBI, DEA and DOJ have argued they can’t give us all the documents we asked for until the summer of 2012. To force the government to turn over documents on a timeline that would actually allow them to influence the debate, we filed a motion for partial summary judgment, asking the court to order the agencies to produce documents within 10 days.

This lawsuit is based on two separate but related FOIA requests, one of which has now been pending with the FBI for almost two years. The earlier request seeks documents on the FBI’s “Going Dark Program,” a program intended to bolster the Bureau’s electronic communications intercept capabilities that could be strengthened by new legislation. The second request, now pending for four months, seeks materials related to a legislative expansion to CALEA, including evidence of any limitations of current surveillance technologies and records of communications between DOJ agencies and technology companies, trade organizations and Congress about potential legislation.

Read the rest here.

Consumer Watchdog asks FBI, DEA to explain use of Google Earth

from Consumer Watchdog:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The FBI and DEA are now making extensive use of Google Earth, according to federal spending records. Consumer Watchdog is filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the agencies today to determine how the Internet giant’s digital mapping technology is being used for domestic surveillance, including whether it is used for racial profiling or other abuses of civil liberties.

“The public needs to know how law enforcement is using Google’s technologies,” said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the nonpartisan, nonprofit group. “We call on the FBI and the DEA to expeditiously respond to our requests for information.”

Congress should also investigate how the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities are using technologies that Google provides, Simpson added.

Read the rest here.

FBI Adds Electronic Form for FOIA Requests

The FBI has a new electronic form designed to make requesting information easier. In addition, the bureau has retooled it records website, including a guide for research in FBI Records.

Of course, filing a request has always been the easiest part of making a FOIA request of the FBI. George Washington University's National Security Archive has criticized the bureau for its high percentage of "no records exist" responses in 2008, and the low percentage of requests granted by the FBIA.

For more, click here.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Obtains FBI Records on the Paper

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch obtained more than 1,200 pages of FBI records through FOIA requests, and the records show how the FBI under Director J. Edgar Hoover kept tabs on the newspaper.

Click here to see the documents.

Critics Say Using Confidential Informants Compromises Judicial System

Critics of the government's use of confidential informants are calling for more safeguards and guidelines to establish accountability against the secrecy of having thousands of informants on the government payroll. Despite guidelines established by the DOJ and the FBI, a 2005 Inspector General report shows that in 85% of the cases reviewed, the guidelines weren't followed.

Loyola Law School professor Alexandra Natapoff has authored a news book, Snitching, in which she says informants commit all sorts of crimes that compromise the judicial system and betray the national integrity.

Read more here.

FOIA Request Shows FBI Scrutinized John Hope Franklin

TPMmuckraker obtained the FBI file for the late John Hope Franklin, which reveal the FBI scrutinized the historian in the 1960s for supposed ties to communists, his opposition to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and his support for W.E.B. Du Bois. Franklin was 94 when he died in May. Franklin authored the classic work From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans.

The FBI file is comprised mainly of background checks when he was up for presidential appointments. The FBI withheld 18 pages of the 515-page file.

For more information and an excerpt of the historian's file, click here.

Wyo. senator proposes public review of coroner records

Wyoming Sen. Cale Case has drafted legislation that would make all coroner records open for public review unless they're privileged or confidential by law, the AP reported. This would call for state coroners to redact privileged or confidential information in files so that as much information as possible is disclosed. His legislation is in regards to the death of three teenage girls on the Wind River Indian Reservation. The FBI investigated the case, but the U.S. attorney's office in Cheyenne has refused to comment. The suspicion is that juveniles are facing criminal charges.

The federal government's refusal to say what killed three teenage girls on the Wind River Indian Reservation last year is driving a Wyoming state senator to try to force county coroners to open their records to the public.

Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, has drafted legislation that would specify that all coroner records would be open for public review unless they're privileged or confidential by law.

Case's proposal calls for directing the state's 23 elected coroners to redact privileged or confidential information in their files to allow the fullest possible disclosure.

More here.

FBI releases Watergate planner E. Howard Hunt's file

The FBI files on E. Howard Hunt, who orchestrated the Watergate break-in, are thin, according to the AP, which received the data after filing an FOIA request. About 100 pages of his file weren't released because they're National Archives property. What was released included FBI background checks from when he joined the CIA and when he was hired as a White House consultant. Most of the files, however, concern Hunt's request for a presidential pardon from President Ronald Reagan.

Watergate break-in planner E. Howard Hunt sought a presidential pardon by saying he thought the infamous burglary had "executive authorization," according to FBI documents released two years after his death. He died without getting a pardon.

The FBI released 167 pages of Hunt's files following a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. Wednesday marks 37 years since police caught the burglars in the Washington break-in. The case ultimately made Hunt a household name and led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Despite working as a CIA agent for more than two decades and his role in Watergate, Hunt's file is remarkably thin. As a CIA agent Hunt was involved in a U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954 and the botched Bay of Pigs attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. He worked in China, Mexico, Japan and Spain, among other places.

More here.

Records indicate shooter had history with Trolley Square

FOI at Work!
The 745 pages of FBI reports on the 18-year-old who shot nine people at Trolley Square revealed that the mall was a childhood hangout for Sulejman Talovic, who also had made racist and violent remarks long before his rampage, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. This article is based on an FOIA request Nate Carlisle filed two years ago.

When 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic walked into Trolley Square and opened fire on shoppers, he was returning to a childhood hangout, according to newly-released FBI documents.

Talovic and his family used to live one block from the mall, and one person told agents Talovic played there with his sisters as a child. Another said Talovic was at Trolley Square "every day," and that the mall "was the only place he went." Someone also recalled Talovic once got into a physical fight with someone at the mall over a video game.

The documents provide the first possible explanation for why Talovic, a Bosnian immigrant who came to the U.S. at the age of 9, chose the mall as the site of his rampage. They also detail racist, violent statements made by Talovic -- among them that he planned to shoot white people like Serbs, had been a member of the Klu Klux Klan, and shot someone in a drug deal gone bad.

More here.

Air Force One photo shoot cost taxpayers $328,835

Sen. John McCain has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to provide an explanation for who approved the photo mission and how much it cost, Bloomberg reported. An Air Force spokeswoman quoted the $328,835 cost, which includes fuel and maintenance. President Barack Obama has directed Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina to review "how the decision was made to conduct the flight."

President Barack Obama ordered a review of a publicity-photo shoot with one of the planes that serves as Air Force One that cost taxpayers $328,835 and caused a furor in New York City.

Obama said he wasn’t informed in advance of yesterday’s low-altitude flight over New York Harbor, which rattled windows in New York’s financial district and prompted some office workers to flee buildings in fear it was a terrorist attack.

“It was a mistake,” Obama said today before a meeting at FBI headquarters in Washington. “It will not happen again.”

More here.

Obama follows Bush in keeping details of FBI database secret

President Barack Obama refused to reverse a Bush policy that protected information about the FBI's Investigative Data Warehouse. "As a result, there is no public list of all the databases the FBI sucks into this computer warehouse; no information on how individuals can correct errors about them in this FBI database; and no public access to assessments the bureau did of the warehouse's impact on Americans' privacy," the AP reported. The warehouse is five years old and contains more than 50 databases.

Despite a pledge to open government, the Obama administration has endorsed a Bush-era decision to keep secret key details of an FBI computer database that allows agents and analysts to search a billion documents with a wealth of personal information about Americans and foreigners.

President Barack Obama's Justice Department quietly told a federal court in Washington last week that it would not second-guess the previous administration's decisions to withhold some information about the bureau's Investigative Data Warehouse.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, had sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get records showing how the FBI protects the privacy of Americans whose personal information winds up in the vast database.

More here.

FBI receives worst FOIA performance award

The National Security Archive awarded the FBI its Rosemary Award for the worst FOIA performance by a federal agency, the AP reported. In the past four years, 66 percent of those requesting information were told that the FBI had found no responsive records. In 2008, only 0.5 percent of requesters received all data they asked for. The FBI doesn't check cross-reference names, the entire file or paper/field office records unless it is specifically asked to do so.

The FBI tells two out of every three Freedom of Information Act requesters that it can't find the records they asked for — a failure rate five times higher than other major federal agencies, a private study has found.

The FBI's performance results from an outdated and deliberately limited search process, according to the National Security Archive, a private group that publishes declassified government documents and files many FOIA requests.

The Archive awarded the FBI its Rosemary Award for the worst Freedom of Information Act performance by a federal agency. The award is named for former President Richard M. Nixon's secretary Rose Mary Woods, known for re-enacting her claim to have accidentally erased 18 1/2 minutes of a White House tape recording when she stretched to answer a phone. It's given annually around Sunshine Week, when journalism organizations promote open government and freedom of information.

More here.

FBI investigated Valenti's sexual preference

FOI at Work!
The Washington Post obtained previously confidential FBI files that indicate that J. Edgar Hoover's deputies investigated whether Jack Valenti was gay. No proof was found. President Johnson approved the investigation.

When Beltway insider Jack Valenti died two years ago at age 85, he was playing the role of intermediary between Washington and Hollywood as the theatrical, snowy-haired president of the Motion Picture Association of America.

But back in 1964, Valenti was a Houston ad executive newly installed at the White House as a top aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson. And J. Edgar Hoover's FBI found itself quietly consumed with the vexing question of whether Valenti was gay.

More here.

FBI kept files on George Carlin, FOIA shows

George Carlin's jokes about J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI didn't go unnoticed by FBI agents, according to records released by the deceased comedian's family.

While countless comedy fans spent the 1960s and ’70s poring over the rebellious routines of George Carlin, above, so too did J. Edgar Hoover, according to F.B.I. records released by the comedian’s family and reported by The Associated Press. Among the documents Carlin obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request before his death in June was an F.B.I. memo that noted his 1969 appearance on “The Jackie Gleason Show,” when he lampooned Hoover and the F.B.I. “His treatment was in very poor taste and it was obvious that he was using the prestige of the bureau and Mr. Hoover to enhance his performance,” the memo said, according to The A.P. The F.B.I. previously told The A.P. that it had no file on Carlin; an F.B.I. spokeswoman told The A.P. that she was looking into the apparent contradiction.

More here.

A Peek at Alice's Wonderland...

Slate's Alex Heard provides an excellent analysis of the FBI's "retention" program and
reminds us all how important the historical record can be, and how much of history can be lost...

I got bad news from the FBI a few months ago. A file I'd requested under the Freedom of Information Act wasn't going to be available. Ever.

And not for one of the reasons I already knew to expect—that the material was classified, that the file concerned a living person, or that no file existed to begin with. Judging by the FBI's final response letter, there might have been a file on my subject, a long-deceased Mississippi lawyer name John R. Poole. But if there was, it got shredded.

"Records which may be responsive to your … request were destroyed on July 01, 1995," the letter said. "The FBI Records Retention Plan and Disposition Schedules have been approved by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and are monitored by knowledgeable representatives of the NARA."

The FBI, Arguing With Itself

It's somewhat heartening to know that there were pretty heated discussions going on between FBI types over whether a court order was needed here...but then again, it's deeply troubling that this needs an argument. Check out the original story here, complete with PDF links to the original FBI e-mails.

By now it's well known that FBI agents can't always be troubled to get a court order before going after a surveillance target's telephone and internet records. But newly released FBI documents show that aggressive surveillance tactics have even caused friction within the bureau.

"We deal mostly with the fugitive squad here, and, like in many other offices, these guys have a reputation for cutting corners," a surveillance specialist at the FBI's Minneapolis field office complained in an internal e-mail last year. "I'm not bashing them; it's the way they do business. Getting a court order is the absolute last step, if they have to.

"Before I had a blowup with a particular agent ... we were constantly asked to call our contacts at service providers to see if we could get various information without having to get a court order," the message continues. "This gets old, believe me. ... Doing this once or twice to help out turns into SOP (standard operating procedure) ... It's expected, and you're criticized as a tech agent if you refuse to do this later on."

The revelation is the second this year showing that FBI employees bypassed court order requirements for phone records. In July, the FBI and the Justice Department Inspector General revealed the existence of a joint investigation into an FBI counter-terrorism office, after an audit found that the Communications Analysis Unit sent more than 700 fake emergency letters to phone companies seeking call records. An Inspector General spokeswoman declined to provide the status of that investigation, citing agency policy...