Thursday, 06 July 2000
.....
The US federal government is an exceedingly odd institution (or, more properly, nearly unending labyrinth of institutions). Sometimes the intentional agent of horrific injustice, at other times it's the unwitting, bumbling cause, through bureaucratic torpor and neglect, of horrific injustice. In either case, the federal government bears careful watching and scrutiny by citizen's who are so inclined, a number that's never enough.
One of the items in the citizen's toolkit that has proved effective -- though it could be improved -- is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It gives journalists primarily, but not exclusively, fairly unfettered access to the mountainous mass of documentation produced by the federal government. It's a simple fact that the life's blood of all bureaucratic institutions is paperwork. If you want to know what some segment of the federal government is up to, you'll eventually end up digging through mountains of paperwork (or reaping the benefits of those who've already scaled the parcheminé heights).
Things are not, of course, all sweetness and light. Among the problems are numerous classes of exempt documents, bureaucratic delays and diversions, and a general hostility in most federal bureaucracies to the antiseptic air of openness and public accountability. That hostility isn't necessarily a sign of misconduct of course; I'm not sure I'd like to be subject to the FOIA in my daily work.
The FOIA only applies to federal agencies. What about states? Many of them, including Texas, in part as a response to the FOIA's success, have passed 'open records' legislation. I've been involved locally in efforts to use open records legislation to apply reformist pressure to the Dallas Independent School District, a billion-dollar maze of corruption and deceit. Texas Open Records statutes provide enough wiggle room to delay compliance indefinitely, requiring a pending lawsuit to gain access.
So, how do you go about using the FOIA? It seems there are more guides to FOIA than actual FOIA requests, which makes recommending one or two particularly difficult. What I did was carefully read the ACLU's "Using the Freedom of Information Act", on the assumption that they are likely to be a reliable guide. I also consulted Parascope's Freedom of Information Act Help Center which is down-to-earth and quite comprehensive. And I had fellow Monkeyfister, Mike Zara (law student extraordinaire), take a look at my first two FOIA requests, both to the FBI. The first covers the FBI's activities in Seattle during the WTO protests last year; the second covers their activities in D.C. during the IMF and World Bank protests this year. I'll also be filing requests related to the protests of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles respectively.
Of course those nurtured in the governmental culture of secrecy and withdrawal aren't idle. The Defense Authorization bill, S. 2549, now pending before the Senate, contains a provision that would create a new class of documents exempt from the FOIA, a move that relevant experts believe to be basically antidemocratic and obviously unwelcome. All "operational files" of the Defense Intelligence Agency would be exempted from the requirements set out by the FOIA. According to relevant experts, this provision would severely restrict the flow of information relating to Defense Intelligence activities. "Thus, to provide a wholesale exemption from the FOIA for the operational files at the Defense Intelligence Agency would be the equivalent of exempting all the information gathered by the State Department's Foreign Service and a radical weakening of the FOIA" (Src: Joint Memo of the National Security Archive, Center for National Security Studies, and Federation of American Scientists). Let your Senator know that he or she should oppose section 1045 of S. 2549 because you oppose a radical weakening of the FOIA.
It's up to ordinary citizens to use and protect the FOIA, without which our prospects for to leading and living democratic lives in a democratic society are measurably diminished.
This is Hacking the Federal Government: Openness and the FOIA <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/597>