(word processor parameters LM=1, RM=70, TM=2, BM=2) Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501 Sponsored by Vangard Sciences PO BOX 1031 Mesquite, TX 75150 March 8, 1990 Freedom of Information Act and How you can use it Since its adoption by Congress in 1966, the FOIA has furnished previously unaccessible documents relating to government activities and a host of bizarre actions carried out in the name of our government. Without this act, we might never have known about the following actions on the part of various government agencies : ----------------------------------------------------------------- The CIA performed "behavior control" experiments on unsuspecting victims during the Cold War, using Americans in prisons as guinea pigs and the nation's universities as research centers. The techniques included "mind-bending" and memory-erasing drugs. From more than 1000 pages of previously classified CIA documents, the CIA was forced to release a letter written in 1949 by a CIA operative which outlined ways agents could commit murder without getting caught. These techniques for undetectable murder included deep-freezing the victim, X-raying them to death and strangling with a bath towel. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The FBI circulated a bogus newsletter in St. Louis in 1969 containing smears about the sex lives of area civil rights figures as part of a scheme to harass and discredit them. The FBI later claimed that at least two civil rights figures were successfully discredited by the bogus publication, while another one was "destroyed." FBI efforts utilized harassment and disruption of black militant and leftist organizations. One instance attempted to break up a black leader's marriage by writing a poison-pen letter to his wife. ----------------------------------------------------------------- After President Richard M. Nixon was forced to resign from office, he used his federal annual allowance of $150,000 to buy such items as electric golf carts, telephone taping equipment and a subscription to the Washington Post. Ironically, the Post had won a Pulitzer Prize for its reports on the Watergate scandal which eventually took Nixon from power. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Page 1 Days after the suicide of Ernest Hemingway in the summer of 1961, the FBI took notice of his death by inserting a clipping of a hostile obituary into a thick file folder it had kept on Hemingway. The file dated back to 1942 and showed how the U.S. Government considered Hemingway a subversive. During his life, Hemingway was almost paranoid in his fears of FBI harassment, not entirely unfounded as the FOIA papers prove. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Both the FBI and CIA kept files on the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, a Catholic priest elected to Congress in 1970. An 18 page CIA dossier included a review of a baccalaureate address Drinan gave in 1973 to the students of Sweet Briar College in Virginia. The file referred to his support of student protests "over the Kent State deaths and the invasion of Cambodia." It also noted that Drinan urged the abolition of all secret government files, including CIA files. The FBI dossier covered 81 pages and date to 1958. At that time, Drinan was dean of the Boston College Law School and very active in civil liberties of southern blacks. There were also papers on war speeches he had given. Drinan finally saw his files from both agencies by using the FOI Act in 1975. Total cost for copies of the papers : $8.10. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The FOIA has been successfully used to gather formerly restricted documents on the following subjects : 1) EPA reports on cancer causing agents 2) Federal audit reports disclosing sloppy bookkeeping and misuse of federal research funds, involving hundreds of millions of dollars, by colleges and universities across the country. 3) Dangerous biological warfare tests conducted in 1969, less than 50 miles from the White House, where Army scientists had sprayed hazardous zinc cadmium sulfide over the Cambridge, MD area in massive open air tests. 4) Massive invasions of personal privacy and civil rights through the use of unauthorized wiretaps and monitoring. Departments who are known to "collect" information for secret files include : the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Information (FBI), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of State, the National Security Council, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Secret Service. The above agencies do not preclude the military and civil police keeping forces from FOIA requests. In fact, the FOIA gives "any person" access to ALL records of ALL agencies, unless these records fall within one of nine exempt categories. Page 2 Under these categories, the agencies involved are permitted - BUT NOT REQURED - to withhold the information. You can make an informal telephone request for the data or documents you need. If you fail to get a satisfactory response, you can file a formal written request. Once you make a written request, the burden falls on the federal agency or the government to promptly provide you with the documents or to show that they fall within an exempt category. When such a written request is made, the federal agency has 10 working days to either provide the information you require or to respond. IF THE AGENCY REFUSES TO RELEASE ALL OR PART OF THE INFORMATION SOUGHT, YOU MAY APPEAL TO THE AGENCY HEAD. If your appeal is denied or the agency again fails to reply within 20 working days, you have the right to file suit in the federal court nearest you. If you win the lawsuit, the judge would direct the agency to release the desired information, AS WELL AS ORDERING IT TO PAY YOUR ATTORNEY FEES AND COURT COSTS. The FOIA Act covers all Federal agencies and ever government- controlled corporations such as the Postal Service and Amtrak. The agencies not covered by FOIA requests include federal courts, Congress, the President and his immediate staff. The Executive Office is covered by FOIA requests. The nature of the documents include papers, reports, letters, films, photographs, sound recordings and computer tapes. In order to cover all your bases, you must accurately describe what you are looking for. Any U.S. citizen or foreign national can use the FOIA act, as well as any corporation, partnership or other legal entity. In the event you wish to stick with an informal telephone request, call the agency's public information or press office. If they turn you down, call the agency's FOIA officer, letting him know that YOU WILL FILE A FORMAL REQUEST, AS WELL AS AN APPEAL AND LAWSUIT if necessary to get the data or documents you want. Due to the large body of archival information, some agencies such as the Defense or Agriculture departmens, have separate FOI officers in their regional offices and various subdivisions. If you know which region or office has the information you seek, send your request to that office. If you don't know which federal agency has the records, you may have to send formal requests to several agencies. Your envelope must clearly state, "FOI Act Request" along with a letter sent by registered mail, with a return receipt requested. You should also make a copy of the letter for your records. The letter should first state that your request is being made in compliance with federal FOI Act, 5 U.S.C. 552. Next, describe as clearly as you can what material you want, including names, places and the relevant time periods. Page 3 You should be as specific as possible about what you want. Also in your letter, state that you expect to be sent ALL NON- EXEMPT parts of the requested records, as well as JUSTIFICATION FOR ANY DELETIONS. To assist in clarification, you may attach documents to further describe the subject of your inquiry. It would greatly help to state your intention to APPEAL ANY DECISION WHICH THE AGENCY MIGHT MAKE TO WITHHOLD THE DESIRED INFORMATION. None of this is free, so be prepared to pay any reasonable fee involved in the search for materials you request. ASK TO BE NOTIFIED, preferably by telephone, if the agency estimates the fee to exceed a certain dollar limit of your choosing. You may then decide if what you are pursuing is worth the cost. If you can still get the information you want, you might narrow the scope of the search and/or the number of documents you want. In the event you are a journalist, researcher or author planning to use the information you get in a publication, ask the agency to waive or reduce search and copying fees. YOU SHOULD STRESS THAT THE DATA YOU ARE REQUESTING WOULD "PRIMARILY BENEFIT THE GENERAL PUBLIC." Waiver requests can also be made by indigents and non-profit groups. In many cases, you might find it quicker and considerably cheaper to visit the agency and ask to examine the documents you are interested in, rather than having them copied and forwarded to you. To assist in your search, you might visit the reference department of your public library to find names, addresses and telephone number of federal agencies covered under the FOI Act. You can also check the federal office listings in your local phone directory. An excellent booklet is available from the FOI Service Center. It includes sample letters, forms and a directory of some major agency FOI phone numbers and addresses. It also has a section on the Privacy Act. You can request the booklet by writing the : FOI Service Center, c/o the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 1125-15th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005. The booklet also includes a schedule of fees charged by some federal agencies relative to FOI requests. Many agencies do not charge fees, though most do. Search fees normally run from $4 to $6 per hour for clerical personnel and from $10 to $18 per hour for professional employees. Computer-time varies, but can run from $60 to $80 per hour. Photocopying is normally 10 cents per page. Page 4 You may be charged search fees EVEN IF FEW OR NO DOCUMENTS that you request are found. Agencies are required to publish uniform schedules for search and reproduction fees in the Federal Register. If the event you decide to appeal a request which is partly denied, it is often a good idea to accept what documents you can get and appeal the rest. The courts often give exemptions on the response deadlines to certain agencies such as the FBI, CIA and the Justice and State Departments because of the volume and backlog of the requests. You may negotiate with the FOI officer by telephone to prevent having to make a formal appeal. You may also compromise and get some of the denied documents released. The nine exemptions for denial of an FOI Act request are : 1) national security, where release of records would cause "identifiable damage" to the nation 2) internal personnel practices 3) information specifically exempted by law - the "catch-all exemption" 4) trade secrets or other confidential financial or commercial information 5) inter-agency or intra-agency memos 6) personal privacy, including personnel and medical files 7) law enforcement investigations, both current and pending files only 8) federally-regulated bank reports - a little used exemption which limits disclosure of sensitive financial reports which might undermine confidence in individual banks 9) geological and geophysical information - oil and gas wells A sample form letter follows: Name of agency Department Address City, State, Zip Phone Current Date Dear Sir: This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act as amended (5 U.S.C. 552). (Identify who you are writing for and what you will do with the information.) I request copies of any and all directives, memoranda, letter or other records, including written memoranda of telephone conversations, which relate to the establishment of programs or plans concerning (whatever you are interested in) during the years of (from **** to ****). Page 5 Previous documentation received under this act has dealt with (list if any previous FOI releases on this subject). (List specific requests, nature of, where, titles, people involved, time periods, specific information) In the unlikely event that access is denied to any part of the requested records, please describe the deleted material in detail and specify the statutory bases for the denial as well as your reasons for believing the alleged statutory justification applies in this instance. Please separately state your reasons for not invoking your discretionary powers to release the requested documents in the public interest. Such statements will be helpful to us in deciding whether to appeal an adverse determination, and in formulating our arguments in case we might possibly avoid unnecessary litigation. I/We anticipate, however, that you will make the requested materials available to us within the statutory prescribed period of ten(10) working days. I/We also request that you waive any applicable fees since disclosure meets the statutory standard for waiver of fees in that it would clearly be "In the public interest because furnishing the information can be considered as primarily benefiting the general public." I/We await your prompt reply. Your Name Your location or office Your group or title ----------------------------------------------------------------- We of VANGARD SCIENCES hope you find this of use in locating or releasing information of interest. We also appreciate your text or monetary contributions to assist in the upkeep of KeelyNet. Thank you for using KeelyNet! FINIS Page 6