Jul 20
Michael MorisyUncategorized Freedom of Information
I was shocked to read today that Aaron Swartz, one of our earliest and most active users, is facing federal charges of wire fraud, computer fraud and more and faces up to 35 years in jail, all for allegedly downloading, en masse, scientific journals through the JSTOR online service.
In a widely quoted statement, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz wrote:
“Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data, or dollars,” Ortiz said in a statement. “It is equally harmful to the victim whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away.”
While I have no direct or indirect knowledge of the circumstances around the alleged activity, Ortiz has not shown or given any evidence that Aaron did, in fact, sell or give away the materials he is alleged to have downloaded, nor has Ortiz indicated that the victim was, in fact, significantly harmed. JSTOR stated that the materials had been returned. Aaron turned himself in today and is, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty.
What I do know, however, is that the U.S. Attorney’s Office made an interesting choice when picking high-profile examples to make of so-called hacking cases. Aaron has been a tireless advocate of open, accessible data, particularly public data for non-commercial purposes. He helped craft and launch, with Lawrence Lessig, the Creative Commons license, one of the few bright spots as the legal public data commons has, in many ways, shrunk in recent years to increased hard-line enforcement of copyright laws, extended copyright terms, stepped up enforcement and narrow views of fair use.
Aaron was also investigated for another incident in which he mass-downloaded data: Court records, which were accessed from a library and which were in the public domain.
He has also been an early and avid advocate for the work we’re doing at MuckRock, having previously requested his own FBI records under the Privacy Act. He’s one of our top requesters, with his requests’ success rate showing just how difficult it is to actually make public data public. And Aaron has shown his academic abilities, from analysis of Wikipedia authorship to writing published by IEEE.
Given all the above, and given that JSTOR has issued a statement indicating it had considered the matter more or less resolved, I have a hard time understanding the merits of the aggressive prosecution, particularly with 35 years of jail time for an aggressive advocate and pioneer of open and free speech in which no personal gain is indicated, nor significant loss shown. Aaron has tweeted that those wishing to support him should contribute to Demand Progress, a progressive non-profit he founded and was executive director of.
A reporter called me up from Politico and asked about Aaron’s involvement with MuckRock, particularly if he was involved in the day-to-day running of the site. I told the reporter he was just a user, but the truth is that Aaron, like many other members of our active community, are the real driving force of the site: Our marketing department, our sales group, our editorial board and more. He has been a ceaseless advocate for transparency and access, two bedrocks of our democracy.
Right now, the side of free speech and open data needs a lot more advocates like Aaron. We’re rooting for him.
This post was updated Wednesday July 20, 2011.
Jul 15
Philip HalinUncategorized Clarence Thomas, DHS, FBI, FOI, FOI Friday, FOIA, FOIA Friday, ICE, Morisy, MuckRock
This week, we have a whole host of links dealing with federal agencies and individuals and how they deal with FOIA disagreements. Here’s a hint: not well!
District Court Rejects DHS and ICE FOIA Withholdings That Conceal Misrepresentations and Embarrassment: In a bold move that strengthened the positions of plaintiffs Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Immigration Justice Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, a district judge in New York has ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) to release more information on communities’ options to “opt-out” of the Secure Communities program. This is part of an ongoing fight between the plaintiffs and specifically ICE and DHS, as originally outline in this FOI Friday post.
EPIC v. NSA: FOIA Suit for Cybersecurity Authority Will Move Forward, though National Security Council Remains a “FOIA-Free Zone”: After the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a FOI request with the NSA for information relating to their cybersecurity measures, the agency forwarded the request to the National Security Council instead of answering it, passing it into the hands of an un-FOIA-able agency. However, while a judge recently upheld the NSC’s FOIA exemption, the ruling also stated that the NSA was still responsible to respond to EPIC’s request on their own.
FOIA request seeks details of Justice Thomas’ jet and yacht travel: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has aroused a whole lot of controversy recently in the wake of a New York Times article that alleged Thomas had, after receiving $42,000 in gifts over six years prior to 2004, accepted as gifts the use of planes and yachts owned by real estate magnate Harlan Crow. Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog, has filed a FOI request with the U.S. Marshals to determine if Thomas has traveled in Crow’s yachts or planes and, if so, if these trips have been properly reported.
Also, check out Muckrock’s Michael Morisy’s article on the failure of government transparency for Commonwealth Magazine here.
Jul 12
Michael MorisyUncategorized Site Updates, Stats
One of the hypothesis we had when we launched the site was that, by watching hundreds and hundreds of requests, we could help our users be more successful in filing requests that get answered. I’m happy to report that, so far, it seams we were right:
Sorry for the jaggy graph, but the trends are pretty clear: We’re doing much, much better lately when it comes to getting requests actually answered, thanks to regularly tweaking the template system, the FOIA contact database and the suggested requests, as well as by deploying the new follow up tool.
None of this would have been possible, of course, without the amazingly talented community of requesters who have been helping us pave new ground in transparency on all sorts of issues. You can download the data set I used to make the above graph in .CSV format, which you can open in Excel. As a bonus, the data set also includes total requests filed via MuckRock and the total pages we’ve published. An important caveat about the latter: Our counting mechanism was, up until relatively recently, fairly bugging and drastically undercounted the amount we had published. The big spikes the past few weeks are the result of us fixing those bugs. One other, slightly smaller caveat is that “Total Pages” also includes some material that is still embargoed and is not publicly viewable yet.
Thanks again for helping us slowly fine tune government transparency: We couldn’t have done it without you.
Jul 08
Philip HalinUncategorized DoJ, FOI, FOI Friday, FOIA, FOIA Friday, NRA, State, Wisconsin
Welcome back! I hope everyone had a good, safe Fourth of July, and now that we’re over this whole silly patriotism thing, we can move on to the important things in life. Like FOIA Requests!
Are Lawsuits The Only Way to Shake Records Loose From DOJ?: The question is raised by Channing Turner at Main Justice. Turner reveals that in spite of the flowery pro-transparency rhetoric of the Obama administration, the DOJ (and other federal agencies) are still resisting many FOIA requests. Lawsuits, which definitely get the agencies’ attentions, seem to be the path of recourse for many, but they cost the federal government a LOT.
E-Mails Show WI Justices’ Debate After ‘Chokehold’ — Meet With Police Vs. Photo Session: Wisconsin justice is more interesting than the rest of the US, it would seem. After a conservative justice supposedly put a liberal justice in a chokehold, the liberal justice advocated in private emails recently released to the Milwuakee Journal Sentinel. The attacked justice rightfully wanted to speak to the chief of the police force guarding the justices, but her coworkers were largely apathetic or resistant, citing a pre-scheduled photo-op as a conflict.
Illinois: Firearm Owners Identification Card FOIA Exemption Bill Signed into Law Today: The NRA won a victory in Illinois this past week, convincing the State Senate to pass a bill protecting the gun-ownership information of all citizens not under important investigation. NRA opponents had sought to acquire personal data of gun-owners in the state and compile it.
State Department FOIA requests unanswered four long years later: Finally, in news that shouldn’t shock anyone who’s ever had to deal with a protracted FOI process, the State Department is REALLY bad at filing and fulfilling requests on time. Many requests are several years old, some as old as four years, and the numbers aren’t getting better year-to-year.
Jul 07
Philip HalinUncategorized
Have you ever wondered how the information you request is redacted? Well, with the NSA’s intra-agency guide to redaction, you too can obfuscate with the best of them! Amusingly titled “Redacting with Confidence”, the 15-page guide is an insight into both the redaction process and the mentality of the Agency. The first thing to note is the technology used. This NSA guide touches only on the main tools of Agency employees: Microsoft Word and Adobe Reader. What, no OpenOffice?
Interestingly, the Agency mentions several times to replace images and text, not cover them with other things. If they were printing them out, they’d Sharpie over the words and pictures, but the internet equivalent of Sharpying over things can be undone by the savvy.
Another online-document-only issue for many agencies is metadata. As you may recall, a New York federal judge ruled that metadata must be released to FOI requests, but the NSA may have had the memo go to their spam folder; there are whole sections on removing metadata. In fact, the only thing given more attention than metadata removal is appearance (formatting, spacing, etc.) giving the impression that the NSA wants pretty-looking reports revealing nothing.
An interesting series of requests might be to find if other government agencies have similar handbooks to this; how does the FBI retract? Homeland Security?
Jul 05
Philip HalinUncategorized FOI Stories, FOIA Stories
My father’s father is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. An avid traveler, he’s been pretty much anywhere you can name, and every one of his adventures has produced at least one incredible story, each funnier and longer than the one before it. One of his best stories, however, took place right here on American soil, and the punchline was revealed through an innocent Freedom of Information request made soon after the FOI Act came into being.
The story begins with my grandfather, as a young man, trying to outsmart the system. He and a classmate of his, both eligible for military service, sought to avoid being drafted into the army in the Korean War (where they would face jungle conditions and all manner of unsavory things) by enlisting as officers in the Navy. The way they figured it, being on a boat beat trudging across the country any day. When they showed up for officer training, the FBI did what it does best: it looked into them. Because they were prospective officers, the FBI wanted to make sure there were no skeletons hiding in their closets. As such, they sent two agents to my great-grandfather’s pharmacy to ask around about the proprietor’s son, my grandfather. When the agents arrived at the pharmacy, the two employees on duty were friends of my grandfathers and notorious pranksters. They took one look at the obviously-uncomfortable suited men and decided to give them a hard time. They didn’t say a single bad thing about my grandfather the whole interview, but as it wrapped up, one of the employees saw, out the window of the drug store, the Freemason’s building across the street. On the front of the building, among other symbols, was a picture of a goat—one of the icons of the Masons, apparently. Struck by the idea, the pharmacy worker informed the agents in a perfect deadpan that, while there was nothing reaaaaally wrong with the man they were asking around about. . . there WAS something a little strange about him. The FBI men leaned closer. What the man said next could classify my grandfather as a threat to national security. The pharmacy man leaned in towards them and confessed: “Well, I’ve always found it strange. . . see, he keeps a goat.” The FBI agents must have been puzzled, but into their notebooks it went.
Years passed, my grandfather was discharged for his poor vision, and he forgot all about the story. When the FOI Act was put into law, he filed for his FBI file on a whim. A few months passed, and then his file came in the mail. Inside the packaging, there were 11 pages, almost entirely redacted. He flipped through them, looking for anything of interest, but everything was blacked out. . . except for one sentence on one of the last pages. There, unhidden, was a single line, a comment, really: “Keeps a goat.”
Do you or anyone you know have a FOIA story you’d like to share? E-mail me at FOIAStories@gmail.com!
Jul 04
Philip HalinUncategorized FOI, FOI Friday, FOIA, FOIA Friday
Want Details on VA’s Dell PC Deal? File a FOIA: NextGov.com, a website that looks at the relationship between technology and the business of government, reports on the VA’s new contract with Dell. While $476.6 million contract for 600,000 PCs and monitors may not look skewed, it comes out to $749/computer, far above the retail price of $399. The VA, in a move that arouses further suspicion, has rejected Bob Brewin’s attempts to find out what the pricing and configuration of the contract are, forcing him to file a FOI request.
EPIC v. DHS Lawsuit — FOIA’d Documents Raise New Questions About Body Scanner Radiation Risks:EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center), long an opponent of TSA’s new backscatter machines, has released documents acquired through a FOI request that show that not only have TSA’s testing procedures been lacking, but that they have also not taken requisite security actions after tests revealed cancer clusters in employees working with the backscatter machines. EPIC is engaged in an ongoing lawsuit against DHS.
Report: Feds downplayed ICE case dismissals: Thaaaat’s right, ICE are back! The reigning kings of information obfuscation and government opacity are now on the hook after recently-released documents reveal that high-ranking ICE personnel have put out orders to dismiss hundreds of immigration cases. Considering ICE had denied that very practice in Houston, where this report is centered, they seem to have placed their feet firmly in their mouths on this one.
Our View: Attorney General right to pursue FIOA denial: Finally, from Illinois – after the Freeport Township requested certain financial information from the township supervisor and assessor (related to perhaps-unwarranted pay advances to the supervisor and her employees) and were denied that information. The Attorney General of the state has now stepped in to investigate, a move that, while it probably won’t expose a conspiracy or anything, will at least add more impetus for transparent government in Illinois.
Jun 27
Michael MorisyUncategorized
While building out MuckRock, we’ve come across some new and challenging problems, few of which we’ve seen before, personally, and many which are completely novel. We’re going to occasionally make mistakes, but one of our goals is to fix them as quickly and professionally as possible, while being as transparent and above board with both what went wrong and what we’re doing to fix it.
With that in mind, we sent out the following e-mail this morning to a small number of users: More
Jun 24
Philip HalinUncategorized CT, FOI, FOI Friday, FOIA, FOIA Friday, MA, MBTA, Stratford, T
I swear, I didn’t choose to write about all New England issues this week. It just sort of happened! I guess we’re just that interesting ’round here. Remember that most of the stuff we’re looking at can be found here anytime you like, and if you have any suggestions, please send them on over to tips@muckrock.com.
Past violations litter MBTA bus drivers’ records: Who here takes public transportation to get around? I do. I spend near-on four hours a day on various buses and trains. So when the Boston Herald speaks about the egregiously-lame hiring policies of the MBTA, I get a little peeved. And worried. It turns out that many of the drivers employed by the MBTA are in fact career road criminals, several with multiple moving violations and bad reputations. To get this information, the Herald requested the driving records of 25 randomly-sorted drivers after a driver was accused of playing a game of ‘chicken’ with another bus.
‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ Killer Records Found: Heading to Connecticut, we get to see some classic government difficulty-for-its-own-sake. The medical and psychological records of the woman whose poisonous plans became the basis of the film “Arsenic and Old Lace.” have been discovered by helth officials. The information was first requested by Ronald Robillard years ago, and he was told in response that the documents couldn’t be found. Now that they ARE found … well, Robert is still not getting his hands on them, apparently. Keep an eye peeled for this one in the next few weeks. (via NEFAC)
Door cracks open on government activity: Hooray for Vermont! The governor of that state has just signed into law a bill that adds protocols for winning FOI appeals to get their money back, as well as called for a review of the 250 exemptions to FOI laws. Advocates in Vermont, however, aren’t stopping there; they claim to have more plans for increasing government transparency. (via NEFAC)
Crushed by town pensions: I’m just going to open this entry with a fact: a single retired police chief in Stratford, Connecticut ”. . . if he lives to 75, the average life expectancy for a white male in this country will cost taxpayers $2.8 million.” This is caused by the bloated, inefficient and non-maintained pension system in Stratford and Connecticut at large. Click through to see what specific employees make in pensions. Because of the overtime-and-vacation based pensions, most money in the pension fund is concentrated to very few people, while the rest of pensions suffer because the fund is 51% unfunded. (via NEFAC)
Jun 17
Philip HalinUncategorized FBI, Firefighter, FOI, FOI Friday, FOIA, FOIA Friday, ICE, Rhode Island, RI, Sargent Shriver
You thought we were above it, but if Jon Stewart goes there, so do we. Remember that most of the stuff we’re looking at can be found here anytime you like, and if you have any suggestions, please send them on over to tips@muckrock.com.
Now, without interruption, the news:
FBI investigated Sargent Shriver’s links to communists: We’ll start this week with an interesting look back on the politics of the past. R. Sargent Shriver Jr., who passed away in January, was the founder of the Peace Core, leader of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, and held numerous other political positions. After his passing, his FBI file was released through a FOIA request, revealing that Shriver had been investigated for Communist ties after being appointed by LBJ to the post of ambassador to France. One Red flag that arose in the investigation was Shriver’s travels in Europe with a youth group through the Experiment in International Living, who had previously been investigated for their sympathies towards Chinese Communists. The FBI was still investigating Shriver’s communist ties as late as 1986, when the agency reported on Shriver’s relationship with former campaign employee David Karr, who the FBI believed passed information to the KGB.
ICE Stalling On More FOIA Requests Concerning Domain Name Seizures: I’m beginning to doubt I’ll ever get to write one of these without having to call out ICE for something. One would think the agency wasn’t actually in support of increased government transparency! The horror. Anyways, the scoop this time is pretty simple: ICE has been seizing domain names, and people want to know why. Requests by Michael Robertson’s NakedGovernment and MuckRock’s own Aaron Schwartz (director of Demand Progress) have been stonewalled for months.
FOI hearing officer backs police on release of Haberek images: Man, what is it with politicians and sending illicit pictures to people they aren’t married to? No, I’m not talking about Anthony Weiner. I’m talking about First Selectmen Ed Haberek, who allegedly sent inappropriate pictures to an unnamed woman in 2010. The Connecticut-based newspaper The Day requested the pictures, which were sent from the Selectman’s town-issue Blackberry. After the original request was rejected, The Day appealed the decision, but the FOI Commission rejected the appeal because the investigation involved uncorroborated allegations and would reveal private information.
Public records outrage of the day: North Providence edition: Finally, from WPRI news: after reporter Tim White broke a story about a Providence, RI firefighter stealing prescription painkillers during an emergency call, he called the fire department to ask some followup questions. After gathering some basic info, he requested that, pursuant to Rhode Island’s public information laws, the department send over the arrest record. What he received was less a useful document and more a sheet of redactions and a few innocuous sentences, despite the assurances from the station that only names would be redacted. White refused to take that lying down, and after a new call to the station, received a much less-redacted document. You can compare the two by clicking the link, but what we can take away from this is that the attitude of redact first, ask questions never pervades even local government.
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