Apr 19
Michael MorisyUncategorized FBI, Federal Government, Interviews
An anonymous tipster sent along an interesting bit: The FBI has released a portion of the written interview summaries of Saddam Hussein by Special Agent Piro.
The 132-page document includes:
- Saddam’s thoughts on his greatest accomplishment: “The social programs for the citizens of Iraq and improvements in other sectors of the economy including enhancements to education, the health care system, industry, agriculture, and other areas that generally enhanced the way of life for Iraqis.”
- When asked about his own mistakes, he told the interviewer that “All humans make mistakes, and only God is free of error.” But that he would not identify mistakes to an enemy, and the American system of government was his enemy.
- Saddam wishes that both America and Iraq advance in all areas, “financial, religious, etc.”.
- Pages and pages of details about coups, the Ba’ath uprising, the early days of the Iraqi revolution, and more.
The document release is 132 pages, but unfortunately is not searchable until somebody takes some OCR software to it. You can download it directly from the FBI (warning: PDF).
Apr 02
Michael MorisyUncategorized Federal Government, Federal Stimulus, Healthcare Reform, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, Podcasts, ProPublica
Of all the recent media startups, few have come with the gravitas of ProPublica, a non-profit currently helmed by Paul Steiger, former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. With ample foundational funding and partnerships with organizations ranging from the New York Times and CNN to Politico and Reader’s Digest, it’s wasted no time in doing important, in-depth journalistic work.
They also have a great podcast series in which Mike Webb interviews ProPublica staff.
In episode 6, Mike interviews Jennifer LaFleur about her work developing Recovery Tracker 3.0, a tool that aims to help the public tracker every stimulus dollar spent. For example, you can see how the $1,368,268,456 targeted at Middlesex County, MA is being spent, broken down by agency and department:
Or you can dive even deeper, and look at individual stimulus contracts.
In all, it’s an immense amount of financial data that LaFleur and her team made easily digestible without dumbing it down, and as she remarks in the podcast in many areas it’s more complete than the government’s own database at Recover.gov.
Mike Webb also interviewed Olga Pierce, Jeff Larson and Scott Klein for a podcast on how the former pair’s Health Care Bill Comparison News App came together, from the inception of the idea over a coffee break to finished product just a few weeks later. While the app itself is relatively simple, it’s a quick, clean way to find and understand a myriad of changes occurring in what could be the most landmark legislation of the decade, legislation that was knocked back and forth so many times there’s a good chance most of the senators voting for and against it weren’t fully aware of what they were voting on.
Jeff’s execution of the application is elegant, and as they note on the podcast, it became a hot tool while the bill was actually on the floor as both pundits and the public tried to figure out what, exactly, this monumental legislation included.
Know of other great government data resources, whether state or federal? Let me know at Michael@MuckRock.com, and we’ll share the knowledge with the rest of our community.
Mar 29
Michael MorisyUncategorized FBI, Federal Government, Special File Room
What, you thought the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark was some George Lucas fantasy? Ok, maybe it is, but the Boston Globe’s Bryan Bender takes us someplace almost as secret, the FBI’s “secret file room”:
It is where the government has hidden the most secret information: plans to relocate Congress if Washington were attacked, dossiers on double agents, case files about high-profile mob figures and their politician friends, and a disturbing number of reports about the possible smuggling of atomic bombs into the United States.
It is also where the bureau stowed documents considered more embarrassing than classified, including its history of illegal spying on domestic political organizations and surveillance of nascent gay rights groups.
The FBI recently released memos detailing what the special file room contains and why those documents were placed there rather than the FBI’s normal filing system. The memos cover the time from the 1950s through the 1980s, and include information about international espionage, domestic threats and a rather heightened interest in gay activist groups and “allegations of homosexuality of some very prominent individuals.’’
Our friends at GovernmentAttic.org are hosting the memos (Warning: Link to 17.1 MB PDF), which run over 470 pages.
Mar 28
Michael MorisyUncategorized Federal Government, FOI Resources, FOIA, Inmates, Prisons
An anonymous tipster writes in with a great resource for those of you trying to look up information on federal inmates: Federal Bureau of Prisons documentation on how inmate information is stored (PDF). Knowing what documents to look for is perhaps the most critical piece of any Freedom Of Information: Request the wrong thing or make a request that’s too vague, and you’ll end up with either a rejection or thousands of dollars in handling fees, when the properly phrased request could have gotten you the exact data you’re interested in in a timely, hassle-free fashion.
This 26 page document details the organization and maintenance rules surrounding Inmate Central File System, which contains:
- Conduct, Work and Quarters Reports for federal inmates
- General correspondence about inmates
- Parole materials for inmates
Download the full document from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or if that’s down use our alternate download hosted on MuckRock’s servers.
Photo licensed under Creative Commons Share Alike from Decade_Null. See original.
Mar 16
Michael MorisyUncategorized Federal Government, FOIA, Sunshine Week
From the White House comes the President’s statement on Sunshine Week:
As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever, an effort that will strengthen our democracy and ensure the public’s trust in their government. We came to Washington to change the way business was done, and part of that was making ourselves accountable to the American people by opening up our government. We’ve put our White House visitor records on the Internet for the first time in history; opened up more government information than ever before on Data.gov, Recovery.gov and USAspending.gov; and issued an Executive Order fighting unnecessary secrecy, to name a few.
We are proud of these accomplishments, but our work is not done. We will continue to work toward an unmatched level of transparency, participation and accountability across the entire Administration.
What celebrations do you have planned?
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An anonymous tipster sent along an interesting bit: The FBI has released a portion of the written interview summaries of Saddam Hussein by Special Agent Piro.