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Tag Archive: Investigations

DOD misinterpreted the FOIA

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A couple of days ago I followed up with DOD about why they denied our FOIA for correspondence logs earlier. Their denial was based on the fact that the records were too large and they wanted us to narrow our request. On talking to them I figured that DOD officials had interpreted our FOIA to include all documents and not just the logs of correspondences. So, they agreed to re-open our FOIA based on this clarification.

Unfortunately, other Agencies have also been misinterpreting out FOIAs, assuming we are asking for copies of the letters and not just the logs.

So ...

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Selling SSNs

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Via the excellent IEC Journal comes this Government Executive story detailing the indictment of a former Social Security Administration worker who allegedly was paid $20 for each "identity" she pilfered, including Social Security numbers and other information sufficient to get credit cards.

Anu's story last Friday revealed an inadvertent release of personal information; it's a little frightening to think that a civil servant might have been purposely selling it -- and at such a low price.

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USDA Puts Aid Recipients’ Social Security Numbers Online

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For almost a decade, some divisions of the Department of Agriculture published the Social Security numbers of individuals who receive federal aid in a publicly available online database of government grants. The Farm Service Agency and at least one other agency within Agriculture included the nine digit numbers as part of the tracking number assigned to each recipient of government assistance, called a Federal Award ID.

Those tracking numbers were then published in the Federal Assistance Awards Database System (FAADS), an online compendium of all types of financial assistance awards made by federal agencies to all types of recipients," which ...

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Two Replies and Conversations with FOIA Officers

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Today, we received a reply to our correspondence logs FOIA from USAID as an excel spreadsheet. This is only the second time we have gotten a reply in a format that can be uploaded and used to fulfill our goal of making the logs searchable using keywords. Here are the two replies we have received so far: from EPA(.xls) and USAID (.xls).

Just a quick update on how things are moving along: I've been asking FOIA officers from SBA, FERC and FTC to give us the logs in an electronic format and not as print outs. Although, as ...

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“Our Pledge to You, the Constituent…”

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Here's an idea that occurred to me after reading John Stanton's piece today in Roll Call that notes the disclosure requirements for members of Congress who might personally profit from earmarks--part of the reforms adopted by the House and the Senate--don't apply to congressional aides. There's a passage in the article about a few members who have instituted internal ethics rules to deal with relatives of aides who lobby. Are these written rules? Are there other written rules that members have for their offices? And if so, will members make these public?

This is the relevant ...

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The Paper Chase

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For the past couple of hours I have been trying to get my hands on a letter that Senator McCain wrote to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne on April 4 about requesting documents related to the Combat Search and Rescue helicopter program.

According to a Reuters report, Senator McCain has questioned an Air Force decision giving Boeing contracts worth about $15 billion under the program.

On calling the Senator's office I was told by the press spokeswoman, Melissa Sheffield that they don't release these letters to the press." She added that I could get it from the Air ...

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Earmarks: Tip of the Iceberg?

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Three paragraphs jumped out at me from the final chapter of Robert G. Kaiser's excellent Washington Post series, Citizen K Street:

Cassidy helped change Washington by shaping the culture of congressional earmarks that became so important in the last dozen years. Earmarks directly transfer the government's money to particular institutions and interests. He and his original partner helped invent the idea of lobbying for earmarked appropriations -- an idea that made Cassidy rich and fed a system of interdependence between lobbyists and Congress that thrives today.

And, later in the piece...

Cassidy and his original partner, Kenneth Schlossberg, demonstrated ...

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CONTINUING WITH SOME OTHER EARMARKS

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CONTINUING WITH SOME OTHER EARMARKS in the OMB database, the Department of Justice gave $740,000 to Mistral Security Inc, for continuing a drug identification program. This grant was to expand an aerosol drug detection technology that is already being tested in schools as a pilot run. The aerosol sprays can be used to detect the residue that illegal drugs leave when they've touched a surface; the company provides an independent audit of the program's results here.

According to the Mistral Group website, the aerosol applications that are being developed by schools all serve as a deterrent to ...

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