FBI Is the Worst FOIA Performer 92
krou writes "The National Security Archive at George Washington University has awarded its 2009 Rosemary Award to the FBI for worst freedom of information performance (PDF of the award). Previous winners have been the CIA and the Treasury. The NSA notes that 'The FBI's reports to Congress show that the Bureau is unable to find any records in response to two-thirds of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the past four years, when the other major government agencies averaged only a 13% "no records" response to public requests.' The FBI's explanation, according to the NSA, is that 'files are indexed only by reference terms that have to be manually applied by individual agents,' and even then, 'agents don't always index all relevant terms.' Furthermore, 'unless a requester specifically asks for a broader search, the FBI will only look in a central database of electronic file names at FBI headquarters in Washington.' Any search will therefore 'miss any internal or cross-references to people who are not the subject of an investigation, any records stored at other FBI offices around the country, and any records created before 1970.'"
Why would this surprise anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, would you think the FBI would be willing to let the citizenry know about ******* and ***** and ***** ***** *******? That would pose a massive security risk to ****** **********, and couldn't be allowed under any circumstances.
Re:congrats (Score:4, Funny)
Re:congrats (Score:4, Funny)
Search: X-Files (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not too surprising (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not too surprising (Score:3, Funny)
You'd be surprised how easy it is get to sleep after eating a few babies. Knocks me right out. And I work in the intelligence community if that makes any difference to you.
Damn. What agency do you work for? Our budget for baby's got cut in the last budget cycle. We have to read policy statements to get a good night's rest.