COX Newspapers Washington Bureau

Home > The Secrecy File > Archives > 2008 > January > 09

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Secret Service could face more sanctions tomorrow

By Rebecca Carr | Wednesday, January 9, 2008, 03:12 PM

The U.S. Secret Service faces the possibility of more sanctions at a court hearing tomorrow for failing to turn over documents and testimony in a class-action lawsuit alleging systemic discrimination against African American agents.

The service has failed to find a single paper record from current employees in response to an order last month from U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson to turn over all documents referring to the promotion of African American agents from 1991 to the present in a lawsuit alleging that black agents face racial hostility on the job and are bypassed for promotions by white agents who score lower on hiring exams.

Justice Department lawyers representing the service say they contacted and re-contacted top Secret Service officials in their search for responsive documents. These officials included assistant directors, special agents in charge and division chiefs. But the search produced “no responsive paper records.”

The lawyers sought the same information from former Secret Service officials. But they received just one responsive document. “Defendant will continue to telephone the remaining former agency managers who have not yet responded,” the lawyers wrote in a letter to the plaintiffs lawyers.

Jennifer I. Klar, part of the legal team from Hogan & Hartson and Relman & Dane representing the plaintiffs for free, said those searches were inadequate at best.

“It’s really stunning,” Klar said. “They have clearly not found all of the documents that were created that are responsive.”

The service admitted in August that it had not even begun to search the files of the service officials responsible for promotions more than one year after they were requested.

Robinson has already rebuked the service for presenting what she called “uncredible testimony” and failing to produce documents and e-mails sought the long-running lawsuit.

Robinson has sanctioned the government three times and issued 22 rulings against the service in discovery.

At the last hearing, Robinson noted that the plaintiffs have been waiting for their day in court for more than 7 years in part because the service has failed to turn over requested evidence in a timely fashion.

Marina Braswell, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case, did not return a phone call to discuss tomorrow’s hearing.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers plan to ask Robinson to prevent the government from putting on an “affirmative defense,” which would limit the Secret Service’s ability to defend the service against the charges.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |

Board recommends fixes for overclassification, excessive secrecy

By Rebecca Carr | Wednesday, January 9, 2008, 01:32 PM

A presidential advisory board issued a long-awaited report today that attempts to address the excessive way federal agencies mark documents secret.

The Public Interest Declassification Board, appointed by President Bush and congressional leaders, proposes clearcut ways to reduce the overclassification of materials and the release of those once-secret documents to the public.

faga.jpgDeclassification policy must “take into account the interest of ordinary citizens in having as ‘thorough, accurate, and reliable’ a record of their country’s history as soon as it is possible to provide it,” wrote Martin C. Faga, acting chair of the Public Interest Declassification Board and former head of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Overall, the board found that declassifying presidential records “takes far too long under the current system.”

In response, the board recommends that the head of the National Archives and Records Administration should establish a center to house all future classified presidential records from the end of an administration until they are declassified and sent to presidential libraries.

The board found that there is a “wide disparity” in the way agencies respond to declassification orders. The president should issue an executive order with uniform guidlines, the report states.

“The board paints a picture of a classification system bogged down by agency territoriality,” said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel at the National Security Archive, a research library at George Washington University. “Despite official policy that historically significant records should be made available to the public, they are lost in a morass.”

The report includes numerous recommendations that the president could implement today to serve the public interest in security and the public interest in access to historically significant information, Fuchs said.

This is particularly true with respect to presidential records, Fuchs said. The Bush administration has engaged in “an all out battle,” to keep those records from the public, she said.

The board says those records are “arguably, the most important records needed by the public to obtain an accurate and complete understanding of the country’s history.”

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ project on government secrecy, writes that “many of the board’s dozens of recommendations seem thoughtful, well-founded and readily achievable.”

But Aftergood, a well known expert on national security issues, said that he is uncertain “whether they will find a receptive audience in the final year of the Bush administration or a champion in the current Congress.”

Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment |

FOIA conference conflict-just a coincidence?

By Rebecca Carr | Wednesday, January 9, 2008, 10:27 AM

Oops. It seems that the Justice Department’s office that oversees the Freedom of Information Act has scheduled a conference on new changes to the law on the very same day that Daniel J. Metcalfe, the former head of that office, has scheduled a conference on the very same subject at American University’s new center on government secrecy.

A coincidence? Normally, one would think so.

But some open government advocates wonder otherwise given the palpable tension between Metcalfe and the Justice Department’s new head of the office on information and privacy, Melanie Ann Pustay.

Metcalfe retired from his post last year, saying Pustay was delaying the publication of its FOIA guide, long-considered a bible in open government circles. Pustay denied that charge.

Metcalfe also made it clear that he believes the department had become overtly political. He told Cox News at the time that he retired because he could no longer tolerate the “sheer political expediency, avoidance of individual responsibility, defensive personal aggrandizement, irresponsible ‘consensus’ decisionmaking (and) disregard for longstanding practices and principles.”

“It makes little sense for Justice to have done such a thing,” Metcalfe said.

American University’s Collaboration on Government Secrecy advertised its conference on the Internet ahead of Justice back on December 21. The conference will be held from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 16. The program will cover all of the changes to the law signed by President Bush last month. Speakers include Gary M. Stern, general counsel at the National Archives and Records Administration; Meredith Fuchs, general counsel at the National Security Archive; Pete Weitzel, coordinator of FOIA issues at the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government.

The Justice Department’s conference on Jan. 16 targets senior FOIA officers. Information can be found here. 

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |