Blogging For Freedom

Beachwood Reporter, July 2 2006 Link

When the news broke in May that the National Security Agency had created a huge database of Americans' phone records, incensed portions of the blogosphere cranked up their message machines, demanding that something be done.

But what?

Daily Kos blogger Da Buddy had an idea. In an "ACTION ITEM" posted on Kos, Da Buddy urged readers to "bombard" the NSA with Freedom of Information Act requests asking for records involving their own phone numbers. "And they HAVE to respond within 20 days, by law!" Da Buddy assured confidently.

Not a bad idea, but a rather unknowing one. Da Buddy's mob could indeed expect a response within 20 days - most likely a letter from the NSA explaining why the agency would need more than 20 days to respond to their requests.

The Freedom of Information Act is a jewel of democracy, but an imperfect one. The NSA's own FOIA policy (pdf), for example, states that "In the event the Director of Policy cannot respond within 20 working days due to unusual circumstances, the chief of the FOIA office shall advise the requester of the reason for the delay and negotiate a completion date with the requester."

So good luck with that.

Freedom geeks are not only celebrating Independence Day this week, but the the 40th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act. That makes it a particularly good time to consider FOIA's many loopholes as well as the opportunity presented by the growing swarm of bloggers and citizen journalists to press for fixes both federally and, perhaps more importantly, in state FOIA counterparts. Because one thing we've clearly learned in the last 40 years is that the use of the Freedom of Information Act is neither free nor always informative.

As anyone who's ever FOIAed a government agency in Chicago, greater Cook County, or the State of Illinois knows, there's almost no way to force an agency to give you what you're entitled to, much less in a timely manner at reasonable fees, particularly if you are a little guy without, say, the lawyers of the Tribune Company backing you up.

Even if you can get the records you are looking for, you may be discouraged by the cost you will incur. It's not uncommon for agencies around here to charge a quarter a page for copies of FOIAed records. If you're doing serious research on a regular basis, this adds up quickly. An Evanston clerk I dealt with recently (on a non-Beachwood matter) rationalized their quarter-per-page price this way: The person who gathered the records for me could have been doing something else with that time.

The clerk assured me that Evanston's Law Department made sure everything was legal before setting the copy price, but the policy clearly violates the Illinois FOIA statute provision that "Each public body may charge fees reasonably calculated to reimburse its actual cost for reproducing and certifying public records and for the use, by any person, of the equipment of the public body to copy records. Such fees shall exclude the costs of any search for and review of the record, and shall not exceed the actual cost of reproduction and certification, unless otherwise provided by State statute."

The state's Public Access Counselor, Terry Mutchler, agreed and sent the city a letter, but otherwise I've got no recourse, because neither she nor I have the time or money to go to court.

In all its mundanity, my experience with Evanston city government is just a sliver of battles frustrating citizens on a daily basis across Illinois, and often with much larger stakes than my own. It is also antithetical to the spirit of the Freedom of Information laws designed to undergird our democracy.

That's where electromob action comes in. Da Buddy is actually onto something. Bloggers are better positioned than any other group of concerned citizens to throw their political heft - and conspicuous tonnage of spare time - behind Freedom of Information. Aside from the obvious - FOIAing the crap out of as many agencies as possible - I propose focusing on four main goals:

1. Investigative and punitive provisions in FOIA law. Public officials who deny access through deliberate obfuscation and delay should be charged with felonies - and if they are trained as lawyers, disbarred. After all, shouldn't conducting government in secret be considered treasonous?

2. Training requirements for all government employees who handle public records. In Illinois, the seeds are in place.

3. More and better searchable online databases of government documents, which can circumvent much of the cost and hassle of digging up and copying records in the first place. Some government agencies - hello, Cook County Circuit Court - are still unaware of what the Internet can do for them. After all, searchable records free up clerks like the ones in Evanston to attend to the rest of their pressing duties, while shifting copying costs to the folks at home. The investment cost of digitizing records - well - will have to borne sooner or later. Why not now?

4. Strengthening state FOIA laws. Reporters who have spent time in other states - Florida, for example - are amazed at what isn't available in Illinois. (Illinois was the last state to pass an open records law, and it's not exactly a thing of beauty, Scott Reeder's astonishing success notwithstanding.) The impact is as much cultural as anything; the expectations of Chicago reporters are often so low it's easy to think they deserve what they don't get. Citizens deserve more, though.

If the institutional media isn't interested in the consistent, aggressive use of public records, and there is no indication they are, perhaps bloggers across the political spectrum can fill the void.

The Sunlight Foundation has just shown what bloggers and other regular folk can do for Illinois. On June 14, foundation reporter Bill Allison revealed that our very own Dennis Hastert owns 138 acres of land near the route of the Prairie Parkway, a proposed road that would run between I-80 in Grundy County and I-88 in Kendall County. Allison wrote that Hastert has "secured $207 million in earmarked appropriations" for the project. Note that this break came not through state or local records from Illinois, but federal documents - Hastert's 2005 financial disclosure form.

The Sunlight Foundation's welcome Assignment Desk is meant to empower citizen journalists to do their own digging through public records. Chicago is sorely lacking in blogs that dig into our hulking, opaque institutions, but some sites seem to have laid the groundwork. At the CTA Tattler, for example, editor Kevin O'Neil has managed to attract the "CTA Insider" - an anonymous CTA employee who provides biting commentary on everything from seat cushions to Pink Line jam-ups. Now imagine what the CTA Tattler could do if it introduced public records pursued through FOIA into its work.

Perhaps the notorious drag of obtaining documents from the government would trip up the immediacy that so invigorates bloggers. But at some point blogs have to evolve - and that means the addition of reporting, with public records perhaps the ripest tool.

(In her New Republic cover story about InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds, Christine Rosen summed up the stagnation of most political blogs: "Reynolds's blog consists largely of links to news or opinion articles and other blogs followed by comments consisting of such profound observations as 'Heh,' or 'Read the whole thing,' or 'Indeed.' (These are recurring tropes whose centrality can't be exaggerated.) What Reynolds lacks in analysis, he makes up for in abundance of content. On any given day, he'll provide his readers nearly 20 entries - or, if you can stomach it, more.")

And as shown by Pajamas Media's now-dormant IraqFiles in which Iraqis, a military expert, and others sifted through captured Iraqi documents, blogs can connect people who are willing to volunteer expertise and knowledge that's actually revealing.

"One of the things I hate about a lot of political blogs is that they choose really stupid things to write about," Thad Anderson, of Outraged Moderates and Download for Democracy, said recently. " Some people don't really understand my point of view, in that they don't put the same value I do in seeing the actual documents myself. But I think that, in an era of distrust and cynicism, focusing on the documents themselves is especially effective."