.............................................................. >From the New Paradigms Project [Not Necessarily Endorsed]: From: Paul Wolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: The FBI's Information Bottleneck Date: Friday, June 02, 2000 5:55 PM From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroup: alt.politics.org.fbi March/April 1992 CJR| KEEPING SECRETS The FBI's Information Bottleneck by Seth Rosenfeld Rosenfeld, a reporter for The San Francisco Examiner, obtained the internal FBI figures in this story and chart in the course of a lawsuit he brought independently in connection with a book he is writing.The FBI tells Congress that it's so swamped with Freedom of Information Act requests that it simply can't keep up. Called before Congress in 1990 to explain increasing delays, Emil Moschella, former head of the bureau's FOIA unit, produced brightly colored charts to back up that excuse. But FBI figures recently obtained in the course of a lawsuit against the bureau tell another story. For example, while one of Moschella's charts dramatically showed that the FBI has been "closing" a larger number of requests each year since 1985, he gave no hint of a corollary trend: the bureau is closing more and more requests for administrative reasons -- on grounds that the requests are flawed or the records requested aren't available, for example -- without processing and releasing a single page of documents. The FBI closed 78 percent of its 1990 requests in this way. The internal documents and figures obtained in the suit also show that while the number of new requests sent to the FBI each year has steadily and predictably increased, the bureau just as steadily has dumped the overload into a swelling backlog, which, in turn, is handled by a steadily shrinking staff. Perennial underfunding of the FOIA office, not some avalanche of new requests, accounts for longer and longer delays -- more than ten years in extreme cases. The FBI acknowledges in sworn interrogatories that between 1978 and 1988 -- a period in which funding for the FBI as a whole nearly tripled, to $1.4 billion -- the bureau requested "no additional budget funds for FOIA compliance." Writers also testified at the 1990 Freedom of Information Act hearing. Among them was David Garrow, the City College of New York political science professor whose Pulitzer-Prize-winning book about the Reverend Martin Luther King, Bearing the Cross, was based in part on FBI documents. He told Congress that the FBI's long delays "will inflict serious if not fatal injury" on research and writing.... (The FBI declined to comment on the statistics). Forwarded for info and discussion from the New Paradigms Discussion List, not necessarily endorsed by: *********************************** Lloyd Miller, Research Director for A-albionic Research a ruling class/conspiracy research resource for the entire political-ideological spectrum. **FREE RARE BOOK SEARCH: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ** Explore Our Archive: <http://a-albionic.com/a-albionic.html> <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html <A HREF="http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
