[00:00.000 --> 00:08.860]  I'm working today on declassifying government and undermining a culture of insecurity, as opposed to a culture of security.
[00:10.280 --> 00:15.480]  I'm going to talk a lot about the Freedom of Information Act, which I used to write two books.
[00:16.000 --> 00:23.940]  This came out last month, Surveillance in America, Critical Analysis of the FBI 1920 to the Present.
[00:25.380 --> 00:28.440]  And I've been working pretty busily.
[00:28.620 --> 00:36.200]  This one came out in 2010, The Dangers of Dissent, The FBI and Civil Liberties Since 1965.
[00:38.220 --> 00:50.100]  So, these two books, the first book took about eight years of research and writing, though I didn't work on it 24 hours a day.
[00:50.100 --> 00:52.580]  And the second book took about two years.
[00:53.460 --> 00:59.940]  I had done a lot of the requesting of files already, and it was a much faster process.
[01:05.180 --> 01:11.620]  Why are FOIA files, especially FBI files, very important to obtain for the public?
[01:11.740 --> 01:13.100]  Why should the public obtain them?
[01:13.100 --> 01:18.440]  Well, to write a history of the FBI, you need these files.
[01:18.760 --> 01:22.480]  And to write a history of civil liberties and surveillance, you need these files.
[01:22.820 --> 01:32.480]  It's estimated there are anywhere from two to four billion pages of FBI files currently being held by the government.
[01:33.580 --> 01:37.580]  The estimate varies depending on when you ask and what they say.
[01:38.240 --> 01:43.400]  But they've told Congress at one point two point five, then four million.
[01:44.700 --> 01:47.400]  And how many have been declassified?
[01:47.600 --> 01:53.520]  Under the Freedom of Information Act, about six million, or seven, six to seven.
[01:53.520 --> 02:01.840]  And transferred to the National Archives, though they're not always available for public use, about 35 million.
[02:02.300 --> 02:10.760]  So you're talking about 40 million pages declassified out of two point two to four billion pages of files.
[02:11.640 --> 02:22.400]  Now, not all those files are investigatory files, and not all of them are related to national security or insecurity, which is what I pretty much are focusing on.
[02:22.600 --> 02:36.900]  But I think the general point is there's a tremendous amount of government information out there that requires the efforts of citizens and journalists and authors and writers and public interest organizations to request the files to get the information.
[02:37.540 --> 02:39.940]  Once you get the information, what do you do with it?
[02:40.180 --> 03:00.520]  Well, you can try to write new narratives of American history based on these files, new narratives of FBI history, and create new public debates about what is the role of security in society, and the role of the FBI in society, and how civil liberties are impacted.
[03:00.520 --> 03:03.520]  You can pass new laws based on new debates.
[03:03.680 --> 03:06.800]  You can lead to new social movements based on new debates.
[03:07.180 --> 03:16.240]  One of the things that I favor is a social movement forming around anti-spying in our society.
[03:16.480 --> 03:20.480]  A lot of people call what we live in today a surveillance society.
[03:21.360 --> 03:24.580]  The civil liberties community uses out that word.
[03:24.820 --> 03:29.980]  The progressive and political organizing communities think we live in a surveillance society.
[03:29.980 --> 03:33.800]  And not many people are organizing specifically against that.
[03:35.040 --> 03:45.540]  Now, so, if you ask me what's the point of this talk, one of the points is to encourage people to start a social movement against government spying.
[03:45.780 --> 03:48.320]  Acting in lawful and peaceful ways, of course.
[03:48.840 --> 03:49.060]  Okay.
[03:50.280 --> 03:51.920]  Back to the freedom of information.
[03:53.100 --> 04:01.220]  I made my first request in December 1999, and since then I've made 104 requests to the FBI.
[04:01.520 --> 04:02.080]  104.
[04:02.560 --> 04:11.980]  I've gotten 60 files, and that constitute about 45,000 pages of FBI documents.
[04:12.200 --> 04:18.100]  And these are all documents related to domestic security, or what's called the 100 classification.
[04:18.100 --> 04:23.320]  That's the number for national security, domestic security.
[04:23.580 --> 04:28.560]  In the dangers of dissent, I used 36 FBI files.
[04:28.840 --> 04:30.660]  18 I got myself.
[04:31.580 --> 04:39.080]  In surveillance in America, I used 59 FBI files, of which 25 I got myself.
[04:41.520 --> 04:44.060]  Now, what about the other files I used?
[04:44.220 --> 04:44.980]  Where do they come from?
[04:45.720 --> 04:50.060]  Well, there are several websites that post government files.
[04:50.340 --> 04:53.080]  One is the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union.
[04:53.360 --> 05:05.120]  They have extensive web material on spying and surveillance, and they often post FBI files along with their articles and press releases.
[05:05.120 --> 05:10.220]  Another is governmentaddict.org, which posts files en masse.
[05:11.040 --> 05:13.280]  And another is the FBI website itself.
[05:13.520 --> 05:22.780]  They have a FOIA reading room, and since I think it's 1999, they've been posting a bunch of files on their own site.
[05:23.340 --> 05:29.960]  Now, one note about the FBI website for FOIA, what they post isn't often the complete record.
[05:30.600 --> 05:36.840]  A recent example is, a couple of weeks ago, it was breaking news that they posted W.
[05:36.840 --> 05:39.170]  Mark Felt's FBI file online.
[05:40.280 --> 05:43.340]  Now, who's Felt, he's Deep Throat of Watergate fame.
[05:43.860 --> 05:54.380]  As everyone should probably by now know, Deep Throat was a top FBI official, Mark Felt, who leaked information to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Post.
[05:54.380 --> 06:01.080]  Well, the FBI put his file online, and they said it was the full file, and they put about 1,800 pages.
[06:02.080 --> 06:11.240]  And I had asked for that file several years ago after Mark Felt died, and I think I was the first one to get it, and they sent me over 3,500 pages.
[06:12.960 --> 06:18.320]  So, what they post on there, what they decide to post is not always the full record.
[06:18.780 --> 06:22.000]  Now, of course, what they released to me might not always be the full record.
[06:22.080 --> 06:26.460]  But at least in terms of we know, I got more than 3,500 pages.
[06:27.400 --> 06:34.000]  Now, not everything I got was useful, just as an aside, they had his medical reports.
[06:36.440 --> 06:40.800]  He was the number two guy at the bureau, and he worked his way up to number two.
[06:41.000 --> 06:46.800]  And they had his EKG reports, you know, his medical EKG reports.
[06:47.060 --> 06:57.220]  So, I was trying to get a doctor to look at them, because he said he had some type of heart condition, which was an issue of why he would be fit to serve or carry a weapon.
[06:57.220 --> 06:59.540]  So, his EKG reports were in there.
[06:59.740 --> 07:01.760]  So, the FBI didn't put that online.
[07:02.020 --> 07:04.700]  But they released it to me for some weird reason.
[07:04.900 --> 07:07.260]  They didn't censor that part of the file.
[07:12.580 --> 07:14.680]  When was FOIA first passed?
[07:15.550 --> 07:23.790]  In 1966, but not until 1974 did federal law enforcement records become subject to its application.
[07:23.790 --> 07:28.840]  So, in 1966, LBJ signs the law on July 4th.
[07:30.120 --> 07:36.520]  And in 1974, Congress adds amendments to it that apply it to the FBI records.
[07:36.790 --> 07:37.460]  Why then?
[07:37.460 --> 07:43.220]  Because of Watergate, because of a lot of scandal in government, because of Hoover.
[07:43.960 --> 07:50.660]  J. Edgar Hoover had died in 1972, and his various crimes under COINTELPRO were being released.
[07:50.900 --> 07:52.600]  I mean, information was getting to the public.
[07:52.600 --> 07:59.880]  So, Congress decided, let's open up federal law enforcement records for public view.
[08:03.150 --> 08:10.210]  Ford, who was president, vetoed the act, which had the amendments, and Congress overrode it.
[08:10.830 --> 08:12.590]  Why did Ford veto it?
[08:12.770 --> 08:15.390]  His main objection was confidentiality.
[08:15.390 --> 08:25.210]  He said, the FBI works with a lot of people, informers and sources and third parties.
[08:25.410 --> 08:32.150]  And if FOIA is applied to the FBI, we won't be able to assure the secrecy of those contacts.
[08:32.870 --> 08:36.070]  And of course, that's a phony argument.
[08:36.470 --> 08:45.070]  Because when the law was passed with the amendments, they gave law enforcement various ways to censor or redact or blackout material.
[08:45.230 --> 08:48.010]  There are a series of nine exemptions in the law.
[08:48.670 --> 08:51.170]  And one is for confidentiality.
[08:51.350 --> 09:01.070]  So anyone who looks at FBI files, you'll see there's lots of blackouts of material, which you can try to piece together on your own to find out what it is.
[09:01.070 --> 09:02.270]  But it's difficult.
[09:04.470 --> 09:20.490]  If you make a request to the FBI, and let's say you get 200 pages, you can appeal to the Department of Justice to see if the file is longer than 200 pages.
[09:21.590 --> 09:24.030]  Now that's free, but it's time consuming.
[09:24.030 --> 09:33.590]  You write a letter of appeal, and all the Office of Information at DOJ worked with the FBI to see if they'll release more information.
[09:34.550 --> 09:41.930]  A lot of researchers think about maybe 30% of all responses, initial responses, to FOIA requests.
[09:41.990 --> 09:44.030]  Upon appeal, you get more material.
[09:45.590 --> 09:52.930]  So there's a question of whether initially they're being honest when they say a file is 200 pages or 500 pages or whatever.
[09:52.930 --> 09:57.670]  Another way they try to foil the process is by destroying files.
[09:58.330 --> 10:07.290]  Anyone who studies FBI history knows that there's a routine process where they save material and where they destroy it or send to the shredder.
[10:07.490 --> 10:12.250]  There's a category of material sent safe for historical preservation.
[10:13.630 --> 10:19.630]  Although I'm not aware of the criteria of what's considered historical and what isn't.
[10:19.630 --> 10:32.790]  I found a memo in the National Archives FBI file that showed between 1975 and 1981, the FBI destroyed 143,000 files related to domestic security.
[10:33.130 --> 10:43.150]  So as soon as the FOIA amendments became effective, 1974, the FBI began destroying a lot of files so they wouldn't have to release them.
[10:43.150 --> 10:52.030]  So that's 143,100 classification files over 75 to 1981.
[10:52.550 --> 11:08.130]  I found another memo, 1986 to 1995, the FBI destroyed a quarter of a billion pages, 250 million pages, not files, pages.
[11:08.130 --> 11:13.070]  They listed in cubic feet, and then you translate it to pages in the 100 classification.
[11:14.030 --> 11:16.370]  So again, they destroyed a lot of material.
[11:16.690 --> 11:22.390]  Another example would be 300,000 pages of the sex deviates program.
[11:22.750 --> 11:29.150]  In 1977, there was a decision made to destroy the files of that program.
[11:29.150 --> 11:35.750]  And that program was the FBI's investigation of gays in government, in federal government.
[11:36.330 --> 11:44.330]  For many years, since I think it's the late 30s, if you were gay, or they used the word homosexual, but most of the attention was on men.
[11:44.470 --> 11:47.770]  There weren't that many women employed that they investigated that I'm aware of.
[11:48.630 --> 11:52.390]  If you were homosexual and worked in government, you could be fired.
[11:53.270 --> 11:55.390]  They did loyalty investigations.
[11:57.910 --> 12:02.790]  And all the records on that, or at least 300,000 pages, were destroyed.
[12:03.150 --> 12:08.710]  Another example of destroyed records, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
[12:10.230 --> 12:13.630]  And the custodial detention program records.
[12:14.250 --> 12:26.310]  The government had a system since 1939, where in the event of a national emergency, they would round up people and indefinitely detain them during a national emergency.
[12:26.550 --> 12:30.870]  Probably, they were thinking some type of hot war with the Soviet Union.
[12:31.370 --> 12:39.710]  Now, at its height, there were about 26,000 Americans on the detention list, and its successor, the Security Index and the ADEX Index.
[12:40.070 --> 12:43.630]  Mostly communists, socialists, black power.
[12:44.590 --> 12:50.770]  Jimi Hendrix made the list before it was abolished in the early 70s, because he did some fundraisers.
[12:50.910 --> 12:56.990]  I think it was for black power, black panthers, college professors, political activists.
[12:57.630 --> 12:59.990]  But again, that was never put into effect.
[13:00.390 --> 13:02.470]  I mean, they never actually rounded up the people.
[13:02.770 --> 13:18.090]  And just as a footnote, Congress passed, last month, a detention bill, establishing pretty much a similar system under Obama, which Obama signed with a signing statement.
[13:18.470 --> 13:19.770]  I forgot the name of it.
[13:19.870 --> 13:20.870]  It's a detention act.
[13:21.150 --> 13:22.730]  It has the word detention in it.
[13:23.890 --> 13:27.210]  And this would be related not to the Cold War, but the war on terror.
[13:27.890 --> 13:33.450]  That anyone related to terrorism potentially could be arrested and detained indefinitely.
[13:35.390 --> 13:37.330]  But there was a precedent for that.
[13:39.370 --> 13:41.590]  Now, a little bit more about FOIA.
[13:41.870 --> 13:46.990]  Often you'll get, if you make a request, a response that says there are no records.
[13:47.210 --> 13:50.410]  Our search has found no records.
[13:51.450 --> 13:52.570]  What does that mean?
[13:53.170 --> 13:55.290]  That means they say they have no records.
[13:55.290 --> 13:58.770]  Now, on appeal, it's found that...
[13:59.290 --> 14:07.930]  Or first, before I say that, in 1998, 36% of all FBI responses to FOIA requests, they said no records.
[14:08.350 --> 14:08.950]  36%.
[14:08.950 --> 14:12.110]  In 2000, it went up to 48%.
[14:12.110 --> 14:18.310]  In 2004, they said 55% of all requests, there were no records.
[14:18.310 --> 14:22.230]  In 2007, they said 71%.
[14:22.930 --> 14:24.210]  There were no records.
[14:26.690 --> 14:28.030]  What do we make of that?
[14:28.230 --> 14:30.670]  In some cases, there really are no records.
[14:31.110 --> 14:35.950]  I mean, you can file a request on yourself, and there may be nothing.
[14:36.150 --> 14:50.080]  There's a good chance there'll be nothing unless you're a leader or a rank-and-file member of a group who's given speeches or held placards or got arrested in civil disobedience or for some other reason, but there really may be no records.
[14:50.360 --> 14:58.780]  But for it to almost double over a decade, a lot of people think they're being disingenuous in how they're responding to requests.
[14:59.320 --> 15:01.960]  And the only way to challenge that is through appeal.
[15:02.320 --> 15:09.720]  Like we said, if you get a no records response, you appeal to DOJ, and in maybe 30% of the cases, you'll get records.
[15:09.720 --> 15:13.160]  And then if you don't get anything under appeal, you can sue.
[15:13.640 --> 15:17.540]  Under the Freedom of Information Act, file a civil lawsuit.
[15:17.560 --> 15:20.480]  But that's expensive and time-consuming.
[15:20.820 --> 15:24.960]  I did it, which I'll talk about in a little bit, which was successful.
[15:27.720 --> 15:29.480]  Sometimes there are partial responses.
[15:29.480 --> 15:38.340]  I filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2000 about a 2000 project for Project Megiddo.
[15:38.560 --> 15:40.060]  M-E-G-I-D-D-O.
[15:40.380 --> 15:41.120]  Thank you.
[15:41.280 --> 15:42.280]  It's in the Bible, right?
[15:43.340 --> 15:44.720]  I think it's a reference to the Bible.
[15:44.940 --> 15:47.900]  And that was a threat assessment for the millennium.
[15:48.960 --> 15:54.580]  Before the millennium, the FBI did a threat assessment of, is there going to be violence when the year 2000 comes?
[15:54.580 --> 16:05.800]  Apart from computer crashes, which shouldn't happen, Y2K and all that hype, were political groups, were cults going to turn to violence?
[16:06.580 --> 16:17.140]  And they analyzed a lot of existing material around the country and did new surveillance of right-wing groups and other groups to see if they were going to plan any violence.
[16:17.300 --> 16:20.040]  Now, I wanted the records on that for the book that I was writing.
[16:20.040 --> 16:22.920]  When I asked for it, they sent me 10 pages.
[16:23.860 --> 16:27.040]  Press releases consisting of 10 pages.
[16:29.940 --> 16:38.180]  Another example is there was a radical black power group called the Republic of New Africa, or RNA.
[16:38.680 --> 16:41.340]  They were investigated under COINTELPRO.
[16:41.820 --> 16:43.480]  They asked for their file.
[16:43.740 --> 16:45.800]  They got 8,300 pages.
[16:45.800 --> 16:50.640]  They then filed a lawsuit saying that can't be the complete amount.
[16:50.880 --> 16:55.100]  They got another 32,000 after they filed a lawsuit.
[16:55.720 --> 17:01.500]  And ultimately, 13,000 were completely withheld under various exemptions.
[17:01.960 --> 17:05.960]  So, they got 8,300 and sued and got 32.
[17:06.280 --> 17:16.020]  Now, imagine if you're trying to write a history or if you're a political activist and you want to know what's been going on, you get 8,300 and you say, oh, that's a lot, that's what they've been doing.
[17:16.380 --> 17:19.380]  When, in fact, the file was over 50,000 pages.
[17:19.840 --> 17:24.560]  Once they got challenged, they had to complete a more substantial release.
[17:29.450 --> 17:29.930]  Okay.
[17:31.230 --> 17:36.390]  In 1999, when I made my first request, it was December 22nd.
[17:37.090 --> 17:39.490]  I made a note of... and I have the letter.
[17:41.350 --> 17:43.410]  1999, a week before the millennium.
[17:44.690 --> 17:48.070]  Now, I don't know what most of you people were doing that week.
[17:48.450 --> 17:52.350]  I lived in Manhattan, near Columbia.
[17:54.310 --> 18:00.970]  I was teaching at Empire State College.
[18:01.430 --> 18:10.150]  I was teaching electrical workers at high school at night as part of an Empire State College education program.
[18:10.910 --> 18:14.730]  And in New York City and in Manhattan, things were pretty...
[18:15.370 --> 18:17.630]  a lot of tension, a lot of anxiety.
[18:19.230 --> 18:24.110]  And I had been reading about civil liberties and surveillance for a while online.
[18:24.330 --> 18:26.370]  I had recently gone online.
[18:26.370 --> 18:30.250]  I think it was the year before I first signed up for AOL.
[18:30.590 --> 18:33.710]  And I said, okay, let me file a request and see what happens.
[18:35.330 --> 18:42.010]  I found a request on John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which is part of the City University of New York.
[18:42.030 --> 18:43.650]  It's on West 59th Street.
[18:43.870 --> 18:48.850]  And I had taught in the History Department there between 1992 and 1995.
[18:49.710 --> 18:58.990]  And while I was there, it was common knowledge that the FBI ran the Northeast Regional Training Facility.
[18:58.990 --> 19:06.710]  So the FBI had a training facility for all their agents from the Northeast at the school, located on-premises.
[19:07.630 --> 19:12.610]  And their agents attended classes and had specialized workshops.
[19:12.930 --> 19:16.070]  And there was a large law enforcement presence at the school.
[19:16.410 --> 19:18.350]  And that wasn't really concealed.
[19:18.570 --> 19:23.110]  It's a school of criminal justice, and their criminal justice major is the largest major at the school.
[19:23.670 --> 19:27.770]  So I taught a class called Violence and Social Change in the U.S.
[19:29.250 --> 19:32.210]  I taught two different classes of it.
[19:33.330 --> 19:35.710]  And most of my students were law enforcement.
[19:36.150 --> 19:46.390]  So in any event, I wondered in 1999, I left the school in 1995, what they had on the school and how extensive they were in New York and so on.
[19:46.790 --> 19:50.270]  Four months later, I got a file consisting of 16 pages.
[19:53.150 --> 19:55.750]  Now, obviously that's not a full response.
[19:56.590 --> 19:57.690]  16 pages.
[19:57.950 --> 20:02.530]  Some stuff about Queens, some organized crime investigation in Queens.
[20:03.270 --> 20:04.210]  That was it.
[20:05.030 --> 20:09.150]  So at that point, I was an early user of the FOIA and I didn't appeal.
[20:09.610 --> 20:14.630]  But I would imagine if they did an honest release, it would be 2,000 or 3,000 pages.
[20:15.890 --> 20:18.810]  Depends on how they define what's relevant to the request.
[20:19.990 --> 20:23.310]  Then in the year 2000, I made maybe 50 requests.
[20:23.790 --> 20:30.050]  I decided I was going to write a book, The Dangers of Dissent, although at first it was called Troubled Times.
[20:31.610 --> 20:33.350]  I made about 50 requests.
[20:34.450 --> 20:41.850]  I started reading the historical literature on the FBI, material by Ethan Theo Harris, who's one of the leading writers.
[20:42.470 --> 20:44.370]  Kenneth O'Reilly, Ward Churchill.
[20:44.870 --> 20:48.310]  And I said, where's the gap of what we know about the FBI?
[20:48.470 --> 20:50.870]  What don't we know based on what's already in the literature?
[20:51.210 --> 20:55.090]  And a lot of what we don't know was the modern period after Hoover died.
[20:55.430 --> 20:58.750]  There's a lot of historical research on Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover, who was head of the FBI from 1924 to when he died in 1972.
[21:05.570 --> 21:08.070]  That's 48 years he was head.
[21:09.530 --> 21:10.950]  What happened after?
[21:11.050 --> 21:12.250]  Did the FBI change?
[21:12.710 --> 21:13.810]  After he died?
[21:13.890 --> 21:17.130]  After COINTELPRO, the notorious spying program ended?
[21:17.450 --> 21:21.990]  After the Congress investigated the FBI and the church committee hearings in the 70s?
[21:22.090 --> 21:23.950]  What happened after that period?
[21:24.190 --> 21:25.910]  Not a lot of people had written on that.
[21:26.410 --> 21:31.470]  So I started making requests on politically active groups in the late 70s and 80s.
[21:32.290 --> 21:34.790]  What a group called Witness for Peace.
[21:35.110 --> 21:36.570]  These are small groups.
[21:36.970 --> 21:43.130]  Some of which I knew because I was on the margins of some protest movements in the 80s on Central America.
[21:43.290 --> 21:45.110]  Not a real activist, but on the margins.
[21:45.470 --> 21:46.770]  Witness for Peace.
[21:47.030 --> 21:49.150]  They had a 57 page file.
[21:49.810 --> 21:51.310]  The Pledge of Resistance.
[21:51.910 --> 21:58.930]  That was a group organized that if we invaded Nicaragua, people were gonna pledge to commit civil disobedience.
[21:59.910 --> 22:01.070]  17 pages.
[22:01.070 --> 22:02.230]  Plowshares.
[22:03.270 --> 22:04.430]  Eight pages.
[22:04.770 --> 22:06.670]  Now that's clearly a partial release.
[22:06.950 --> 22:15.310]  The Plowshares was an anti-war group that engaged in illegal civil disobedience at military sites.
[22:15.630 --> 22:17.270]  They were religious.
[22:17.610 --> 22:18.910]  The Berrigans were involved.
[22:19.730 --> 22:38.150]  They would go to a military site at night, break in, stay there, pour their blood on missile heads, and thought of the idea was to become, to get arrested, become prisoners, political prisoners in their view, and to pour their blood onto missiles to make them peaceful.
[22:38.910 --> 22:39.490]  Symbolically.
[22:39.970 --> 22:45.190]  So I got eight pages on them when there were about a hundred actions like that in the 80s.
[22:45.370 --> 22:48.170]  A hundred different civil disobedience Plowshares actions.
[22:48.330 --> 22:53.450]  They sent me eight pages on a group out in the Midwest, on one group.
[22:54.770 --> 22:56.470]  PETA, 18 pages.
[22:57.950 --> 23:00.690]  Now I made that request in the year 2000.
[23:01.030 --> 23:04.450]  But even then, that seemed like a partial response.
[23:04.890 --> 23:07.750]  It would be several hundred at least in the year 2000.
[23:07.750 --> 23:09.830]  I haven't requested the PETA file since.
[23:10.070 --> 23:10.690]  Other people have.
[23:11.190 --> 23:14.230]  Greenpeace, 80 pages.
[23:15.250 --> 23:16.530]  89 pages.
[23:16.810 --> 23:18.950]  And I made that request in the year 2000.
[23:19.450 --> 23:21.770]  They talked about Greenpeace USA.
[23:22.330 --> 23:28.530]  The Socialist Workers Party, which is a small Trotskyite party.
[23:28.890 --> 23:32.490]  They're anti-Soviet, but pro-Trotsky and they're socialists.
[23:32.670 --> 23:35.010]  They've been investigated since the 40s.
[23:36.170 --> 23:39.570]  The estimate that they have their files, eight million pages.
[23:39.570 --> 23:44.150]  Well, after 1975, they sent me about 700 pages.
[23:44.410 --> 23:49.230]  So they were still investigated, but at a smaller level.
[23:49.810 --> 23:50.650]  Gus Hall.
[23:51.690 --> 23:58.290]  Now anyone who knows Gus Hall, he was a leader of the Communist Party of the United States for many years.
[23:58.870 --> 24:00.810]  And he died in 1990.
[24:01.330 --> 24:09.010]  So I was able to ask for his file, because when you write a letter on a person other than yourself, you need to have an obituary or proof of death.
[24:09.010 --> 24:15.510]  So after he died, I got his obituary and asked for his file only since 1976.
[24:16.890 --> 24:21.030]  And he was still investigated, 819 pages.
[24:21.550 --> 24:24.830]  The one thing about the Gus Hall file,
[24:28.070 --> 24:31.910]  they suspended their investigations when he ran for president.
[24:32.150 --> 24:35.010]  Each year he ran for president on the Communist Party ticket.
[24:35.010 --> 24:38.810]  I don't know, he got five or 10,000 votes or maybe a little more.
[24:39.110 --> 24:46.230]  But over a three-month period right before the general election, they would suspend the investigation because he was a presidential candidate.
[24:47.110 --> 24:50.490]  So there was about a three-month time period before each election.
[24:50.630 --> 24:52.690]  And then when he lost, they resumed it again.
[24:55.610 --> 24:59.850]  So if you think you're under investigation and you want them to suspend your...
[24:59.850 --> 25:00.850]  Run for president.
[25:04.470 --> 25:07.070]  SANE, the Committee for SANE Nuclear Policy.
[25:07.070 --> 25:08.230]  They said no records.
[25:09.590 --> 25:12.730]  The gay men's health crisis in New York City.
[25:12.730 --> 25:14.170]  There was a press report.
[25:14.430 --> 25:17.970]  AP ran a report that there was an FBI investigation of them.
[25:18.110 --> 25:19.250]  They told me no records.
[25:20.090 --> 25:21.350]  The Audubon Society.
[25:22.470 --> 25:25.190]  Ronald Reagan had said they were led by communists.
[25:25.350 --> 25:27.590]  That the communists had influenced the Audubon Society.
[25:27.610 --> 25:28.610]  The Nuclear Freeze.
[25:28.910 --> 25:29.790]  The Sierra Club.
[25:30.530 --> 25:32.630]  No records on the Audubon Society.
[25:33.070 --> 25:39.490]  So in the dangers of the SANE, I said, Reagan said they're dominated by communists, but the FBI's got no proof of that.
[25:39.790 --> 25:41.310]  So where did he get that charge?
[25:41.310 --> 25:42.990]  At least they didn't give me the proof.
[25:44.330 --> 25:45.290]  The lawsuit.
[25:46.970 --> 25:48.070]  Or any questions?
[25:48.190 --> 25:51.730]  Why don't we ask if anyone wants to ask any questions at this point?
[25:51.810 --> 25:54.010]  I think we're about halfway through.
[25:54.250 --> 26:00.410]  I just want to mention, the FBI used to accept Wikipedia as proof of death, but at some point, .
[26:05.330 --> 26:07.290]  I wonder if they added any of the articles.
[26:07.830 --> 26:08.310]  Yes?
[26:21.450 --> 26:29.510]  Well, once they process, once they process a request, if someone else asks for the file, they have it already processed.
[26:29.510 --> 26:30.130]  So yes.
[26:30.370 --> 26:33.810]  But in that case, they didn't process it for me, except for press releases.
[26:34.350 --> 26:40.710]  But if you ask for a file and someone's already asked for it, that'll speed up the process, because they don't usually go through the whole process again.
[26:40.710 --> 26:42.770]  And it's been pre-processed.
[26:42.790 --> 26:43.550]  Any other questions?
[26:43.690 --> 26:43.790]  Yeah?
[26:47.370 --> 26:51.850]  One to two page letters saying, I appeal this under the Freedom of Information Act.
[26:51.870 --> 26:53.550]  I have reasons to believe they're records.
[26:53.770 --> 26:55.430]  Or that you didn't do a full search.
[26:55.530 --> 27:00.890]  And then you try to give you a reason why you think that it's not a proper search.
[27:01.010 --> 27:02.830]  Or why records really do exist.
[27:02.970 --> 27:06.210]  Like you could say, I read in the newspaper that there was an investigation.
[27:06.210 --> 27:08.010]  And that would be a reason.
[27:08.170 --> 27:09.950]  Or I think the records exist.
[27:10.110 --> 27:12.310]  More files exist because of this or that.
[27:12.510 --> 27:13.890]  Any other quick questions?
[27:14.050 --> 27:14.130]  Yeah?
[27:44.060 --> 27:45.060]  You mean today?
[27:51.510 --> 27:59.390]  There was an article in the paper last week that the FBI made 1.3 million requests to...
[27:59.390 --> 28:02.190]  Was it Internet service providers or phone companies?
[28:02.370 --> 28:03.270]  Did anyone see that article?
[28:03.630 --> 28:04.150]  Which one?
[28:04.150 --> 28:04.690]  Phone.
[28:04.770 --> 28:05.870]  Phone companies.
[28:06.230 --> 28:08.770]  1.3 million requests for phone records.
[28:09.150 --> 28:13.150]  Now, not the actual conversations probably, but records of two...
[28:13.150 --> 28:18.270]  The information of who you called and who called you and how long the conversation was.
[28:18.970 --> 28:20.650]  So 1.3 million.
[28:21.230 --> 28:23.290]  Now, that's not just political.
[28:23.290 --> 28:24.990]  That's also organized crime.
[28:27.190 --> 28:29.610]  But that's a mass surveillance.
[28:29.970 --> 28:31.670]  1.3 million requests.
[28:34.230 --> 28:36.830]  Was Occupy Wall Street under surveillance?
[28:37.030 --> 28:40.690]  That's a question that a lot of researchers are trying to figure out right now.
[28:41.230 --> 28:41.690]  There's a...
[28:41.690 --> 28:44.350]  Online, there's a group site, Truth Out.
[28:44.530 --> 28:46.090]  They've had a couple of articles.
[28:46.410 --> 28:52.630]  There's some documents released that show that there are references to the Occupy Wall Street in New York and different cities.
[28:52.630 --> 28:56.650]  The FBI showing up and doing some surveillance and keeping records.
[28:57.090 --> 28:58.970]  But none of that's really been released yet.
[28:59.290 --> 29:02.070]  That's a good point of research for the future.
[29:04.230 --> 29:05.050]  Any other?
[29:05.350 --> 29:05.490]  Yeah.
[29:07.090 --> 29:13.510]  When you get the results, these only on paper, and if they aren't, are you going to meditate on these issues?
[29:13.910 --> 29:15.610]  They used to be on paper.
[29:15.930 --> 29:21.970]  And then in about 2006, they started releasing them on CD-ROM or an electronic.
[29:25.010 --> 29:26.550]  And that was a big change.
[29:26.910 --> 29:30.110]  And that's actually a good way to lead into my lawsuit.
[29:30.570 --> 29:33.410]  So let me do that, and then I'll fully...
[29:33.410 --> 29:33.530]  Yeah?
[29:46.520 --> 29:57.070]  It should be, like, knock on the door, and if it's information that's accessible right there...
[29:57.070 --> 29:58.150]  Well, they...
[29:59.350 --> 30:00.610]  Why do they do...
[30:00.610 --> 30:02.390]  Delay is a strategy.
[30:02.790 --> 30:04.410]  It's an institutional strategy.
[30:04.430 --> 30:08.170]  Because a lot of journalists use the Freedom of Information Act for their stories.
[30:08.450 --> 30:11.750]  And if you have a deadline, you're working on a story, and you have a month.
[30:12.390 --> 30:18.350]  And then you run into all these obstacles, they'll give you the information in three months or four months.
[30:18.510 --> 30:19.730]  And you'll miss it for your deadline.
[30:20.690 --> 30:22.850]  So a lot of it is deliberate.
[30:23.190 --> 30:25.990]  They're officially complying with the law, they say.
[30:26.590 --> 30:32.970]  But they're making you jump through hoops to make a disincentive to use the Act.
[30:34.350 --> 30:35.490]  Only by suing.
[30:35.610 --> 30:36.670]  Appeal and suing.
[30:43.650 --> 30:44.690]  It's not been done.
[30:44.870 --> 30:45.470]  Not that I know.
[30:45.570 --> 30:47.850]  You mean like a class action or something like that?
[30:48.010 --> 30:48.710]  Challenging the whole...
[30:48.710 --> 30:51.290]  That would, I guess, have to be a Supreme Court, probably.
[30:51.570 --> 30:53.390]  I'm not an attorney, a lawyer.
[30:53.510 --> 30:56.850]  But I think someone would have to bring a legal case and decide.
[30:57.010 --> 30:58.550]  The courts would have to decide that.
[31:03.420 --> 31:04.580]  It's public information.
[31:05.020 --> 31:06.180]  You can publish it.
[31:06.400 --> 31:07.220]  You don't have to get it.
[31:07.420 --> 31:10.080]  Like I put, I reproduce material in my books.
[31:10.100 --> 31:11.060]  You don't need copyright.
[31:12.040 --> 31:12.860]  It's all public.
[31:12.900 --> 31:13.760]  You can share it.
[31:13.820 --> 31:16.780]  And that goes back to the paper issue versus electronic.
[31:17.080 --> 31:20.640]  When you get it on an electronic file, you can post it on the Internet.
[31:21.200 --> 31:22.700]  You can send it to your friends.
[31:23.180 --> 31:26.740]  So it's very important that releases be done electronically.
[31:27.400 --> 31:27.480]  All right.
[31:27.560 --> 31:28.340]  One more question then.
[31:28.540 --> 31:29.460]  What is your process?
[31:34.780 --> 31:35.980]  Read them one by one.
[31:36.460 --> 31:40.160]  Hopefully, if they're electronic, you know, you press the buttons a lot.
[31:41.660 --> 31:44.120]  There's no way to program... that I know.
[31:44.240 --> 31:45.780]  There are no programs that are sought through.
[31:45.780 --> 31:56.820]  Now, on the FBI website, they say you can... they have, I think... someone may know this... that you can... on the vault, there's a way to search through their records by plugging in certain things.
[31:56.960 --> 32:00.720]  But when you get a release, at least I don't know of a way to do it.
[32:00.820 --> 32:01.680]  So you just start reading.
[32:02.920 --> 32:08.000]  Pretty soon, you get a sense of what's relevant to what you're interested in and what's not.
[32:10.540 --> 32:13.060]  There's... there's... well, let me move forward.
[32:13.060 --> 32:16.260]  I filed a lawsuit in 2008, Greenberg v. FBI, to get the files on two FBI directors who had died recently.
[32:24.180 --> 32:26.420]  L. Patrick Gray III and Clarence M. Kelly.
[32:27.180 --> 32:29.100]  They were both... L. Patrick Gray and Clarence M. Kelly.
[32:31.360 --> 32:33.260]  They had served in the 70s.
[32:33.420 --> 32:36.420]  After Hoover died, they were the successors.
[32:37.500 --> 32:39.880]  One served... Gray served for 11 months.
[32:39.880 --> 32:43.960]  And then Kelly took over in 73 and served till 78.
[32:44.240 --> 32:46.300]  Then Webster came on.
[32:46.480 --> 32:47.200]  William Webster.
[32:47.420 --> 32:48.440]  But he's still alive.
[32:48.640 --> 32:50.320]  So these are the ones that are dead.
[32:50.760 --> 32:51.620]  Now, I knew J. Edgar Hoover's FBI file was about 17,000 pages.
[32:55.280 --> 32:59.340]  So I said they keep files on... their files related to the director.
[33:00.080 --> 33:01.680]  So I asked for his files.
[33:01.980 --> 33:02.960]  Both of their files.
[33:03.260 --> 33:04.760]  For the books that I'm writing.
[33:06.580 --> 33:08.960]  They didn't respond to my requests.
[33:09.240 --> 33:10.360]  I made two separate requests.
[33:10.540 --> 33:12.920]  They had what's called a mute response.
[33:13.260 --> 33:14.260]  They ignored it.
[33:14.980 --> 33:17.280]  I said a second set of letters.
[33:17.460 --> 33:20.360]  And they're required by law to respond within 20 days.
[33:20.660 --> 33:21.380]  That's the law.
[33:21.700 --> 33:22.760]  20 business days.
[33:23.040 --> 33:24.400]  A second set of letters.
[33:25.640 --> 33:27.160]  They muted again.
[33:27.300 --> 33:28.000]  Mute response.
[33:28.300 --> 33:29.320]  They ignored it.
[33:30.620 --> 33:31.760]  What do you do then?
[33:31.760 --> 33:32.820]  You could sue.
[33:33.140 --> 33:34.440]  That's grounds to sue.
[33:34.860 --> 33:36.360]  I didn't yet sue.
[33:36.680 --> 33:38.500]  Then I just waited it out.
[33:38.700 --> 33:40.900]  I just said, okay, let's just wait this out.
[33:41.120 --> 33:43.960]  Several months later, they acknowledged my request.
[33:44.520 --> 33:49.020]  They sent me a letter saying that the Kelly file was 58,000 pages.
[33:49.920 --> 33:53.960]  And the gray file would be smaller, but they didn't know yet the size.
[33:54.600 --> 33:56.020]  So 58,000.
[33:56.220 --> 33:56.780]  So I'm thinking J. Edgar Hoover's 17,000 and he served for 48 years.
[34:00.600 --> 34:03.500]  Kelly, 58,000 and he served for five years.
[34:03.900 --> 34:05.040]  Sounds pretty good.
[34:05.580 --> 34:06.980]  There's got to be a lot in there.
[34:08.140 --> 34:12.100]  I had asked in my letter for it to be released on CD-ROM.
[34:12.600 --> 34:13.520]  Not paper.
[34:14.040 --> 34:17.220]  The prior year they'd started to release things on CD-ROM.
[34:17.380 --> 34:20.340]  Though sometimes it was on paper, sometimes CD-ROM.
[34:20.400 --> 34:23.280]  It wasn't a standard process yet on how they would release it.
[34:24.940 --> 34:27.840]  If it's on paper, they charge you 10 cents a page.
[34:28.560 --> 34:29.460]  Plus labor.
[34:30.900 --> 34:31.980]  So how much is that?
[34:32.080 --> 34:32.640]  $6,000.
[34:33.900 --> 34:37.820]  If they do CD-ROM, it's $15 per CD.
[34:38.700 --> 34:42.800]  And there could be a minimum of about 500 pages per CD.
[34:43.080 --> 34:44.900]  Is how they would be processing it.
[34:45.080 --> 34:46.420]  So it would be a lot cheaper.
[34:47.080 --> 34:49.300]  Several hundred dollars versus $6,000.
[34:49.780 --> 34:52.920]  So I called them on the phone, which you're allowed to do.
[34:53.760 --> 34:55.520]  And I said, why don't...
[34:55.520 --> 34:57.040]  I had asked for electronic.
[34:57.420 --> 34:59.780]  Why in your letter do you say paper?
[34:59.840 --> 35:00.920]  And it would be $6,000.
[35:01.780 --> 35:04.760]  And we had a discussion and she said, let me get back to you.
[35:05.020 --> 35:08.060]  And they got back to me and they said, okay, we'll put it on CD-ROM.
[35:08.860 --> 35:12.820]  Because we want to put it in our library anyway at FBI headquarters.
[35:13.060 --> 35:14.160]  These are very important files.
[35:14.280 --> 35:15.100]  They are our directors.
[35:15.620 --> 35:18.400]  They're going to be in the reading room at FBI headquarters.
[35:19.120 --> 35:21.540]  So we want them to be electronic anyway.
[35:22.500 --> 35:26.880]  Then they called me back a little bit later, about a week or two later, and said they changed their mind.
[35:28.540 --> 35:30.420]  They're back to paper.
[35:31.780 --> 35:33.600]  And I asked them why and they wouldn't tell me.
[35:33.720 --> 35:34.960]  I said, could you put it in a letter?
[35:35.560 --> 35:38.700]  So they wrote it down and put it in a letter and memorialized it.
[35:40.440 --> 35:44.000]  At that point, I thought, okay, I do have the basis for a lawsuit.
[35:44.880 --> 35:46.900]  So I thought about it.
[35:46.960 --> 35:49.200]  I asked a few people about it.
[35:49.240 --> 36:00.420]  And I got the name of Mark Zaid, who's a very prominent FOIA attorney, a national security attorney in DC, and his cooperating attorney, Bradley Morse.
[36:00.880 --> 36:02.340]  I contacted them.
[36:02.340 --> 36:07.540]  I explained them my situation and said, could I sue on the question of paper versus CD-ROM?
[36:09.420 --> 36:15.340]  And they said, yes, that's an interesting cutting edge type of case, because they've begun to do records on paper.
[36:15.720 --> 36:19.600]  And we need to get everything done on CD-ROM.
[36:20.160 --> 36:21.640]  It would really help people.
[36:21.940 --> 36:23.580]  So they took on the case.
[36:23.760 --> 36:28.180]  It's sued under the Freedom of Information Act at the civil lawsuit that's filed in Washington.
[36:28.820 --> 36:33.140]  And the main issue is paper versus electronic, though there were some side issues.
[36:33.300 --> 36:36.060]  Make sure they do a thorough search, and so on.
[36:36.760 --> 36:41.960]  After that, they tell us that the Kelly file isn't 58,000 pages.
[36:41.960 --> 36:43.340]  It's 9,000 pages.
[36:44.680 --> 36:47.480]  And the gray file is 6,500 pages.
[36:47.980 --> 36:50.580]  So what was 58 all of a sudden became 9.
[36:51.940 --> 36:54.700]  There's no way to challenge that at first.
[36:54.880 --> 36:57.940]  You can in the lawsuit say, make sure you do a thorough search.
[36:59.040 --> 37:01.060]  And the irony is I might not have sued.
[37:01.100 --> 37:03.660]  If it was only 9,000 pages, that's $900.
[37:05.700 --> 37:10.340]  So I might have accepted it on paper and had someone scan it for me or do something like that.
[37:11.720 --> 37:13.880]  But I didn't know it was 9,000 pages.
[37:14.040 --> 37:14.680]  I thought it was 58.
[37:14.900 --> 37:16.460]  But I'm glad I sued.
[37:16.640 --> 37:19.820]  Because if you sue and you win, they pay attorney's fees.
[37:21.100 --> 37:22.120]  And we won.
[37:22.480 --> 37:24.980]  So that was fortunate.
[37:25.980 --> 37:27.560]  We did win the lawsuit.
[37:27.740 --> 37:31.260]  We signed a joint status agreement with Department of Justice.
[37:31.640 --> 37:38.020]  They agreed to release electronically a minimum of 800 pages per month until all the files were released.
[37:38.020 --> 37:40.880]  I still had to pay $15 per disc.
[37:42.900 --> 37:45.740]  And there were about 500 pages on per disc.
[37:46.920 --> 37:49.400]  And that took a year and a half.
[37:49.980 --> 37:51.640]  And then it was closed.
[37:52.200 --> 37:55.620]  There was no opinion by a judge because they really gave in.
[37:55.700 --> 37:57.700]  As soon as we sued, they say, okay, you got it.
[37:59.020 --> 38:05.220]  But this was an important case, I think, to help move forward towards electronic records.
[38:05.220 --> 38:12.060]  Because in the next year or so, it was settled in 2009, I think it is, that everything was on electronic.
[38:12.460 --> 38:15.260]  Now if you make a request, they occasionally will send you paper.
[38:16.340 --> 38:21.620]  Just because they're lazy or for some weird reason they didn't put it on file, on electronic.
[38:22.260 --> 38:23.780]  If you ask for it.
[38:23.860 --> 38:27.900]  You have to ask in your letter for it to be released in electronic form.
[38:27.900 --> 38:29.740]  So that was the lawsuit.
[38:30.960 --> 38:33.520]  Two related issues in that discussion.
[38:33.820 --> 38:37.220]  One is, why do they limit per disc 500 pages?
[38:38.900 --> 38:41.900]  I've gotten some files 2,000 pages on a disc.
[38:42.160 --> 38:45.800]  You can certainly put more than 500 pages on a CD-ROM disc.
[38:46.400 --> 38:47.820]  Why limit it that way?
[38:47.980 --> 38:49.520]  Is that a delay strategy?
[38:49.520 --> 38:51.240]  Is that to make it cost more?
[38:52.280 --> 39:02.400]  And their current policy, I don't know if anyone here knows, to maybe even the changes, but is approximately 500 pages for $15 per disc.
[39:02.740 --> 39:10.680]  But like I said, I requested the New Left file, on the New Left from the 1960s, and I got 2,000 pages on one disc.
[39:10.880 --> 39:13.700]  So it's technically possible to do that.
[39:15.860 --> 39:16.260]  Yeah.
[39:16.400 --> 39:20.500]  I said, we need some pages for this.
[39:20.700 --> 39:21.600]  Because it seems to be absurd.
[39:21.860 --> 39:26.380]  Because on occasion, they have 7,000, 8,000 pages on a CD-ROM disc or more.
[39:26.480 --> 39:27.840]  It's not a Catholic problem.
[39:28.080 --> 39:31.040]  What they told us, and as far as we can tell, this is a problem.
[39:33.900 --> 39:36.640]  They said that they can give enough analysts.
[39:36.760 --> 39:38.260]  They bring up their list to us.
[39:40.240 --> 39:44.760]  They basically said, giving it to an analyst, that's not a reading, but actually, that's it.
[39:45.140 --> 39:48.300]  They said, if an analyst books is about more than 500 pages, it's about 500 pages.
[39:48.300 --> 39:51.880]  You know, if the files have been a few in a row, they go one of the past.
[39:52.280 --> 39:58.660]  So they break it up into pages, and basically, let them mix and match it, to the file, so they're not going to have the same one again, so well.
[39:58.820 --> 40:02.020]  Because they say it drives me, the people are working for Clarkson.
[40:03.000 --> 40:11.540]  So, but they say that they can't hold on to a 500-page branch somewhere in the Microsoft office, they have to get it out for a .
[40:12.160 --> 40:14.180]  So they say, oh, we have to be consistent.
[40:18.820 --> 40:23.160]  But there are pre-processed files already that are more than 500.
[40:23.420 --> 40:32.960]  Anyway, this gentleman, Michael Ravnitsky, is central to governmentaddict.com, the website where they post lots of FBI files and other government files.
[40:33.540 --> 40:37.380]  And he's been asking for files for two decades.
[40:38.940 --> 40:45.780]  Another development I'm learning or I'm hearing about is that sometimes they're releasing files now on PDF by email.
[40:47.240 --> 40:50.640]  So that really does expedite the process, but not FBI.
[40:50.900 --> 40:52.160]  FBI hasn't done that yet.
[40:52.340 --> 41:03.000]  Some of the other agencies of government, if you make a request, I mean you can make a request to any agency of the federal government, not the Congress, not the Supreme Court, who else?
[41:03.280 --> 41:11.840]  Well, most of the executive branch, they're often... IRS is big, Veterans Affairs are... those are the two biggest agencies that get requests.
[41:12.040 --> 41:18.360]  They'll send it to you by email sometimes, which makes, I mean, electronically a PDF file.
[41:20.780 --> 41:27.140]  Since the Act was passed, or since 75, how many... there have been about 300,000 requests to the FBI.
[41:27.700 --> 41:28.800]  300,000.
[41:32.460 --> 41:36.600]  Now, veterans and IRS get over a million, or several million.
[41:36.980 --> 41:41.300]  So FBI doesn't get that, as many as requests as others.
[41:41.600 --> 41:48.880]  And if you look at some of the trends in that, the peak was in the year 2000.
[41:49.160 --> 41:59.220]  They got almost 24,000 requests, FBI did, for records, compared to 15,000 in 1998.
[41:59.780 --> 42:02.660]  So it vastly increased by the year 2000.
[42:02.940 --> 42:03.020]  Why?
[42:03.140 --> 42:04.560]  That's about when I made my request.
[42:04.700 --> 42:05.640]  Why at that point?
[42:05.860 --> 42:18.740]  I mean, it's speculation, but you could say... a lot of shake-up because of the Millennium and the Y2K, and everyone being nervous in society, and looking for ways to hold government accountable.
[42:19.140 --> 42:24.460]  I mean, I view FOIA use as bottom-up power, people power, holding government accountable.
[42:24.640 --> 42:31.660]  Getting government files as a political act when it's FBI, because you can distribute the information and start new debates.
[42:31.960 --> 42:37.320]  And that was a type of people power that peaked in the year 2000.
[42:38.360 --> 42:40.720]  2001, 21,000 requests.
[42:40.720 --> 42:43.400]  Then came Bush and 9-11.
[42:44.000 --> 42:44.460]  What happened?
[42:44.740 --> 42:45.840]  Up or down?
[42:47.080 --> 42:47.640]  Down.
[42:48.000 --> 42:48.800]  Dramatically.
[42:49.340 --> 42:52.020]  2003, only 11,000 requests.
[42:52.340 --> 42:53.980]  More than 50% drop.
[42:55.400 --> 42:58.400]  2004, 10.8.
[42:58.960 --> 43:00.340]  11,000 again.
[43:01.040 --> 43:03.180]  2005, about 11,000.
[43:03.400 --> 43:05.300]  Why would it peak 2000?
[43:05.660 --> 43:08.920]  People challenging government, challenging authority from below.
[43:09.500 --> 43:18.800]  And then decline under Bush, war, terror, cracked out on dissent, conformity in society, people afraid to challenge authority.
[43:20.760 --> 43:22.360]  Then Obama's elected.
[43:22.540 --> 43:23.100]  What happens?
[43:23.400 --> 43:29.020]  Well, in 2008, an election year, it jumps to 17,000 requests.
[43:29.380 --> 43:35.400]  So Obama had promised in the campaign openness, and he was going to be the openness in government president.
[43:35.700 --> 43:40.260]  He put out a famous press release, a new era of openness in government.
[43:40.900 --> 43:45.900]  And people in the four-year community were very pleased and thought this is going to be something different.
[43:46.900 --> 43:49.540]  And it hasn't really been under Obama.
[43:49.820 --> 43:51.400]  But requests jumped.
[43:51.660 --> 43:55.120]  The next year, 2009, 15,000.
[43:55.260 --> 43:57.120]  2010, 15,000.
[43:57.120 --> 44:00.260]  In 2011, 11,000.
[44:00.400 --> 44:03.180]  That's the latest data I looked up last night.
[44:03.880 --> 44:06.060]  11,000 FOIA requests to FBI.
[44:06.420 --> 44:08.380]  Why did it go down so much?
[44:10.660 --> 44:25.700]  Well, maybe people are losing confidence in... or maybe the conformity of the Bush year is starting to return more, and people are less confident in challenging power, or that it's not as successful in getting results.
[44:27.000 --> 44:31.280]  Anyone else speculate on why you think it's gone down under Obama?
[44:31.460 --> 44:32.340]  First goes up.
[44:32.680 --> 44:32.880]  Hope.
[44:33.080 --> 44:34.180]  Keep hope alive.
[44:34.780 --> 44:38.320]  And hope's declined in the last couple of years.
[44:43.200 --> 44:43.800]  Yes?
[44:58.180 --> 45:03.900]  Oh, when you make a request, you can get a response anywhere from three months to two years, you'll get documents.
[45:11.420 --> 45:13.440]  Most requests are within a year.
[45:13.600 --> 45:16.100]  You can make a request and get it two months later.
[45:16.280 --> 45:18.340]  You can make a request and get it two years later.
[45:18.780 --> 45:20.220]  Most of them are within a year.
[45:21.620 --> 45:23.280]  Yes, I'm talking about FBI stuff.
[45:23.860 --> 45:26.840]  And if it's been already processed, that speeds it up.
[45:26.940 --> 45:29.320]  They'll say, this is already processed, and they just send you a disk.
[45:29.540 --> 45:32.420]  But sometimes they'll ignore it, like we said.
[45:32.720 --> 45:33.780]  Ignore your request.
[45:34.000 --> 45:36.140]  Say no records when there really are records.
[45:36.260 --> 45:37.220]  Do partial responses.
[45:39.080 --> 45:42.480]  Let me consider some questions I had in my description.
[45:43.700 --> 45:46.620]  Is why we should undermine a culture of insecurity.
[45:47.280 --> 45:50.120]  First, I would make the statement that information is power.
[45:50.120 --> 45:52.300]  That's not my statement.
[45:52.500 --> 45:54.700]  That's a commonly known statement.
[45:55.620 --> 45:58.420]  And information, new information, leads to new debates.
[45:58.680 --> 46:00.100]  New social movements can arise.
[46:00.300 --> 46:01.540]  New laws can be written.
[46:04.180 --> 46:05.640]  What is security?
[46:05.820 --> 46:08.080]  And whose security is really at stake?
[46:10.380 --> 46:13.640]  Why does government try to spread a culture of insecurity?
[46:14.820 --> 46:31.640]  Now, I would suggest two ways of looking at it is insecurity is to control the population, to create fear, anxiety in the society, to limit dissent, to limit what's considered acceptable discourse of expression.
[46:32.280 --> 46:36.900]  I mean, if you protest now outside in Occupy Wall Street, are you accused of being a terrorist?
[46:38.020 --> 46:42.220]  If you protest at the Democratic or Republican Convention, are you a terrorist?
[46:43.660 --> 46:47.220]  If you're an anti-globalization protester, are you a terrorist?
[46:47.420 --> 46:48.760]  If you're an environmental...
[46:49.540 --> 46:57.700]  If you're a WikiLeaker, he was accused of being a terrorist by, I think Joe Biden said, they're terrorists, the WikiLeakers.
[46:58.980 --> 47:01.940]  So that's all part of insecurity, right?
[47:02.040 --> 47:07.020]  Spreading the ideas that people are terrorists, and there's so much fear and anxiety and threat to society.
[47:07.500 --> 47:09.920]  Now, to some degree, it's for protection.
[47:10.760 --> 47:12.040]  That's the official line.
[47:12.180 --> 47:13.560]  It's for protection and security.
[47:14.420 --> 47:15.660]  So it's not insecurity.
[47:15.860 --> 47:16.720]  It's for really security.
[47:16.860 --> 47:18.840]  Protect the public against terrorist attack.
[47:21.520 --> 47:24.240]  How many terrorist attacks have there been since 9-11?
[47:24.560 --> 47:28.680]  There are about four that have been documented, all small scale, that have succeeded.
[47:29.100 --> 47:32.280]  I don't think anyone here could probably even mention the successful ones.
[47:32.460 --> 47:34.280]  Very small, lone wolf.
[47:34.980 --> 47:37.120]  And then lots of foiled attacks.
[47:37.880 --> 47:49.660]  Some legitimate, but many of the foiled attacks were what are called aging provocateur attacks, where the FBI hatched the plans and enticed people to make plans and break the law.
[47:50.060 --> 47:54.920]  More than 40 people have been arrested in these provocateur attacks since 9-11.
[47:56.600 --> 48:11.060]  David Shipler, who's written a book on civil liberties, had an article in the New York Times very recently, April 28, 2012, called Terrorist Plots Hatched by the FBI.
[48:12.540 --> 48:17.060]  So, now again, I tend to take a somewhat critical position on this.
[48:17.240 --> 48:24.120]  But some people think to root out the terrorists, you have to entice them and see who's likely to commit an act.
[48:25.620 --> 48:30.840]  And there is evidence in a lot of these cases of people making plans.
[48:31.180 --> 48:35.120]  But usually they're arrested way before anything occurs, before they have materials.
[48:35.640 --> 48:38.100]  And defense lawyers say it's entrapment.
[48:38.100 --> 48:39.580]  There are a lot of convictions.
[48:43.540 --> 48:45.260]  Next point on this.
[48:45.780 --> 48:51.160]  If you start calling everyone a terrorist, does it lose its meat, so to speak?
[48:51.860 --> 48:55.560]  Or if you're a vegetarian, whatever.
[48:56.200 --> 49:00.520]  In Syria today, they call the opposition terrorists.
[49:01.660 --> 49:05.340]  In Egypt, before the revolution, they said everyone was a terrorist.
[49:05.740 --> 49:09.280]  In Cuba, Castro calls human rights workers terrorists terrorists.
[49:09.520 --> 49:12.800]  In China, they call the Dalai Lama a terrorist.
[49:13.100 --> 49:16.640]  And Tibetan monks have set themselves on fire in protest as terrorists.
[49:17.320 --> 49:26.440]  So the U.S. has sort of debased that term, in my view, and it's occurring all around the world by authoritarian regimes calling protesters terrorists.
[49:27.240 --> 49:30.520]  Now, there are some legitimate terrorists, Al-Qaeda and so on.
[49:30.740 --> 49:40.040]  But again, the word has been so debased and used so frequently for protesting, that I would say it's part of this culture of insecurity.
[49:41.480 --> 49:45.100]  Can we control the deployment of surveillance systems?
[49:46.620 --> 49:47.360]  The people?
[49:47.900 --> 49:49.520]  I would say yes.
[49:50.100 --> 49:50.900]  Somewhat.
[49:51.280 --> 49:53.320]  Example of closed circuit television.
[49:53.600 --> 49:58.700]  In Manhattan, they established the Ring of Steel in the last two years.
[49:59.480 --> 50:02.080]  Lower Manhattan, 3,000 cameras.
[50:02.380 --> 50:04.920]  And I think someone talked on this on Friday.
[50:05.520 --> 50:09.220]  3,000 CCTV cameras in Lower Manhattan, including subways.
[50:10.520 --> 50:12.140]  They already have it in London.
[50:14.580 --> 50:16.900]  It's a Ring of Steel against what?
[50:17.120 --> 50:18.300]  Against terrorist attack.
[50:19.540 --> 50:26.340]  I would say who wants to live in a Ring of Steel as a dweller in the city?
[50:26.880 --> 50:28.680]  And I don't currently live in Manhattan.
[50:29.120 --> 50:30.640]  I did for many years.
[50:33.000 --> 50:36.260]  Was there any public debate about establishing the Ring of Steel?
[50:36.820 --> 50:39.120]  Was the mayor opposed or supported it?
[50:39.180 --> 50:40.200]  What about the city council?
[50:42.680 --> 50:43.880]  Everyone supported it.
[50:45.080 --> 50:52.300]  I mean, maybe a few city council members raised questions, but everyone, the mayor was a big advocate, his chief of police, a big advocate.
[50:52.300 --> 50:56.180]  So it's possible to oppose it if the political leaders oppose it.
[50:56.340 --> 51:02.540]  It's not that surveillance is imposed without any debate or resistance.
[51:02.540 --> 51:06.940]  It can be if the leaders in power are willing to do it.
[51:07.120 --> 51:11.060]  Now, how do you get leaders in power to oppose surveillance systems?
[51:11.280 --> 51:15.680]  If people protest it, if there's a social movement to build against it.
[51:16.240 --> 51:26.260]  And I would know when the USA PATRIOT Act was passed soon after 9-11, which enhanced surveillance, very few, there was very, there was no congressional debate.
[51:27.180 --> 51:29.200]  And there have been protests against it.
[51:29.320 --> 51:34.760]  More than 400 cities and counties have passed resolutions against the Patriot Act.
[51:34.760 --> 51:38.520]  The Bill of Rights Defense Committee has documented this.
[51:39.540 --> 51:40.860]  So it's possible.
[51:41.100 --> 51:43.740]  But it was signed by Obama again.
[51:44.700 --> 51:47.080]  So the prospects for surveillance...
[51:48.100 --> 51:52.160]  Maybe I'll write another book about what's going to happen in the future.
[51:52.560 --> 51:55.320]  I currently have a few FOIA requests outstanding.
[51:55.980 --> 51:58.420]  I just got one on the book review file.
[51:59.040 --> 52:05.660]  There's 5,000 pages FBI reviewing books that they consider relevant to the FBI and to national security.
[52:05.800 --> 52:09.900]  And they'll have a reviewer reviewing a book and putting it in their files.
[52:10.060 --> 52:14.520]  And they note all the derogatory references to the FBI made in the book.
[52:15.680 --> 52:17.100]  So I wonder if I'll get in there.
[52:17.920 --> 52:18.500]  All right.
[52:18.500 --> 52:20.060]  Anyway, any last questions?
[52:20.060 --> 52:21.600]  I think we're almost out of time.
[52:22.440 --> 52:23.680]  We have five minutes.
[52:23.840 --> 52:23.940]  Yeah.
[52:25.320 --> 52:29.820]  Turnover, how do you get it collectively to go into its availability in a full-year request?
[52:30.320 --> 52:31.100]  The time?
[52:31.360 --> 52:32.420]  Yeah, the turnover time.
[52:32.760 --> 52:36.740]  Well, the problem is if it's an ongoing investigation, they may not release it.
[52:36.860 --> 52:39.020]  They may exclude it from the search.
[52:39.160 --> 52:40.080]  Say there are no records.
[52:40.840 --> 52:41.760]  Or they may.
[52:43.820 --> 52:47.780]  Responses to requests anywhere from two months to two years.
[52:47.980 --> 52:48.620]  So that's the turnover.
[52:48.880 --> 52:49.720]  It really varies.
[52:49.880 --> 52:50.960]  There's no one standard.
[52:51.720 --> 52:51.920]  Yeah.
[52:52.680 --> 52:53.400]  In the back.
[53:06.770 --> 53:08.170]  In the law, you mean?
[53:10.270 --> 53:11.550]  Stronger language use.
[53:11.730 --> 53:13.150]  The Congress themselves.
[53:13.550 --> 53:16.030]  There was a law that supports them to struggle.
[53:16.290 --> 53:21.070]  Well, Congress does add amendments to FOIA, making it stronger or weaker.
[53:21.070 --> 53:23.190]  So, yes, it could be strengthened.
[53:23.870 --> 53:24.970]  It could be strengthened.
[53:26.090 --> 53:27.110]  Any other questions?
[53:27.550 --> 53:27.870]  Yeah.
[53:31.700 --> 53:32.960]  No records.
[53:33.940 --> 53:41.620]  And I have a website, Ivan Greenberg blogspot, whatever, whatever.
[53:41.900 --> 53:44.800]  And I posted a letter of no records.
[53:45.500 --> 53:47.040]  Now, that could be sincere.
[53:47.040 --> 53:48.140]  That could be not sincere.
[53:48.320 --> 53:49.560]  That could be because it's ongoing.
[53:49.580 --> 53:51.240]  Or maybe there really are no records.
[53:51.360 --> 53:53.820]  You don't know for sure.
[53:54.040 --> 53:54.920]  Any other questions?
[53:54.920 --> 53:55.780]  Yeah.
[53:56.200 --> 53:56.720]  Yeah.
[53:57.160 --> 53:58.620]  I can't see because of the light.
[53:59.240 --> 53:59.580]  Yes.
[54:00.140 --> 54:00.400]  Yeah.
[54:17.150 --> 54:21.590]  Well, I won't, it won't be repealed, but when Reagan was in power, he limited it.
[54:21.590 --> 54:23.070]  He limited...
[54:23.070 --> 54:23.850]  Is there any institutions?
[54:30.790 --> 54:31.310]  Well...
[54:31.310 --> 54:35.210]  I can't see, like, allowing the truth to be an advocate that actually didn't have happened.
[54:36.250 --> 54:39.630]  Obama said he was an advocate of FOIA and openness.
[54:40.090 --> 54:43.610]  Romney, it hasn't entered the debate yet that I'm aware of.
[54:43.690 --> 54:49.730]  I haven't seen any comments of him, of how he views information flows and the Freedom of Information Act.
[54:49.850 --> 55:04.770]  I don't think there would be an effort to repeal it, but there are efforts to restrict it and to frame, to give, the president can give orders to the FOIA officers to interpret the law broadly or loosely, and that affects how they respond to it.
[55:07.550 --> 55:08.770]  Any other questions?
[55:08.950 --> 55:09.110]  Yeah.
[55:09.770 --> 55:11.250]  I can't see on this one.
[55:11.770 --> 55:12.170]  Yes.
[55:14.150 --> 55:15.190]  Was there a question?
[55:16.090 --> 55:16.710]  Okay.
[55:17.310 --> 55:17.930]  Yeah.
[55:25.020 --> 55:26.520]  Do they release that?
[55:27.820 --> 55:28.440]  Yes.
[55:30.980 --> 55:34.020]  Generally, if it's included, they would redact something like that.
[55:36.320 --> 55:38.620]  They have personnel who review every page.
[55:38.960 --> 55:45.700]  They block it out with a pen, put it through a photo machine, that then it shows without, that's the way they used to do it.
[55:46.340 --> 55:46.780]  Yes.
[55:46.940 --> 55:48.620]  They carefully redact records.
[55:48.800 --> 55:53.240]  But they often make mistakes and let things through, and so on and so forth.
[55:53.960 --> 55:54.520]  All right.
[55:54.520 --> 55:56.460]  Thank you for coming.
[55:56.720 --> 55:58.220]  And if there are any questions, you can see.