Government Records

Updated FOIA Guide

2005-09-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks to SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy which included this notice in a recent newsletter:

“The House Committee on Government Reform has published a new edition
of its popular 'Citizen's Guide on Using the Freedom of Information
Act and the Privacy Act of 1974 to Request Government Records.'

The Guide, first published in 1977, 'is one of the most widely read
congressional committee reports in history,' the new edition says.

A copy of the updated Guide, House Report 109-226, September 20,
2005, is available here.”

REAL ID Passes

2005-06-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

Thoughtful folks have long realized that the driver’s license was the closest thing we have in the U.S. to a national ID card. A bill signed on May 11, takes this bit of common sense observation one step closer to planned, cold reality.

The Real ID Act defines new rules for each state to verify an applicants identity before issuing a driver’s license and requires states to share the identity information they collect with other states.

The bill goes fully into effect by 2008, so look for changes in the coming years.

Why you should worry about more than an audit from the IRS

2005-04-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

While our attention over the past few months has been focused information breaches at companies like ChoicePoint, LexisNexis, DSW Shoe Warehouse, and Polo Ralph Lauren, the GAO has just issued a report which suggests there is still more to worry about.

The IRS, collector of everyone’s tax return as well as information on money laundering and financial crimes, has failed its computer security review once again. In a report dated April 15th, the GAO identified 60 security flaws in IRS computer security which among other things could allow outsiders to review and modify individual tax returns. Some of these flaws were first noted in the 2002 review and have still not been fixed.

Other noteworthy problems include lack of separation between tax returns and financial crimes data that allows police officers reviewing money laundering info to access personal tax returns and wide dissemination of user names and passwords making theft of this information too easy.

Clearly since we have no choice about giving tax information to the government, they have a serious responsibility to protect us from harm as a result of doing so. (It’s not like we can pay taxes to some other government in the same way that we might now be thinking about shopping for shoes someplace other than DSW.)

The House Judiciary Committee is considering whether they should do anything. If you want to offer encouragement, here’s an online form to write them… Given the IRS’s past record on correcting problems, it *might* be worth their taking a look, don’t you think?

Even Governors Get Governed

2005-03-29T13:15:00.000-08:00

In case you’re curious just how much of your personal life is revealed in government records, here is a peek at a public record with Jeb Bush’s social security number.

As I mention in the book, property records are the big ones to watch out for. But they only scratch the surface of what someone can get on you...

Shh! It’s Secret.

2005-03-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

Last year, the federal government made a decision to classify something 16 million times. That’s 2 million times more than the year before and 7 million times more than in 2001. Citing testimony to Congress by an official of the Information Security Oversight Office, Steven Aftergood who runs the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy reports there has been a 75% increase in classification activity since 2001.

While some of this may be entirely justifiable given the state of the world, as James Madison said, `A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both.'

UPDATE 3/17/05: Steven Aftergood posted a terrific piece in Slate today which offers additional insight into the extent of the Government's push for secrecy - restricting access even to information that was once freely available. Aftergood catalogues examples of how completely unclassified information, like the DOD telephone directory, is now barred to the public.

IRS Form Fraud Alert

2005-02-15T14:56:00.000-08:00

This scandal has been around for a few months but it doesn’t seem to go away and it’s probably going to heat up again in the next few months…so I’m gonna report it here. Thieves are using modified IRS forms to trick people into disclosing personal information which they then use to commit identity fraud. It’s a great scam. The IRS sends us forms each year. And the forms never seem to make any sense. Why pay all that much attention to one more or get concerned if it is a little off base?

The most commonly cited scam is using the IRS Form W-8BEN, the Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding. This is what a real one looks like. It’s used by foreigners living outside the U.S. to declare responsibility for taxes on income from U.S. sources. On the real W-8BEN, the IRS only asks for your name, address and in some cases, Social Security Number. Fake ones have been altered to also ask for date of birth, passport number, bank name and account number, email address and much more.

Warning flags should go up if you receive any government form that requests any information beyond your name, address and Social Security Number, that doesn’t include a Privacy Act notice (for federal forms), or that directs you to fax, phone or email the form somewhere. Forms accompanied by letters which include threats of penalties or higher tax rates if you don’t respond quickly should also be examined closely.

If you receive any correspondence that makes you even slightly suspicious, get out the phone book and look in the blue pages for the number of the appropriate agency. (Fake forms have fake numbers…don’t call them.) Call the agency to verify the request. You can also visit the IRS website and doublecheck any tax forms you might get.

Victims of Ignorance

2005-02-15T14:54:00.000-08:00

Just because someone doesn’t choose to be online, that doesn’t mean their data isn’t.

Case in point: The California Department of Social Services suffered a security breach on October 20, 2004 when someone hacked into a database containing names, social security numbers and other personal data on people who provide and receive in-home care.

Since then, the Department has tried to use a website to inform those whose information had been compromised. Unfortunately, the site only gotten about 1,000 hits – a far smaller number than the 1.4 million folks who may have been affected.

The Department has now launched a snail mail campaign to reach out to these tech-challenged souls. But as a public service, please help your neighbors get to the following URL: http://www.cdss.ca.gov/ihss/
.

Paycheck stubs no longer ID Theft ticket in California

2005-02-07T11:44:00.000-08:00

Right now, carrying your paycheck in your wallet until you get to the bank puts you at risk for identity theft. It is one of the few items with your social security number that you actually have a reason to have in your wallet. And stolen wallets are the source of information used for ID theft in about 15% of all cases.

And until recently, putting your precious Social Security Number on the stub was a requirement by law. Not any more in California. Balancing the need for accurate earnings reporting with the danger of id theft, the governor has recently signed a bill that requires employers to block out all but the last four digits of SSN’s on paystubs. Expect this to take effect by January 1, 2008.

Migrant and seasonal workers, even in California, are still covered by a federal law which requires the full number.

Local Records

2004-12-26T07:33:00.000-08:00

While most attention goes to what information is kept at a federal level, the GAO has just published an eye-opening report on what is happening at the state and local level. The report estimates that “individuals’ SSNs are displayed in some public records in 80 to 94 percent of U.S. counties.” Government agencies in 41 states and the District of Columbia fess up to showing the SSN on at least one public record – most often court and property records.

In addition to routine records, the report also noted that id cards issued by the government to employees and for some benefits programs also display an SSN. The GAO’s count of vulnerable folk: 57 million.

We will probably see some action from this report, which is too gently titled Government Accountability Offce, Social Security Numbers: Governments Could Do More to Reduce Display in Public Records and On Identity Cards. Until legislators clean up the risk they themselves have created, you might want to check out what to do in the chapter on government records in my book.

Creating, instead of protecting, Victims

2004-11-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

The Department of Urban and Housing Development is in the process of creating a nationwide database to track homeless people.

Here is a classic case of government trying to get better information to deliver better services. If you know where there are a lot of homeless people, you can allocate funding for shelters and counseling better.

And you need to know someone's name, or have some way to identify them, to make sure that they aren't counted twice. You also probably want to follow up on what services they received to see if you helped or not. If you didn't help, you might consider trying something different.

Unfortunately, in their definition of just who is "homeless," HUD has included victims of domestic violence seeking refuge in a shelter. Their new system is also tracking and storing information on them.

The problem, of course, is that once you collect and store information in a database, you have created something that someone else can steal. Or use to find out where his victim might be to go after her yet again.

Companies reeling under losses from identity theft (estimated to be equal to the annual budget for the entire state of Florida) are beginning to catch on to the power of information abuse. HUD should too.

They've gotten their first lesson. In response to outcries from domestic violence counselors, HUD has just amended its policies to allow for coded identification of shelter refugees and a delay in entering information into the system. The question is did they go far enough? And will it take a murder to figure out?

Online Voter Registration

2004-11-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

As a great illustration of the tension between increased efficiency and unnecessary exposure, go to the Travis County Tax Office website.

Here voters can verify their registration status and date of birth and address in the registration record. Unfortunately, because the site offers a searchable list of names using partial input (you can type "a" and get every registered voter whose last name begins with "a"), it is easy for everyone else to scoop up that information too.

Voter Privacy

2004-10-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

As the day approaches to exercise our civic duty, it seemed like the right time to talk about voter's records and ballots vis-a-vis privacy issues. Here is a sampling of news items that have recently appeared:

From The Daily Camera...
"A group of voters has filed a lawsuit against Boulder County election officials, accusing them of violating the state's Constitution by PRINTING SERIAL NUMBERS AND BAR CODES ON BALLOTS." (emphasis mine - alw)

So much for the secret ballot in Boulder!

From the Montgomery Advertiser...
"The Alabama Secretary of State's office is trying to retrieve a printout (of a voter's list - alw) given to a former mayoral candidate that lists Wetumpka voter's social security numbers."

Since when do political candidates need to know our SSN's? Don't suppose they were going to pay us for our votes and then report the payments to the IRS, do you?

From The New York Times...
"Members of the military will be allowed to vote this year by faxing or e-mailing their ballots - after waiving their right to a secret ballot."

So good to know those serving our country in harms way are getting the finest treatment!

From the BayouBuzz...
"Vitter (a U.S. Congressman from Louisana - alw) said that he's collected 180,000 e-mail addresses and has raised $163,000 over the Internet."

Steve Sabludowsky, the op ed writer, then goes on to ask what will happen to all of these email addresses after the election. Good question. Vitter's website says nothing on the matter. The Louisiana Treasurer's website, on the other hand, says that it will "not sell personal information provided through this Web site to unrelated third parties." Fair enough, but just who constitutes an RELATED third party. The state democratic party probably. The national democratic party? The unions who support it????

HAPPY VOTING!

Campaign for Reader Privacy

2004-10-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

Despite the progress made in the past 20 years in assuring the confidentiality of library records (see last post), librarians have recently found themselves in a new fight: government access to library records using Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. According to Section 215, government agents can request access to library records under a cloak of secrecy - in other words, you may never know that the FBI is interested in what you're reading.

In response, the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, and PEN American Center have launched a drive to gather 1 million signatures on a petition to Congress to roll back Section 215. As they put it on their website:

"Attorney General John Ashcroft has repeatedly stated that the Department of Justice has never used Section 215. We should accept him at his word, and conclude that, if Section 215 was not needed in the 2 years after 9/11, during our Nation's greatest crisis since Pearl Harbor, then it is clear that the laws that already give the government the power to seek bookstore and library records while protecting against potential abuses of customer privacy are entirely adequate to the task of pursuing terrorists."

If you want to add your name, you can sign the petition online.

Library Records

2004-10-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

Mary Minow, author of The Library's Legal Answer Book, has correctly pointed out that the discussion of government recordkeeping in my book does not include anything on library records.

Library records include your identifying information, your history of books checked out as well as interlibrary loan requests, reserve requests and any searches that you ask the librarian to make for you.

Now, librarians believe in the value of information and take great pride in their willingness to protect our right in a free society to have free access to it. Part of that includes a fierce desire to restrict monitoring of what information you and I might find interesting. Before 1978, librarians had only that desire to back them up when the lawyers and cops came asking. Since 1978, just about every state has put something on the books with some kind of regulation of how and who can see library records.

It is, however, a complicated subject. In some states, only registration and circulation information is protected. In some states, only libraries receiving government money are affected. In some states, librarians have a right to protect records but can still divulge them if they deem it fit.

And, as Minow points out, in most states records of overdue books are not protected at all.

When Governments Start Marketing

2004-09-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

Aside from glossy brochures for military recruitment, we don't really think of the US Government as a cutting edge marketer. In at least one small area, that may change. Recreation.gov, a website designed to allow campers and hikers to make reservations with National Parks, is experimenting with "personal profiling". In particular, they want to use information from website visitors to make intelligent suggestions about parks and activities.

Assuming the good folks behind recreation.gov are successful gathering and interpreting behavioral data on citizens, one has to wonder whether or not the Department of Homeland Security will come knocking on their door. Or if the recration.gov data mining will be subject to the same Congressional scrutiny currently required in the Homeland Security spending bill just passed by the Senate...

Government is Getting More Secretive

2004-08-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of more than 30 organizations promoting less secrecy and more democracy in government, has just released a study on government openness. What they've found is that our government is classiflying more information than ever before and that this is costing us dearly.

(the following quote is taken from a press release issued by OpenTheGovernment.org)

"Government data confirm what many have suspected: secrecy has increased dramatically in recent years under policies of the current administration. For every $1 the federal government spent last year releasing old secrets, it spent an extraordinary $120 maintaining the secrets already on the books, according to an analysis by OpenTheGovernment.org.

'Excessive government secrecy hides problems that the public needs to know, and information embarrassing to officials,' said Rick Blum of OMB Watch, the report's author and coordinator of the coalition. As examples, he cited the extensive classification of documents regarding Abu Ghraib and key sections of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq."

The study notes that the government spent more creating classified documents last year ($6.5 billion) than in the past decade.

OpenTheGovernment.org also suggests that secrecy is expensive for another reason. Oversight not only allows us to form opinions about good vs. bad leadership, it allows us to identify problems or mistakes that can be fixed. Citing the Justice Department, the study reports that whistleblowers helped the government recover $1.5 billion dollars last year. One wonders how much more could we have saved with more knowledge of what was going on...

New DOJ FOIA Guide

2004-07-31T11:36:00.000-07:00

You know it has to be about the government when the acronyms start piling up. But don't let the alphabet soup fool you. This is an important document.

The Justice Department Office of Information and Privacy has
published a newly updated May 2004 edition of its Freedom of Information Act Guide.

The Guide is a comprehensive treatment of the Act's provisions,
extensively annotated with footnotes to the ever-growing body of
case law. A good resource for anyone seeking insight into
FOIA practice and procedure...or just what the government is doing these days...