GETTING THE RUNAROUND: RESPONSE TO FOIA REQUEST NOT TIMELY
By A.K.
According to several news
reports, on December 29, 2011 a U.S.
Embassy staff member and 3 U.S.
Marines picked up a group of
prostitutes. One of the prostitutes was
Romilda Aparecida Ferreira. According
to statements released by her lawyer,
Ferreira was pushed out of a moving
vehicle by one of the Marines and run
over after some type of argument
ensued inside the vehicle. Ferreira
suffered from a broken collarbone, two
broken ribs, and a punctured lung from
the incident. In publicly released
statements former U.S. Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta admitted the
guilt of these men.
The following article is about a
Freedom of Information Act request
put in to find out the name(s) of the
Marine(s) responsible for Ferreira’s
suffering, the punishment for their
crimes, and where those men are now
and the positions and rank they hold if
they are still in the military. In addition,
a request was put in to find all the
names and ranks of Marines and
Sailors and the punishment they
received for committing sex crimes, to
include pandering to a prostitute,
under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice (UCMJ).
According to the Associated
Press, the Obama administration has
done little to improve its record of
releasing information to the public
under the Freedom of Information Act.
In a report released mid-March the AP
noted “the government cited national
security to withhold information a
record 8,496 times - a 57 percent
increase over a year earlier and more
than double Obama’s first year.”
The report says the
information returned to requestors is
being censored more than ever before,
and that important information is not
being provided fast enough for its
analysis and distribution to be relevant
to events making headlines. In other
words, the information is being
withheld until the public conscious is
focused somewhere else. As an
independent student researcher filing
an FOIA request, I too found it
frustrating to have to wait as long I did
to hear a response. By the time I did
get an email back it was too late, as
the paper I needed the information for
had already been handed in and
graded, and the semester had come to
a close.
The response I finally did
receive was dated Jan. 16, 2014,
some 48 days after my initial FOIA
request. The response came via email
from an FOIA analyst who, instead of
providing any answers to my
questions, asked me a few questions
of her own. She wrote, “Specifically, is
there an Article 134 violations
(specific) you are looking for? There
are 53 different Article 134 violations.
Are you referring specifically to Article
134 (Pandering and Prostitution)?”
At the time I was in the middle
of a move and wasn’t able to read my
emails regularly. Although I was
looking at my inbox a couple times a
week, I somehow missed this email,
so the analyst assumed I was just not
responding.
When I was able to finally find
my missed emails I noticed another
one from the same FOIA analyst, this
one dated Jan. 23, 2014. In the email it
stated my request would not be
processed properly “until clarification
is made” regarding the type of
violations I was interested in receiving
information about. I thought I had
made this clear in my original request,
as I had asked for records of “all U.S.
Marines who have been convicted of
Article 134 and 120 under the UCMJ
from 2007 to the present.”
“Until I receive a response,”
the analyst wrote in her email, “your
request will be on hold. If, after
January 31, 2014, I have not heard
back from you I will close your
request.”
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At this point I only had eight
days to respond before my case would
be closed even though the analyst had
taken over a month and a half to
respond to my initial request. Of
course I still hadn’t found these buried
emails because of the move, and by
the time I could get to them I didn’t
think it mattered much anyway since
my paper was already handed in and
also published on my website,
www.balancingjustice.com. But I’m a
persistent person and thought why not
pursue my request? Since I had
published the paper online, at the very
least I could update what I had there.
So when I was finally able to
answer the analyst’s questions via a
Feb. 16 email I was determined, yet I
still had expectations of more
disappointment. On Feb. 18, 2014 my
expectations were confirmed when I
received a response saying, “Case
2014F000163 was closed. You will
need to submit your new request using
the "FOIA On-Line" tool. Once you
have gotten to the website - just follow
the instructions to load your request
into the system. Thank you and have a
good day.”
After resubmitting a new request in
which I tried to be as specific as
possible so as not to avoid the same
run-around procedure as earlier, some
of the information I wanted was finally
sent to me. Although the information
came through in a bit more timely
fashion than before, I still did not get