US NAVY ATA (Advanced Tactical Aircraft) program: A-12 Avenger II & its rivals

[Byeman]

In this case (AFRL) they have dedicated personnel who are trained for the task and have domain knowledge ("Subject Matter Experts") relevant to the contents of the records.

Dedicated doesn't mean it is their full time job. The issue is getting them time to do it without impacting their day job. And who provides the money when they are not doing their day job.

 

[quellish]

Dedicated doesn't mean it is their full time job. The issue is getting them time to do it without impacting their day job. And who provides the money when they are not doing their day job.

Again, in this specific case dedicated does mean dedicated - the SME has one job.

 

[DWG]

Laws with no funding behind them are rarely enforced.

Depends on whether there is someone external doing the enforcing or not.

ICO takes regulatory action against four public authorities under the FOI Act

We have taken action against four public authorities for continued failings to meet their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

ico.org.uk

 

[quellish]

Depends on whether there is someone external doing the enforcing or not.

ICO takes regulatory action against four public authorities under the FOI Act

We have taken action against four public authorities for continued failings to meet their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

ico.org.uk

And in many of the cases I have seen, individuals and organizations who participated in a FOIA process may be subject to liability outside of FOIA and APA. For example, providing knowingly false or fraudulent information in an official statement could result in criminal charges or non judicial punishment. Or worse.

 

[Byeman]

Depends on whether there is someone external doing the enforcing or not.

ICO takes regulatory action against four public authorities under the FOI Act

We have taken action against four public authorities for continued failings to meet their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

ico.org.uk

talking US

 

[DWG]

talking US

I know, I'm pointing out that "Laws with no funding behind them are rarely enforced." only applies if there's no external enforcement mechanism available. The UK has one, and that makes ignoring FOI rules a riskier business.

 

[Arjen]

There's life outside the US of A.

 

[Scott Kenny]

There's life outside the US of A.

There is, but we're talking about a classified US program here. There should be basically ZERO information on it outside the US.

 

[Arjen]

@DWG provides a UK example of a largely privately funded, government independent organisation that takes legal action against officials who wipe their behinds with FOI laws. I assume US laws permit the existence of such an organisation, but from what I have read, there is no US equivalent of ICO.

Laws with no funding behind them are rarely enforced.

Not enforced by government agencies anyway. In the UK, ICO does that anyway, with mostly private money. The UK government provides some of ICO's income.

The ICO is primarily funded by organisations paying the data protection fee, which covers over 85% of the ICO’s annual expenditure. This is supplemented by grant-in-aid from the government to fund the ICO’s regulation of various other laws.

 

[Byeman]

@DWG provides a UK example of a largely privately funded, government independent organisation that takes legal action against officials who wipe their behinds with FOI laws. I assume US laws permit the existence of such an organisation, but from what I have read, there is no US equivalent of ICO.

Not enforced by government agencies anyway. In the UK, ICO does that anyway, with mostly private money. The UK government provides some of ICO's income.

Doesn't matter, it is a US issue with authorization vs appropriation bills. But we are talking declassification vs FOI.

 

[Arjen]

I reiterate my previous 'there is no US equivalent of ICO' - not yet, anyway. But there could be, for US issues, if a sufficient number of US people care enough.

 

[Byeman]

I reiterate my previous 'there is no US equivalent of ICO' - not yet, anyway. But there could be, for US issues, if a sufficient number of US people care enough.

Still wouldn't work for classified information. Don't need it for other information. Most government agencies have FOI organizations within them.

 

[DWG]

I reiterate my previous 'there is no US equivalent of ICO' - not yet, anyway. But there could be, for US issues, if a sufficient number of US people care enough.

There's certainly no reason the ICO funding mechanism, fees for services, couldn't be applied as there are people associated with the incoming US government talking about moving air traffic control out of FAA to be funded by user fees.

 

[Arjen]

Still wouldn't work for classified information. Don't need it for other information. Most government agencies have FOI organizations within them.

I think you are moving the goalposts now.

If I recall correctly, ICO was raised by @DWG in response to your reply

Laws with no funding behind them are rarely enforced.

... to @quellish in reply #433, which contains this beauty:

In one recent instance the Air Force has claimed it can withhold a 35 year old document because of both 10 USC 130 and classification. 10 USC 130 only applies to unclassified technical information. And the Air Force claims it is an original classification authority for this document and it can withhold it as currently and properly classified under execuve order. Unfortunately for the Air Force, this contained portions that were classified as RESTRICTED DATA. The Air Force has no classification authority here, only DOE does. And the claims that the Air Force has made about these records and their "review" indicate they improperly handled this classified material. The FOIA denial authorities in this case have exposed themselves to serious consequences. They never actually reviewed the document, if they had they may have noticed that they did not control its classification and it required special handling.

In many cases, the officials handling the information requests are in breach of US laws and getting away with it. Withholding information and giving the wrong reasons for withholding it.
<edit> Apologies for multiple edits.

 

[DWG]

Still wouldn't work for classified information. Don't need it for other information. Most government agencies have FOI organizations within them.

As the link in my original post pointed out, ICO has just chastised three police forces for not meeting their FOI obligations. The police might well have argued some of the information involved is excluded from FOI releasability on grounds of operational sensitivity, but ICO didn't need to see it, the action was taken purely on them not meeting the timeliness requirements, where they are legally obligated to report their performance. They had FOI organisations, they just weren't working well enough, and they weren't fixing them. You don't need to see classified information to know that.

ICO has in fact fined the MoD this year, though that was for a breach of confidentiality relating to Afghan Interpreters.

The entire reason for the existence of ICO, and the FOI Act, is that an enforceable access mechanism absolutely is needed for non-classified information. Organisations, or individuals within organisations, for a multitude of reasons, regularly adopt a secret-squirrel attitude to information that is supposed to be publicly available.

There are widespread exemptions in the FOI Act 2000 for information affecting national security, but ICO could easily be adapted to deal with classified information if needed through a mechanism similar to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, or the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, all of which are independent bodies specially constituted to have access to classified data in an oversight role. The US already has a similar organisation in the form of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

 

[quellish]

Still wouldn't work for classified information. Don't need it for other information. Most government agencies have FOI organizations within them.

I am not familiar with ICO, however with regards to FOIA there is the Office of Special Counsel. The Office of Special Counsel is mandated by statute to investigate instances where records have been improperly withheld by federal agencies in response to FOIA requests. OSC is then able to hold individuals accountable.

OSC can become involved at the direction of a federal court as the result of a FOIA lawsuit, or it can be involved at the request of any person inside or outside of government. In practice though OSC has rarely executed these responsibilities in the last 20 years.

And, for reasons that are not clear, OSC is prohibited from investigating certain agencies (such as the FBI).

That said, having a specific OSC complaint filed by Any Person regarding the improper withholding of records under FOIA can be career limiting, wether it was investigated or not.

As far as not needing such measures for information that is not classified, I have seen agencies use export control as an excuse for not releasing records. Unlike classification, these agencies believe that there is no requirement for review, and that they can broadly and blindly use export control to restrict the release of records under FOIA. This is simply not true, and in many cases they are withholding records they have previously released freely, now citing export control as justification. It does not work that way, a fact that DoD and NASA are likely to be reminded of in a federal court in the near future.