Rescuing Knowledge, Freeing Information

LSD canine psychosis article from USSR (1962)

By Russ Kick at 11 May, 2009, 1:51 pm

“Description of an Experimental Psychosis Induced by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.” Official US government translation of an article from a Soviet psychiatric journal in 1962. [Released due to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the Defense Technical Information Center by Russ Kick, 28 Feb 2009. The request was referred to and fulfilled by the National Technical Information Service.]

Click here to download the article [PDF format | 20 pp | 500K]

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On Twitter

By Russ Kick at 8 May, 2009, 8:28 am

I’m now on Twitter (because there’s not already enough things to get done online):

http://twitter.com/russkick

The Memory Hole automatically feeds there, and I’ll be posting news, links, etc. relating to freedom of information, government documents, and related topics. And lots of unrelated topics – books, lit, poetry, art, religion, food, life in the rural South ….

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“Army Surveillance of Civilians” (1972)

By Russ Kick at 5 May, 2009, 12:22 pm

“Army Surveillance of Civilians: A Documentary Analysis” by the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate (1972). Posted online by The Memory Hole. (Thanks to Susan Maret, coeditor of Government Secrecy: Classic and Contemporary Readings.)

Click here to download the report [PDF | 9 meg | 104 pp]

Background info from the report’s preface:

“The following report by the Subcommittee staff analyzes certain computer print-outs and publications generated in the course of the Army’s domestic intelligence program.”

“The overwhelming majority of the reports pertain to the peaceful activites of nonviolent citizens lawfully exercising their constitutional rights of speech, press, religion, association, and petition.”

“These files confirm what we learned first from former intelligence agents – that Army intelligence, in the name of preparedness and security, had developed a massive system for monitoring virtually all political protest in the United States. In doing so, it was not content with observing at arms length; Army agents repeatedly infiltrated civilian groups. Moreover, the information they reported was not confined to acts or plans for violence, but included much private information about peoples’ finances, psychiatric records, and sex lives.”

“The size of these and other data banks confirms that the Army’s domestic intelligence operations did not begin with the Newark and Detroit riots of 1967. The events of that summer only expanded activities which had been going on, in varying degrees of intensity, since 1940, and which has its roots as far back as World War I.”

Introduction by Susan Maret, Ph.D.

Prompted by Capt. Christopher Pyle’s 1970 revelations of U.S. Army surveillance; the Tatum v Laird case,  which petitioned  “the courts to enjoin the army from the collection, distribution, storage of information on lawful political activities of persons unassociated with the armed forces”; and Morton Kondrache’s 1972 Chicago Sun-Times reporting, the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights [1] released U.S. Army Surveillance of Civilians: A Documentary Analysis (1972, 92d Congress, 2d session).

The Subcommittee (1972:44) credits Kondrache  with breaking the story regarding the Continental Army Command’s (CONARC 1955-1973) “computerized and non-computerized files” in which the Subcommittee (1974: v) discovered “enormity in data collection” in the surveillance of professors, students, housewives, civil rights workers, and anti-war and political activists.[2] In its Documentary Analysis, the Subcommittee wrote:

The absence of civilian control over this surveillance prior to 1970 has already been established. This report proves an absence of central military control as well. Each major data bank developed independent of others in a milieu which showed little concern for the values of privacy, freedom, efficiency, or economy (1972:97).

In addition to the Subcommittee’s (1972:44, 97) unearthing of an extensive, decades-long intelligence-collection and information-sharing program conducted by CONARC and its “subordinate continental armies and their constituent elements,” most remarkable are the revelations of the Army’s perceptions of their domestic mission and “vacuum cleaner” approach to intelligence-gathering and surveillance:

[Military officers] drew a false analogy between foreign counterintelligence and counterinsurgency operations and the Army’s role in civil disturbances… [D]emonstrators and rioters were not regarded as American citizens with possibly legitimate grievances, but as “dissident forces” deployed against the established order (1972: v).

[These files] reflect an unfortunate tendency within the government to react to the problem of civil disturbances by conducting widespread and indiscriminate and duplicative surveillance. The result is a great collection of information that gives an illusion of knowledge, but which hampers the ability of responsible officials to make intelligent decisions. Unfortunately, it appears that Army intelligence, uncertain of its stateside-mission, took refuge in surveillance and dossier-building, and thereby deluded itself into thinking it was “doing something.” In fact, it was merely wasting time, money, and manpower, and infringing on the rights of the citizens it was supposed to be safeguarding (1972:97).[3]

[T]he major impression from our long study of these files is their utter uselessness. The collection of this information, and its attendant infringement on the constitutional rights and privacy of American citizens, has sometimes been justified on the grounds of necessity, chiefly that of public safety. Yet it appears that the vacuum-cleaner approach of collecting all possible information resulted in great masses of data on individuals which was valuable for no legitimate (or even illegitimate) military purpose… (1972: 97)

Although available in most federal depository libraries in paper format as a public document, placing the Documentary AnalysisCONARC Incident Files, the Counterintelligence Analysis Branch (CIAB) Compendium, and the Counterintelligence Records Information System (CRIS), as well as the  labyrinthian military-intelligence surveillance bureaucracy, which Joan Jensen (1991:246) characterizes as a situation in which on the Web liberates history from the stacks. The Subcommittee’s report offers researchers, FOIA requesters, and citizens alike the opportunity to investigate recordkeeping systems such as the

antiwar protesters seldom attacked military surveillance. In part this silence occurred because protesters did not know which department agents represented. Most protesters knew little about either the civilian or military bureaucracies they battled in opposing war policies. Sometimes they lumped all agents together as government agents.

Researchers may also extend their investigative activities beyond the Department of the Army, for as the Subcommittee (1972: 20) discovered, many military surveillance files were shared with the CIA, FBI, NASA, Secret Service, and State Department, as well as “eight defense attachés in foreign countries, including the Soviet Union.”

When reading the Documentary Analysis, one is reminded of more recent disclosures of domestic (warrantless) surveillance, with its justifications in national security. But there’s more than meets the eye: the Subcommittee’s (1972: 86) chilling remarks that “what separates military intelligence in the United States from its counterparts in totalitarian states, then is not its capabilities, but its intentions,” demands the public debate of those still-unresolved questions regarding the scope and boundaries of national security and free speech, expression, privacy, transparency, and agency oversight.

Highlights of the report:

p. 8: Is “Individuals Active in Civil Disturbances,” (State of Alabama, Department of Public Safety, Investigative and Identification Division), the same document mentioned as Volume 3 of the Fort Holabird Army Intelligence Command Blacklist, or “mug book”?

p. 51: Volumes 2-6 of the “Personalities edition” contain 2,269 pages of detailed summaries of the political beliefs and activities of nearly 5,000 people, in addition to a 99-page index to persons listed.

p. 72: Details the Fort Hood “computerized storage system for civil disturbance and intelligence.” 

p. 86: The Defense Central Index of Investigations is “…25 million index cards representing files on individuals and 760,000 cards representing files on organizations and incidents. “

Pre-NORTHCOM, information on the domestic activities of the United States Strike Command (USSTRICOM), “established in 1961 to furnish deployable, combat-ready forces as in an emergency situation anywhere within the United States or overseas.  A two service command (Army and Air Force), USSTRICOM is headquartered at McDill Air Force Base and is commanded by an Army general. It has two major components, the U.S. Army Forces Strikes Command (ARSTRIKE) and the U.S. Air Force Strike Command (AFSTRIKE), are headquartered in close proximity.”

p. 89: Directorate for Civil Disturbance Planning and Operations was created in April 1968 when the Army anticipated that it might have to deploy 10,000 troops in each of 25 cities simultaneously.

p. 95: “The secrecy which surrounds all military intelligence operations has also hampered both Executive Branch and Congressional inquiries. The time it has taken to comprehend the structure and modus operandi of the Army’s intelligence units has cut into our capacity to uncover and examine various files.  Similarly, much time has been lost in discussions with Defense Department officials concerning what items may and may not be declassified.”

p.95-96: “ONI (now NIS) and OSI reports were also stored in data banks substantially maintained by the Army, but it is unlikely that we will ever see their contents” [emphasis added].


p. 96: The size of the records centers such as the Fourth Army (Fort Sam Houston) “reported the equivalent of 120,000 file cards on ‘personalities of interest.’  It seems likely the subversive file at Fort Holabird contained even more.”

The Counterintelligence Analysis Branch (CIAB) “reported that the computerized index to it microfilm archive contained 113,250 references to organizations and 152,000 references to individuals.”

Army intelligence “had reasonably current files on the political activities of at least 100,000 civilians unassociated with the Armed Forces.”

p.97: “The size of the files confirms other reports that the surveillance dates back not to the Newark and Detroit riots of 1967, but to the reestablishment of Army counterintelligence on the eve of the Second World War.”

The full text of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Military Surveillance. Hearings (93rd Congress, second session, on S. 2318. April 9 and 10, 1974) is available via Boston Public Library at the Internet Archive. The Hearings partner with the Documentary Analysis to give an uncomfortable view into the Army’s  indiscriminate surveillance enterprise.

Notes

1. The Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, now known as the Subcommittee on the Constitution, was a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Records of the Committee on the Judiciary and Related Committees, 1816-1968 are fascinating. (Scroll to 13.119, the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights and 13.121 for the Subcommittee’s history). The Subcommittee was established in 1955 to “to survey the ‘extent to which the Constitutional rights of the people of the United States were being respected and enforced.’” Of significance is NARA’s note at 13.120 the Subcommittee “consequently, as the subcommittee’s activities became known, it received thousands of complaints, inquiries, and requests for information and assistance from a variety of sources.”

In addition to investigating military surveillance in its Documentary Analysis, the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina from 1961-1974, undertook several other significant investigations into infringements of constitutional rights. Of note, the Subcommittee conducted hearings on Wiretapping and Eavesdropping Legislation (Eighty-Seventh Congress, first session, on May 9-12, 1961), Constitutional Rights of the American Indian (Eighty-Seventh Congress, first session, on Aug. 29-31, Sept. 1, 1961 and Nov. 25, 29, Dec. 1, 1961), Withholding of information from the Congress (86th Congress, 2d session, 1961), the Equal Rights” Amendment (May 5, 6, and 7, 1970), and Federal Data Banks and Constitutional Rights: A Study of Data Systems on Individuals Maintained by Agencies of the United States Government (Ninety-third Congress, second session, 1974).

2. For supplementary material on the history of U.S. military and intelligence agency surveillance and recordkeeping systems, see Morton Halperin et al, The Lawless State: The Crimes of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies (Penguin Books, 1976); Joan M. Jensen’s Army Surveillance in America, 1775-1980 (Yale University Press, 1991); Morton Kondrache’s Chicago Sun-Times Alan LeMond and Ron Fry’s No Place to Hide stories, “Civilian Data Banks Continue, Despite Army Disavowal,” (February 27, 1970:22), “Army Has Closed Political Computer But Justice Dept. Maintains Bigger One” (March 9, 1970: 26), and “Army Continuing its Political Intelligence Operation” (March 15, 1970: 8); and (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975).

Check with local libraries for the Lexis Nexis microfilm collection U.S. Army Surveillance of Dissidents 1965-1972: Records of the U.S. Army’s ACSI Task Force; also check NARA’s web version of the Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States for specific record groups (RG) of federal agencies. Many libraries own microfilm of the collection.

3. It isn’t clear that military surveillance violates the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. § 1385); see Jennifer Elsea, “The Posse Comitatus Act and Related Matters: A Sketch,” CRS Report for Congress June 6, 2005, RS20590 http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS20590.pdf and Eric V. Larson, John E. Peters Preparing the U.S. Army for Homeland Security: Concepts, Issues, and Options, Appendix D. “Overview of the Posse Comitatus Act,” at

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1251/index.html

©Susan L. Maret

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USDA to post animal-welfare reports, under pressure

By Russ Kick at 16 April, 2009, 11:44 am

From the Humane Society of the US:

In response to a lawsuit filed in January by The Humane Society of the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will again be posting annual reports from registered animal research facilities on its web site. APHIS, which had earlier pulled the online documents at the request of the research facilities, will resume the postings on Tuesday, May 10, in a clear victory for animal protectionists. …

The HSUS filed its federal lawsuit after waiting for years for the USDA to fulfill four separate Freedom of Information Act requests. The first request was filed in 2001, and it asked for the 1999 annual reports from all registered animal research facilities. In 2002, The HSUS requested a list of all USDA-registered research facilities that house and/or conduct research on any ape species for the years 2000 to the present, and information concerning the number of ape species held at each facility. The third request, prompted by a complaint from a member of the public, was filed in 2003 for documents of a specific research institution. The fourth request, filed in 2004, asked for the annual reports from 2000 to the present.

The USDA provided only 24 of the 1,400 documents requested in 2001 (and didn’t provide them until 32 months later), and never provided any documents responsive to the 2002, 2003, or 2004 FOIA requests.

APHIS’ decision to post the annual reports does not settle The HSUS’s lawsuit against the USDA. There are still unresolved issues between the agency and The HSUS, notably the large number of redacted pages in the annual reports so far provided. The HSUS is also waiting on annual reports that the agency must still vet with animal research facilities before releasing.

Full press release

USDA APHIS: Annual Reports of Research Facilities

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Tracking changes to the White House website

By Russ Kick at 7 March, 2009, 9:14 am

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ProPublica has set up a page, with a feed, that monitors any changes to whitehouse.gov, recovery.gov, and financialstability.gov.

Whenever there’s a change to any page on these sites, it’s noted in the feed. You can then view the old and new versions of the page side by side, with the changes highlighted.

Most of the changes are to be expected – a new press release goes up, a policy document is posted, etc. But already some interesting changes have been caught:

White House Site Un-Slams Bush on Katrina

Also, an article on Slate focuses on the White House’s recent changes to George W. Bush’s biography, but the real story is to another change discussed in the second half of the article:

Elsewhere on Obama’s Whitehouse.gov, when it comes to Iraq policy, change is always afoot. Refugees eager for the $2 billion promised in the earlier version? I wouldn’t count on it. That whole “preventing humanitarian crisis” thing is no more, replaced in part by a curious section on defusing Iranian nukes and securing peace for Israel.

Indeed, it’s grim for Iraq. The hopeful talk of creating a sort of shining beacon on a Mesopotamian hill—supporting reconciliation, reconstruction, development, compromises, lasting stability, and (of course) federalism—is all gone. Now, instead, is a rather stark warning: “Iraq’s future is now its own responsibility.”

It’s hard to send things down the memory hole when the people have tools like this.

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Bailout transparency

By Russ Kick at 6 March, 2009, 1:34 pm

OpenTheGovernment.org has a fantastic section tracking what we know and don’t know about the financial bailout. You’ll find news, documents, links to sites, and more. The Treasury Dept & Federal Reserve are currently fighting court battles in order to keep details of the bailout secret.

See also: ProPublica’s Show Me the TARP Money and Subsidyscope’s Financial Bailout Project.

{EDIT: Added Subsidyscope link at 5:30 PM}

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Docs in the news

By Russ Kick at 5 March, 2009, 5:03 pm

Lots of document-related news to catch up on..

* Justice Dept releases nine Bush-era memos regarding legalities involving detainees, rendition, eavesdropping, using the military within the US, and that pesky thing called free speech: “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.”

The memos are here. NY Times article here. ProPublica memo depository here.

* CIA admits in court that it destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogations [ACLU]

* “Major RAND study with 300 interviews: Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan” [Wikileaks]

* Obama Justice Dept helps hide Bush White House emails [AP]

* The White House’s missing documents [Politico]

* British Justice Secretary Vetoes FOIA Release of Iraq War Discussions [Antiwar.com]

* “Navy classifies ship inspection reports” [Navy Times]

* DHS Inspector General: Over 100,000 deportees had children in US [AP]

* Valenti’s Sexuality Was Topic For FBI [WaPo]

Related: “Bill Moyers Responds to Media Probe of His ’Homo Hunting’ Past” [Boston Edge]

* Canadian Government posts 9,500 files on UFOs [Library and Archives Canada]

* Canada: “Weird warnings on FOI material” [Tyee]

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[exclusive] “IRS Investigative Materials”

By Russ Kick at 4 March, 2009, 4:47 pm

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“IRS Investigative Materials: A Guide to Internal Revenue Service Material Available to Other Federal Agencies.” Obtained, scanned, and posted by The Memory Hole, it doesn’t appear to be otherwise online. Printed and sent to Federal Depository Libraries in 1988, it’s the kind of publication that the IRS no longer makes available to the public.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD [PDF | 51 pages | 1.5 meg]

irs-investigative_preface

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New Yorker: Obama & Biden chipped or wearing tracking devices?

By Russ Kick at 2 March, 2009, 5:04 pm

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While profiling White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza saw something interesting in Emanuel’s office. It’s mentioned only in passing:

Next to his computer monitor is a smaller screen that looks like a handheld G.P.S. device and tells Emanuel where the President and senior White House officials are at all times.

So, Obama, Biden, and other “senior White House officials” are lojacked? It makes sense that they’d be wearing/carrying something (or is it, as seems likely, an injected RFID chip?) that always gives their location in case of kidnapping, medical emergency, etc.

But here’s the kicker: The device is obviously giving off a signal, which is how it can be tracked, and that signal could theoretically be intercepted by unauthorized parties. And it could probably be blocked, faked, etc.

One of the main objections to Obama keeping his BlackBerry is that the signal could be used to track him. Now that he’s keeping it, he’s trackable in two ways. Undoubtedly, strong measures have been taken to prevent his trackability via the BlackBerry or the monitoring device. But in the case of the latter, it’s supposed to monitor his movements. Its whole purpose is to let certain people know where he is at any given moment. Thus, the signal can’t be completely blocked because then it would be useless.

More questions: Who besides Emanuel is authorized to have the receivers showing the real-time location of the country’s leaders? How many receivers are there?

{EDIT: Title of post was updated to include “New Yorker” on March 3.}

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Pentagon to allow photos of soldiers’ coffins when families permit

By Russ Kick at 26 February, 2009, 5:20 pm

From the New York Times:

In a reversal of an 18-year-old policy that critics said was hiding the ultimate cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the press will now be allowed to photograph the flag-draped coffins of America’s war dead as their bodies are returned to the United States — but only if their families agree.

American Forces Press Service article.

No word on whether the military will be taking its own photos of the coffins and, if so, whether they’ll release them.

See also: Photos of Military Coffins

(Thanks, Fred.)

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