Bush withholds names of 900,000 new
government employees
The Washington Post/AP
By Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A27
Breaking a tradition of openness that began in 1816, the Bush administration
has without explanation withheld the names and work locations of about 900,000
of its civilian workers, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
"Citizens have a right to know who is working for the government," said
Adina Rosenbaum, attorney for the co-directors of the Transactional Records
Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University, which sued under
the Freedom of Information Act to get the data.
Since 1989, TRAC has posted a database on the Internet with the name, work
location, salary and job category of all 2.7 million federal civilian workers
except those in some law enforcement agencies. The data are often used by
reporters and government watchdog groups to monitor policies and detect waste
or abuse.
Recently, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility used the database to identify and locate U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service scientists for a survey. Many of the scientists complained
of political intervention into their research.
TRAC used the data to monitor the Bush administration's promise to increase
security along the Canadian border after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Six
months later, TRAC found Border Patrol agents on that border were up from 331
to just 346. A year later, the number had reached 515, but not one was assigned
to the Canada-Alaska border despite Alaska's potential strategic targets.
The New York Daily News used the data to find the names of guards at a
federal detention center where prisoner abuse was alleged. Another reporter
used the information to find the names of Transportation Security
Administration guards assigned to New York's LaGuardia Airport to pursue cargo
theft allegations.
"Secret governors are incompatible with a free government," the TRAC
co-directors wrote the federal Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 2 when
the agency withheld the data. "Basic information about the employees who carry
out the day-to-day actions of government is critical for meaningful public
oversight."
The group's leaders are David Burnham, a former New York Times reporter who
directs TRAC's Washington office, and Susan B. Long, a Syracuse University
professor who runs its upstate New York office. The suit was filed in federal
court in Syracuse.
OPM spokesman Mike Orenstein said the agency does not comment on litigation
as a matter of policy.
Using FOIA, TRAC has obtained the data on compact discs every three
months.
The federal government began publicly naming its employees, their job
category, salary and workplace in 1816. The first entry in the 1816 register
was James Madison. He was identified as president of the United States in
Washington at a salary of $25,000 -- and born in Virginia. The second entry was
Secretary of State James Monroe, salary: $5,000.
Lower on that page were Treasury Department messenger John Connell, a
Marylander who worked in Washington for $410 a year, and Comptroller's Office
clerk Richard H. Briscoe, another Marylander working in Washington, for $1,000
a year.
The last complete data set provided by OPM covered 2003. Since then, all
records of civilian employees of the Defense Department have been withheld, and
the names and duty locations of about 150,000 other civilian workers were
withheld, the lawsuit said. The others work in 650 occupations at 250 agencies
including the Federal Trade Commission, the National Park Service and the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Gary A. Lukowski, OPM's workforce information manager, wrote TRAC in late
2004 that the agency was reviewing its policy "on disclosure of individual
employee records as this relates to the Freedom of Information Act and the
Privacy Act."
In the spring, Lukowski forwarded the 2004 discs and noted that the "major
change affecting your request is that individual records for the Department of
Defense are excluded from the file provided." He told TRAC it would have to
request the records from the Pentagon directly.
The lawsuit said that, in violation of the FOIA, OPM did not even mention
that another 150,000 names and workplaces had been deleted or why, and that OPM
has not responded to requests for an explanation of its new policy.
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