Homeland Security Redacts Drone Info It Already Released Publicly In Report To Congress

from the oops dept

Fri, Jan 31st 2014 7:33am — Mike Masnick

We've noted multiple times in the past that the process by which the federal government redacts documents it's declassifying and/or releasing publicly is quite arbitrary, and when the same document is released multiple times, the redactions can be totally different. However, the latest screw up along those lines is quite incredible. Last summer, Homeland Security's Customs and Border Patrol sent EFF a bunch of records in response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit concerning CBP's use of drones (CBP later "found" additional records it had neglected to pass along).

Those documents were certainly interesting, but perhaps more interesting (and troubling) is that last fall, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) in Congress had asked DHS for similar information, including "all mission logs related to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's (CBP) drone program from 2010 to 2013." DHS eventually handed over that information, including many of the same documents it released to the EFF, which were shared publicly. Except... the documents it gave to Congress had many more redactions than the ones they released to EFF.

Senator Tom Coburn's staff noticed this, and thought it was, well, rather odd, that DHS seems to think that the public can handle the information, while the relevant oversight committee in Congress cannot. Coburn has now sent a letter asking about the differences:

DHS insisted these documents were so sensitive they could not be produced without explicit promises they would be handled with utmost care, and reviewed only by Committee staff. The Department further requested the Committee promise not to release any document without receiving permission from DHS, and to return or destroy all documents when they had been reviewed. The Committee declined to oblige this virtually unprecedented request.

The documents DHS produced are extensively redacted. DHS claims it redacted information relating to activities by other agencies. The release of that information to Congress, it stated, is "under review," presumably with the other agencies.

My staff has reviewed the logs DHS produced for calendar year 2010. From this limited review, it appears that DHS has redacted information in the documents it provided to the Committee that is not redacted in the same documents DOJ released publicly.

For 2010 alone, my staff has tallied at least 20 instances in which the publicly-released documents appear to contain legible passages which are redacted entirely or in large part from the documents DHS provided the Committee. In other words, DHS appears to have chosen to withhold information from Congress which the DOJ -- and, we must assume, DHS -- has determined was appropriate to share with the American public. I have attached examples to this letter for your review.

Also of concern is the apparent lack of coordination between DHS and outside agencies, particularly the Department of Justice. DHS stated to the Committee that the passages it redacted were "pending review" with an outside agency. However, a comparison of the redacted passages with the publicly-released documents reveals that several of those passages relate to support for DOJ components, including the FBI. If the DOJ compels public release of documents detailing activities on behalf of its own component, and the documents are subsequently released to the public, it is not clear why DHS would later withhold the same information from Congress in order to consult with DOJ.

Oh, also, Coburn's staff noticed that some of the documents included don't appear to have been given to EFF at all, raising a separate question: that even among the newly found documents that DHS is still withholding pertinent information.

Of secondary concern but still significant, my staff noted several instances in which information that was provided to Congress does not seem to appear, even in redacted form, in the public documents released to the public interest group, suggesting that information may have been withheld in full from the organization without explanation or accounting.

Not surprisingly, Coburn is... not pleased with DHS over this.

The Department's conduct in this matter has impacted the Committee's ability to conduct its Constitutional responsibilities to oversee DHS operations. It has delayed access to relevant documents, and what it has provided falls short of what it is required to share with anyone, let alone in response to a Congressional request.

For over a year, this Committee has pressed the Department for more information regarding its unmanned aerial vehicle operations. These improperly redacted documents raise even more questions. If these vehicles are being operated in accordance with U.S. laws and in support of the Department's statutory mission, the lawfulness and efficacy of their operations should be easily demonstrable. This exercise may be said to demonstrate many things, but it does not demonstrate efficiency or transparency. Congress and the American people have a right to expect more from a Department which asks to be trusted with powerful tools and great authorities.

After all this, Coburn orders DHS to hand over "a full, unredacted set of the documents" as soon as possible.

203478735 Coburn Letter to DHS on Drone Redactions (PDF)203478735 Coburn Letter to DHS on Drone Redactions (Text)

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Filed Under: cbp, customs and border patrol, dhs, drones, homeland security, redactions, tom coburn
Companies: eff

27 Comments

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That One Guy (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 5:40am

Nice and blunt response to the attempted smoke and mirrors act, but the real question is: will he be willing to follow through when/if the DHS 'reluctantly declines' to hand over all the data requested?

The various spy agencies have made it plenty clear that they see the various 'oversight' groups as little more than rubber stamps, there to approve their activities and nothing else, it's going to take some hefty pushback, and quite likely charges filed, to convince them otherwise at this point.
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out_of_the_blue, 31 Jan 2014 @ 7:43am

And... after achieving relevancy with a Prenda item, it's back to blithering irrelevancy.
You seem to have no sense of proportion in your editor function, just whatever happens to drift down from above.
Running an item after it's come out in HuffPost isn't on the leading edge of The Resistance, it's on the trailing edge of The Establishment. (187 of 193)

03:43:37[d-850-1]
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 7:49am

two, no three faced politics
All three branches of the US government have shown a serious disrespect for the Constitution. Now that disrespect is showing up between the executive and legislative; and the executive and judicial branches. Political will to correct this situation appears non-existent. Even those in Congress whom decry this petulance do not have the necessary influence to initiate proceedings against either of the other two branches, even though both of those branches have publicly committed acts not consistent with the law of the land. And the public knows it.
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That One Guy (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 7:53am

Re: two, no three faced politics
Most likely it's a matter of self-interest, if any of the branches tries to do a little 'house cleaning', and hold the others accountable for their actions, it would follow that they would also face consequences for their actions(or inactions in some cases), and none of them wants to be the ones to open that particular can of worms.
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Chris Rhodes (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 8:03am

Re: And... after achieving relevancy with a Prenda item, it's back to blithering irrelevancy.
The lack of self-awareness in this comment is so strong, it burns me to look at it.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 8:03am

Re: Re: two, no three faced politics
Probably so, signifying that our politicians have no character, no integrity, and no hutzpah!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 8:07am

You know, I think it's time for a law saying that government agencies cannot redact documents given to the congressional committee that oversees them.

Sure, that will possibly risk some people being put in danger, or some operation being blown if some staffer leaks the documents. However the blunt facts of the matter are that a few people's lives are less important than keeping government agencies from lying to the elected officials that are in charge of keeping the agencies from running rampant.
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keyoke (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 8:14am

how doed this work...
I don't understand how this is supposed to work. Who is in charge of these various departments from an elected official standpoint? If its congress, or a committee of congress, how can a department "redact" information it provides to that governing body?

isn't that sort of like telling your boss in a status update that "you did [redacted] for [redacted]"? How does that fly?

if there's nobody overseeing these departments, how can "we the people" be sure that they are operating legally and truly working on behalf of the public?

all these departments, committees, programs, etc. Are just getting out of control..
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Erik Grant, 31 Jan 2014 @ 8:41am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 8:43am

what i find so worrying is, apart from the obvious spying revelations, these various 'security agencies' are supposed to be looking after the nation and it's inhabitants! when they cant get something like this right, what hope do we have when something really serious has to be sorted out?
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 8:55am

I believe the letter makes mention of two agencies having handled these records, the DHS and the DOJ. It is not at all unusual that separate agencies may act differently when asked to consider the same documents.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 9:08am

I don't see why this is a big surprise:

1) The general population, generally speaking, pays little attention top the information they are provided. They are more concerned with "important" issues like who is going to win American Idol or Justin Bieber getting arrested. And, for the most part, when they do pay attention, there generally isn't much they do, or can do (both would require time and effort), about it anyways (things like SOPA/ACTA being exceptions rather than the rule.

2)Politicians, generally knowing they are going to be handed their jobs back no matter what they do (as long as they keep talking the good talk to the people, while actually catering to the special interest groups) by and large pay very little attention to what the general population says or does (as long as enough of them stay healthy and passive enough to fill those special interest coffers the politicians suck off of).
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John Fenderson (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 9:10am

Re:
It's not unusual, but it still points out how broken the system is. If there were clear-cut guidelines about what is to be redacted and what isn't, then the redactions would be almost entirely the same regardless of what agency does them.
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Ninja (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 9:36am

They have been so used with secrecy that they are addicted and simply redact whatever the fuck simply for the heck of it.
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Loki, 31 Jan 2014 @ 9:45am

Re:
We've got plenty of laws now that they find ways to abuse, alter, or "interpret" at whim now. At this point we just need a new government.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 9:56am

Re: Re:
There can never be anything like the "clear cut guidelines" you envision because of the subjective element associated with the involvement of people in processes such as this. Two can look at the identical document, read the identical policy, and come quite reasonably to diametrically opposed conclusions.
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Chris Brand, 31 Jan 2014 @ 9:57am

Terrifying
"After all this, Coburn orders DHS to hand over "a full, unredacted set of the documents" as soon as possible."
Wow. The guys at DHS must be quaking in their boots.

It's not surprising that they feel free to thumb their noses at their overseers like this when those overseers basically respond with "try again". Now if they were to ground all drone flights for a while, perhaps the DHS would think the're taking the "oversight" role seriously....
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krolork (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 10:06am

We need a revolution.
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That One Guy (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 10:16am

Re: Terrifying
Yeah, 'Try again' isn't likely to get them to really care, 'Try again, and if you fail or refuse this time you'll be fired and replaced' on the other hand, now that would get their attention.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 10:24am

Re: Re: And... after achieving relevancy with a Prenda item, it's back to blithering irrelevancy.
ah, that braindead shill. just report and move on.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 10:29am

Re: how doed this work...
you are looking at it from the wrong angle. You should *never* trust them and always suspect they are *not* acting legally and they have to give you proof that they do act legally.

Failure to give that proof tells you they don't operate lawfully.
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Dirkmaster (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 12:16pm

Re:
At the very least, anyone caught lying to Congress should be imprisoned....

Oh, wait
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John Fenderson (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 12:40pm

Re: Re: Re:
If that's true, then the guidelines are flawed. There are plenty of analogous examples where clear guideline lead to largely consistent results. There are always niggling little differences at the margins, but that's not what we're seeing with the redaction process.
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M. Alan Thomas II (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 1:47pm

Headline/Title
I found the headline a bit confusing. I thought from it that the public release had happened in a report to Congress ("Released Publicly In Report To Congress"), not the other way around. Allow me to suggest that, if possible, it be reordered as "Homeland Security Redacts In Report To Congress Drone Info It Already Released Publicly".
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2014 @ 2:07pm

I like to thank the Staff of Senator Tom Coburn for finding t pointing this out good job Guys.
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Spaceman Spiff (profile), 31 Jan 2014 @ 5:49pm

Contempt!
"After all this, Coburn orders DHS to hand over "a full, unredacted set of the documents" as soon as possible."

It should have been instead of "as soon as possible.", "immediately, within 24 hours, or be held in contempt of Congress and remanded into custody!"... Maybe THAT would have gotten the needed attention of DHS and the DOJ.
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Bruce, 2 Feb 2014 @ 4:59pm

DHS Redactyls
They're simply Ass Soul dinosaurs soring toward extinction!
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