From sex abuse to secret surveillance, Freedom of Information requests that have helped uncover the truth

Editors | USA TODAY

National Freedom of Information Day is on March 16, which is the anniversary of former president James Madison’s birthday. Madison is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” and a proponent for openness in government.

To mark the day, USA TODAY Network investigative journalists are opening up about the challenges and successes of filing FOIA requests that have held public officials accountable, helped change laws and made families and communities safer.

Trucker recalls an 'industry of abuse' A USA TODAY investigation finds America’s retail giants have spent a decade ignoring signs of labor abuse in their supply chains, sometimes fighting government efforts to crack down, even as thousands of truckers were driven into debt and poverty.

The federal open-records law, known as FOIA, can be an important tool for gathering information about what the government is doing. We’ve used it in the past to document how police elected not to pursue fugitives, and how the Justice Department responded to allegations that its lawyers had misled a secret surveillance court. But most of the time, FOIA’s chief product is disappointment: Backlogs mean it can take the government years to decide whether documents should become public (though the deadline, set by law, is 20 business days). Increasingly, that decision is that the information should stay hidden, at least in part. And even then, what emerges can often be something less than you might have hoped.

–Brad Heath, Investigative reporter; USA TODAY

For The Wall project, reporters from the USA TODAY Network pursued information from more than 35 medical examiners, counties, sheriff's offices and justices of the peace in four states to identify border-crossers who died while crossing. Many entities were unable or unwilling to easily provide this data. For example: the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator fought the network’s attempts to review death records for its count, even though those files should be public records. Network reporters had to file a complaint with the state's attorney general, accusing the medical investigator of violating New Mexico public records law. The state AG sided with the network, and forced the medical examiner to make the records available to us. (The still didn’t make it easy: we had to travel there in person to review the documents, so we did.) Ultimately, our review proved that federal border officials radically undercount the number of people who die crossing the line, because in many cases they intentionally leave people out of the count. If a person dies crossing the border and the body is found by a local authority instead of a federal officer, it usually just isn’t counted. It’s an intentional undercount. As we wrote, this undercount diminishes the truth of a humanitarian crisis, but there’s a border-security cost, too: The Border Patrol’s lack of interest in determining the actual number of dead migrants deprives policymakers of information that could more accurately deploy border enforcement or a wall, too.

We also fought for property records from 13 Texas counties, many of which were reluctant to provide data on property parcels. After months of records work, we were able to analyze, apparently for the first time ever, how many parcels site abutting the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. The answer is nearly 5,000. In a state where almost all land is privately owned, this number forebodes an almost endless court fight if the country were actually to try to seize this property to build a border wall. By comparison, in the nine years prior, the government fought only about 300 cases of eminent domain for border fencing, and almost 100 of those were still in litigation as of late last year.

–Josh Susong, Senior news director; USA TODAY Network - The Arizona Republic

.@npenzenstadler won this #FOIA appeal so decisively that the gov't was ordered to undergo open-records training and pay a $100 penalty. https://t.co/WqHqmkWA30 — Brad Heath (@bradheath) August 15, 2017

This tweet was in reference to a records battle associated with our project last year on unintentional juvenile shooting incidents across the country, in partnership with AP (Chronicle of agony: Gun accidents kill at least 1 kid every other day). We set out to gather records on these tragic cases, including this case in South Hutchinson, Kansas, where a three-year-old was killed. The police initially blew us off—and when we eventually pressed the issue, they denied the records because they were “not comfortable” releasing them and assumed we intended to “ridicule the parents of this tragically killed three-year-old child.”

In order to fulfill our watchdog role, it’s essential for these departments to be transparent with the press and the public. We take that responsibility seriously and weigh the public’s right to know with the sensitivity and privacy of the people involved. We appealed to the Kansas Attorney General. He agreed that the records were inappropriately withheld. As part of the violation, the police staff were forced to pay a fine and attend mandatory public records training.

In another example, The Justice Department for weeks refused to answer questions about how many employees were working on the cases and for how long, falsely saying the agency doesn't track such information. USA TODAY identified the government legal staff who are defending Trump’s business profits using the agency's own internal case-tracking database, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

–Nick Penzenstadler, Investigative Reporter; USA TODAY

I use state and federal public records laws every day. FOIA was the backbone behind our trucker exploitation series. (Rigged: Forced into debt. Worked past exhaustion. Left with nothing.) Some federal agencies, like the National Labor Relations Board, are super responsive, while others can drag their feet for months or even years. Federal law enforcement agencies are notorious for keeping records secret. As most reporters will tell you, it's important to know not only the Freedom of Information Act, but also the state laws and exemptions you might run into when agencies try to pushing back against your request. States like Florida and California are relatively open. But others don’t even put court records online. While we were requesting labor violation documents for Rigged, it was a constant negotiation, a lot of back and forth with FOIA officers all over the government. But the more I learned about what specific record we needed - like a contract or testimony - the easier it became.

–Brett Murphy, Investigative reporter; USA Today Network – Florida

In 2014, I wrote a story about how a Pentagon think tank was studying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s body language. I did a FOIA request for the report and got it a year later. The report showed that the Pentagon believed Putin had Asperger’s Syndrome. The story received a lot of attention around the world.

–Ray Locker, Washington enterprise editor; USA TODAY

A story I broke on sexual harassment and toxic work environment at the Marine’s Quantico headquarters was based on an inspector general’s report. I FOIA’d the report weeks prior to the story posting, but obtained an unredacted version from a source. Here’s an email from the FOIA officer a day after the story ran:

Hi, Mr. Vanden Brook, I'm sorry it's taken a bit to get back to you. Your request is still being processed, and it is currently in review by my boss. We hope to have the report to you next week. As always, should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. Regards, [name withheld from this story], FOIA Analyst, Commandant of the Marine Corps (ARSF)

I still haven’t received the report from the Marines. When I do I’m sure it will be highly redacted, not to mention way, way late. This isn’t unusual. I rely on sources to leak me reports and information because FOIA takes far too long.

Here’s another example: I’m still waiting for the Navy to fill a FOIA request for documents related to a story that ran in September 2017: Navy's top admiral kept spokesman after boozy party, sexual predator warning. I have unredacted versions of all the documents I’m seeking.

–Tom Vanden Brook, Pentagon correspondent; USA TODAY

Tim Evans and I used public records to obtain data on gun permit holders in Indiana. We checked that list against court data to find people who received gun permits despite criminal histories. Some of those people went on to commit crimes with guns. The reaction of lawmakers wasn’t what we expected. They exempted gun permit holders from public records law.

–Mark Alesia and Tim Evans, reporters; Indy Star

FOIA and the freedom of information laws of each state are critical to our democracy because they establish the public’s right to know what government officials and institutions are doing. The laws are especially valuable tools for journalists. For instance, the USA TODAY Network’s 2016 investigation into educator misconduct was based on data and documents obtained through more 1,000 requests filed using state freedom of information laws. Stories based on those records led to state and national reforms to educator background check systems.

–Steve Reilly, Investigative Reporter, USA TODAY

In Sports, we annually make hundreds of open-records requests to colleges and universities to obtain the documents we use for our databases of football and men’s basketball coaches’ compensation and major-college sports revenue and spending.

Because of the volume and regularity of our requests, a big key to victory is knowing who to ask for the records and how to deal with slow response or non-response. I work to maintain a current list of open-records contacts, as well as names of people to whom I can appeal, or from whom I can seek help to pry loose documents. As much as possible, I try to develop relationships with these people as sources, as opposed to approaching them as adversaries – although sometimes that works, too.

–Steve Berkowitz, projects reporter, USA TODAY Sports

.@USATODAY EXCLUSIVE: CDC lab shipped virus without following key safety steps promised after anthrax mishaps. https://t.co/QlOBTmGdgx — Alison Young (@alisonannyoung) September 30, 2016

For nearly a decade, I’ve used the federal Freedom of Information Act to watchdog the safety of laboratories at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at other government, university and private organizations. These labs work with some of the world’s most dangerous viruses, bacteria and toxins: Ebola, anthrax, plague, ricin and others. But when accidents occur, they are shrouded in secrecy. Agencies like the CDC often take years to release public records, especially those that are embarrassing and reveal serious safety failings and regulatory lapses. The information that the FOIA has allowed me to reveal has resulted in congressional investigations and it has been cited in government reports and scientific journals. Without the FOIA and also state open records laws, most of the investigations I’ve done about the CDC and many other topics would not be possible.

–Alison Young, reporter; USA TODAY

Arizona runs a small but growing system of school vouchers. The so-called “empowerment scholarship accounts” let families take taxpayer money and turn it over to private schools. After fighting for the public records for nearly two years, we forced the state to release the data it keeps about where this ESA money gets spent. We revealed, for the first time, that the state really doesn’t seem to keep track of the money at all. Our reporting showed a system that was “opaque, incomplete and riddled with errors.”

The Arizona Legislature didn’t wait to find that out. Lawmakers had already voted to expand the program to thousands more students before we got the database, and the governor signed the expansion into law. (As one lawmaker told our reporters: “Boy, if you ever get that information, I would like to see it.”) But a grassroots group of voters rose up and forced a referendum on the new law – voters may overturn the voucher expansion when they go to the polls this fall.

Rob O’Dell and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, reporters; The Arizona Republic

When you submit a FOIA, you often get some data back you don't expect. On a CD-ROM from the FDA was one adverse-event report from a doctor who treated a man who, well, who had one of those side effects you see on TV spots for erectile dysfunction drugs. (“If your erection lasts more than four hours...”) The man purchased the supplement called Viapro at a truck stop and it was later determined the supplement illegally contained a chemical that is similar to the active ingredient in Viagra, but not before the man suffered permanent damage.

–A.J. Perez, reporter; USA TODAY Sports