Tag Archive for FOIA

Don’t Cry About the SSDI

November 8, 2011 Craig Family History, Genealogy

Last spring we did a two part series on the Social Security Death Index and it progenitor, the Death Master File. The posts are here and here. The series was prompted in part by reports of errors in the Death Master file, especially those which reported living persons as deceased.

We learned that nearly 90% of the information in the DMF comes from “first-party” reporters, that is, family, friends and funeral homes. About 5% of the information comes from States and federal agencies and the remaining 5% from postal authorities and financial institutions.

In terms of errors, the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration reported in 2009 that 89% of the errors in the DMF were the fault of SSA staff input mistakes. First-party errors comprised between 3.4% and 4.1% of the errors. The lowest error rates were from state reports (0.7% for non-electronically transmitted records) and 1.5% for states enrolled in SSA’s Electr9nid data records program. [The VA also had an error rate of 0.7%].

Now, as of November 1, 2011, SSA will no longer include state records in the Death Master File. Much has been written about this, including its potential impact on genealogists.

To understand what has happened, it is useful to examine the history and the legislation on the topic. The Death Master File was made public in 1980 as a result of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). We’ve talked about FOIA as a genealogical tool in this space before. See the posts Getting Info from the Government–FOIA 101, FOIA Spotlight: The U.S Deparrtment of State,  and My FOIA Request Update.

The purpose of FOIA is to make available federal government information to the public. There are numerous exemptions to FOIA. The 1978 lawsuit, Perholtz v. Ross, in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia was settled by a consent decree between the Government and plaintiff Perholtz, who apparently sought the SSA’s death information to sell to businesses that might have need to verify deaths.

The first point is, then, that the DMF hasn’t really been public very long. The second is that from 1980 to 2002, state information was not used in the DMF. In 2002, in part in response to a 1998 SSA IG report, the SSA started down the road of electronic reporting from states. By 2008, only 22 states participated in the SSA’s Electronic Data Reporting (EDR) project.

The third point concerns why the SSA has withdrawn state records from the public DMF. The law which authorized the SSA to compile death information in the first place was intended to prevent overpayments and fraud in federal benefit programs.  The statute is codified at Title 42, United States Code, section 405(r)[originally section 205r of the Social Security Act of 1935]. The law requires  the SSA to establish a program under which States voluntarily contract with the SSA to periodically furnish the SSA with information on the death certificates filed with them so that necessary corrections may be made to the beneficiary records maintained under the social security program. This provision was added as part of the Social Security Amendments of 1983, Public Law 98-21.

But part of the 1983 Amendments provided that:
Information furnished to the Commissioner of Social Security under this subsection may not be used for any purpose other than the purpose described in this subsection and is exempt from disclosure under section 552 of title 5 and from the requirements of section 552a of such title.

The reference to section 552 is to FOIA; section 552a is the Privacy Act. The 1983 amendments took state-provided information out of the realm of public record as an acknowledgement of differing state rules about the privacy of such information.

As much as I hate to see governmental restrictions on what ought to be public information, I can’t say that this restriction will have a significant impact on genealogy.  Recall that 90% of the data in the DMF comes from first-party reporters, not states. So at least 90% of the data is unaffected. Some genealogists may have to dig a bit deeper into other sources in some cases. Recall also that states differ concerning the restrictions on vital records. Thus, in some cases, what’s no longer easily gotten via the SSDI, may still be relatively available from state sources. And even though the SSA is going to pull existing state records from the DMF, that does not invalidate the data. Nor in my opinion should make that data non-citeable. The citation should include the date the information was obtained from the SSDI and the source of the SSDI (remembering the distinction between the SSDI and the DMF).

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The Book I’ve Been Waiting For

January 31, 2010 Craig Family History, Genealogy

It was raining as it had almost everyday about the time the mail came.  There was the usual detritus of our not-yet-paperless society and a package that looked like it had been around the world a couple of times.

“Hmm,” I thought, “this may be the book I’ve been waiting for.”  And indeed it was.  Seems I had given the sender a Zip Code that was one digit off my actual zip code.  And naturally, nobody actually reads the address except the Zip Code, so the book had been off to places exotic and mundane, but none close to the actual destination.

When I opened the battered package, I found the book had survived with nary a scratch.   It may well have been an allegorical allusion to the solid work I would find inside.

The book is called Wanted! subtitled US Criminal Records–Sources & Research Methodology. It’s the latest effort from Ron Arons (The Jews of Sing Sing).

In the Introduction,   Arons says “Whether you have a criminal ancestor in your family or are interested in learning more about a famous gangster or lesser known felon, you’ve come to the right place.”  Yes, indeed.

Arons gives several pages of practical advice on finding criminal records, but the meat of the book is its 365 page state-by-state finding aid for criminal records (he points out that most of such records are not  digitized and available directly on the Internet). In each state section one finds the name, web address, physical location and telephone number for repositories of criminal records.  For each repository, there is a table listing record types, location or call numbers, the author of the records, and of course a title and description.    Each state section also lists the federal records from that state held by the National  Archives, together with the location and contact information for the NARA facility with records from that state.

Some states are broken down to the county level.

The author has also included for every state a Web address by which to locate inmates or access a list of executions or both in that state. (The book covers all fifty states and the District of Columbia; it does not include the territories).

The records that  Arons  catalogs are prison  records, court records, parole and pardon records, and even some investigative and police reports.  He leavens the raw information with occasional photographs or documents that he has come across in his research, some of which relate to famous and notorious outlaws.  Some of these documents relate to Arons’ great-grandfather, Isaac Spier, the New York bigamist, the discovery of whose misdeeds led ultimately to the writing of The Jews of Sing Sing.

I found the book easy to use and accurate with respect to the websites and the state archives that I have had  experience with.  I have frequent need for criminal and court records and frankly, I’m waaay tired with websites that purport to give  directions to such information but are just a compilation of broken links.  Here, Arons has created a truly useful finding aid valuable to veteran researchers, librarians, archivists, law enforcement and legal historians, and biographers as well as the  occasional user.

Most people won’t stay up all night looking at this book cover-to-cover as I nearly did.   But most historical researchers sooner or later will need a finding aid to criminal records  As a lawyer and former judge, I’m glad to have this  “one-stop reference” as Arons calls it.  It really is the book I’ve been waiting for!

Wanted!  (Oakland, Calif.: Criminal Research Press 2009),

Copyright 2009, Ron Arons

Go to Ron Arons’ website, www.ronarons.com, for ordering information.

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My FOIA Request Update

April 7, 2008 Craig Uncategorized

A few weeks ago, I used the State Department’s online “FOIA Request Generator” to request the passport files of my grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie (1909-1973). I received an email acknowledgment fairly promptly. Last week, I got the first actual response. Reasonably enough, the Government wants me to show that she either is dead or authorizes me to see her file. It’s not quite as simple as sending them her death certificate, however. She was married three times and the name under which she applied for a passport was the name she used during her second marriage, Jessie M. Givan. When she died, she was known as Jessie Tidwell. So in addition to proof of death of Jessie Tidwell, I will send her SS-5 (Application for Social Secuiryt account number) which lists her as both Jessie Beatrice Bowie and Jessie Bowie Manson; an extract from the 1940 marriage records of Aransas County, Texas, which shows “Mrs. Jessie Manson” marrying one Exa Givan; and a page from the California State marriage Index for 1964 indicating that Jessie M. Givan married George Tidwell. That should do it, don’t you think?

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FOIA Spotlight: The U.S. Department of State

March 24, 2008 Craig Uncategorized

One of Several Posts about Open Government Laws and Genealogy

Last week, as we noted, was Sunshine Week, focused on open government, and open records in particular. Although the commemoration has passed, we’ll continue in the next few posts to focus on open records. After all, every week should be Sunshine Week!

Our FOIA Spotlight today is on the U.S. Department of State. A common request made by genealogists is for passport records. So I requested the records of my grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie.

The State Department handled the initial phase of the request pretty well. Their FOIA web pages are easy to read and understand. And they have a user-friendly “FOIA Request Generator.” Within hours of making the request, the State Department had replied acknowledging the request. That’s great for a FOIA office! Then, the FOIA Office called me (at 7:30 am PDT!) to say that their first e-mail was in error and they were sending a second, corrected, e-mail. As far as I could tell, the “error” involved some irrelevant administrative info. But, again, this is platinum class service from a government agency.

So we’ll see what happens next!

Some observant readers may be saying, “Didn’t he request these same records once before?” Well, sort of. We’ll explain later in the week what happened with that request.

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Let the Sunshine In!

March 17, 2008 Craig Uncategorized


One of Several Posts about Open Government Laws and Genealogy

Tim Agazio at Genealogy Reviews Online blogs today about his experiences with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). That reminded me that this week (March 16-22) is Sunshine Week.

Sunshine Week is a project of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, with many other participants. It is “national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know.” The website also says that “Sunshine Week is a non-partisan initiative whose supporters are conservative, liberal and everything in between.”

This should be of some interest to genealogists who need government records to do what we do. In the last few years, we’ve seen the closure or restriction of formerly public records for various reasons. We should be vigilant about such things.

There are several related issues that need to be “daylighted” with respect to public records and genealogy. First, we need to insist that public agencies follow existing law such as FOIA and similar laws in the states. As a former official of the federal government and of the nation’s largest state government, I can tell you that agencies hate open government laws, for a number of reasons.

Second, we must be watchful when legislation or regulations are proposed that would restrict or eliminate access to public records of legitimate genealogical value. The overbreadth of such legislation or regulations often will place us at the sometimes uncomfortable intersection of Liberty and License. It is said that License leads to Identity Theft, Other Crime, and Terrorism. But in these United States, there is a balance to be struck. Then it is also said that the Price of Freedom is a Loss of Privacy. In this gloomy world view, we can’t even be trusted with information about ourselves.

Genealogists are not anti-privacy. On the contrary, my experience has been that genealogists are keenly aware and respectful of the privacy implications of their work. So as we push to keep records open, we should recognize and avoid overbroad openings of law. For example, it’s almost never necessary to have the Social Security Number of a living person. We should support efforts to redact that type of information from records open to the public. We should educate the public and others in our vocation about the appropriate use of confidential information. We should remove inappropriate information from our published works.

We should learn, understand, and use the open records laws. We should learn and understand the privacy laws. And we should participate in events like Sunshine Week.

The Sunshine Week website has a host of information that may be useful to genealogists. Some of the best resources are found on the FOI News page. I especially like the State FOI News put out by the Freedom of Information Center of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

[Note that sometimes genealogical records are managed under different rules, and not the generic information statutes.]

I wrote about the basics of FOIA last August. I’ll have more to say about FOIA and similar state laws as a genealogical research source over the next few days.

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Getting Info from the Government: FOIA 101

August 11, 2007 Craig Uncategorized

Suppose your grandfather or great-grandfather worked for the federal government or for a government contractor, building Hoover Dam. Perhaps he kept a journal that stayed with the government for some reason when the project was completed. Or may be your relative was in the Far North as an early operator of the DEW Line. You might want to learn more about that than just what’s in the history books. Perhaps your family’s homestead was taken by the government to build a defense plant. Now you want to know what the place was like and to learn about the circumstances of the taking. Or, perhaps most interesting of all, maybe your ancestor was under surveillance by the FBI or passed information about his former homeland to the CIA. Wouldn’t that be something to know about?!

Information of the sort described above can be had from the government if you know the secret word that opens government vaults and and filing cabinets [with some exceptions] to ordinary citizens. And I’ll bet you do know the word, but maybe not how it works.

The “word” is “FOIA” (foy-yuh), the acronym for Freedom of Information Act.

Most people have heard of FOIA, but many do not know how it works or the type of information available under it. Many genealogists have used FOIA (even if they didn’t realize it) to get Social Security applications and passport information from the government.

Basically, FOIA requires federal agencies to make available to any person upon request records held by those agencies. A FOIA request should be in writing and must “reasonably describe” the records being sought. The request must be made in accordance with the particular agency’s rules and procedures which can be found on each agency’s website. The rules state such things as where to send the request and what the fees are (more about that later).

What types of information might be obtained under FOIA? “Agency records” include paper records, but also electronic records, photographs, sound recordings, maps, videos, etc.

There are exceptions to the obligation of a federal agency to disclose information. These include (1) national security information; (2) internal agency personnel rules; (3) information exempted by other laws; (4) trade secrets or confidential business information obtained by the government from another party; (5) internal documents exempt from disclosure in litigation; (6) personnel or medical files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy; (7) certain law enforcement information; (8) certain banking regulatory information; and (9) geological and geophysical information and data.

The exemptions can become quite complex and many have the subject of litigation before the Supreme Court. However, don’t let that stop you from making your genealogy-related request. The agency has to show that an exemption applies.

An agency may charge fees for FOIA requests. There are fee categories set out in the law. The most favorable fee categories are for educational institutions, non-commercial scientific organizations, and the news media. Generally, these entities must only pay the costs of duplication, but are entitled to the first 100 pages free. Other requesters generally may be required to pay the costs of search and review in addition to duplication.

There’s no obvious fee category that covers genealogists, but that may depend upon what you intend to do with the material. In any event, there’s a provision for a waiver of fees, no matter who the requester is. A waiver may granted if the material requested “is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.” As a genealogical requester, I would probably try to make this case.

An agency is supposed to make records “promptly available” after a request. Under the law, an agency has twenty days to determine if it will comply with the request. If it will comply, the agency must immediately notify the requester and then promptly make the records available. If the agency will not comply, it must notify the requester of a right to appeal–the appeal must be filed within 20 days of notification. The head of the agency then usually has ten days to decide the appeal.

In reality, most agencies have a backlog of FOIA requests and processing takes considerably longer than the deadlines. You have a right to go to court if the agency misses its deadlines, but I imagine that as genealogists, we’ve gotten used to waiting for public records.

Although the FOIA procedures can seem cumbersome, in most cases they are not. There are numerous FOIA websites that describe the procedures and give examples. I would advise, however, to check if the records you’re seeking are available without a FOIA request. For example, many records have been transferred to the National Archives and are available from them. Other records are now posted on agency websites.

FOIA applies only to federal agencies. Most states, however, have similar laws regarding disclosure of public records.

So if you want the map of the wildlife refuge that now occupies your grandmother’s homestead or a copy of the tape of your uncle’s interrogation by the FBI, use the magic word, FOIA.

The foregoing is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you have a problem of a legal nature, seek legal counsel.

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