In recognition of Sunshine Week, the Electronic Privacy Information Center today launched a new online publication designed to help bring attention to secrecy in the federal government. Called EPIC FOIA Notes, it will highlight important documents EPIC obtains under the Freedom of Information Act.
The first edition features documents recently obtained from the FBI about the data broker Choicepoint. In a contract proposal to the FBI, Choicepoint assured the agency that it had the ability to determine legitimate businesses. The documents were released as two Congressional hearings examined the sale by Choicepoint of personal information on 145,000 Americans to identity thieves posing as legitimate businesses.
Also this week, EPIC unveiled its 2005 FOIA Gallery, highlighting scanned images of EPIC’s most compelling FOIA disclosures from the past year. Featured documents include an e-mail EPIC obtained from NASA revealing that Northwest Airlines gave the FBI a year’s worth of passenger data after 9/11, as well as documents showing that the Census Bureau gave the Department of Homeland Security census data on Arab Americans.