Transcripts For CSPAN Hearing On FOIA And Government Transpa

of openness. that is not the case when it comes to filling foya requests. march 2014, the associated press reported the obama administration more often than any other administration had sensors government files or outright denied access. the administration used exemption to withhold information more than 550,000 times. agencies must consult with the white house on all document requests that may involve documents with white house equities. just in the last year the government fully denied access or censored records in at least 250,000 cases or roughly 39% of all whys. this is the highest number of denials in the history of foya. we waited to hear from individuals to get public records they requested. this came from media and -- the foya system is broken and probably broken by design. in preparing for this hearing, the committee received numerous examples of delays, unreasonable redactions and abuse of fees, all of which hindered transparency. the epa strategically avoided disclosure disclosure. documents obtained by the committee advocated a preemptive veto. the irs contacted one requester, colin hannah on four separate occasions to explain it needed more time to respond to his request. but after two year ss they closed his request. gsa identified 70000 records as responsive to a foya request. and used the number of records as a reason to close a request from the taxpayer protection alliance. a requester waited ten months before the dea told them that his request for 13,000 documents related to the capture of mexican drug lord el choppo would cost 1.4 million$1.4 million. >> one freens journalist wrote, i often zrab the handling of my request as the single most disilusing experience of my life. the responses are enlightening and continue to come in they seem to be numerous bipartisan across the board insistent and just absolutely frustrating. we also saw unreasonable and inappropriate redactions. they show the fcc blacked out the chairman's initials on every e-mail he sent or received. blacked them out. in doing so, the fcc claimed a personal privacy exemption that isn't permissible for use even with lower level staff. staff commentary like wow and interesting were deliberative and redacted them under b-5 exemption exemption. the time and expense it takes to go through such silly, silly things is so frustrating and ridiculous. it gets very frustrating here, anybody claims, we spend this exorbitant amount of money, when you're blacking out. interesting, the name one of my favorites, is blacking out the name of the department of defense person who sang the national anthem as if that's some state secret. in one instance, simply quoting an attached press release qualified for a redaction while the press release itself was released in full. it's amazing how many instances we have of publicly available information that is on the department's websites, comes back via foia as redacted. and a press release? press release that it was publicly released, is something you have to hold back from the public makes no sense. how can we trust the government's examples. despite significant corruption within the agency in recent years, the irs is still on strakting taxpayer's efforts just getting the witness here today required a subpoena. the other four agencies we asked to invite their senior officers they all agreed they all showed up. not the irs, no, no not the irs, we can't have that. only one person can testify mr. coskin. how wrong he is. i appreciate you being here but i should not have to issue a subpoena to get your presence here. you've dealt with this for year s s. we had to issue a subpoena. when we sent a letter asking for information, anywhere between 2 and 8 different examples we wanted information, department of justice at least they sent us a letter, at least they gave us something. it was terribly incomplete the irs no letter, nothing. we sent a request to you, i sent a subpoena to you. you give us nothing? these other four did. i'm telling you, we will drag the irs up here, every single week if we have to. you are going to respond to the united states congress. you are going to respond to the american people you work for the american people. you know what if it was the other way around if the irs went after an individual, you wouldn't put up with it. there's no way you would put up with this. we expect you to respond to requests from the united states congress 37 we have a right to see it. we have a constitutional duty to perform our oversight responsibilities. for you to not respond to this committee by giving us an electronic copy which is what you were supposed to do which the other four figured out, is not appropriate. we don't have that material and we wanted it before the hearing i had to get a subpoena to drag you here, and it's wrong. i've heard personally from multiple foia requesters that they wait and wait and wait. when they finally get a response, the response is either flatly denied or the pages are blacked out. we saw examples of that yesterday. why is this necessary. are there some cases where you do have to redact material. i understand that. i understand that, i appreciate that. but the lack of consistency is just stunning. the time that it takes is just unbelievable. justice is the foia litigator and the provider of agency wide guidance ought to be the model agency, but we know it is not. the department of justice denied 40% of its fiscal year 2014. 3% of foia requests were denied based on exemptions. 37% were denied for other reasons. 5% were denied on the basis that documents were not reasonably described. dhs is drowning in foia requests and needs to ensure the right resources are put toward properly clearing these backlogged cases. the department of homeland security receives about one third of all foia requests and is responsible for two thirds of the federal backlog. so it's particularly disappointing to see that dhs dhs foia program, and the gao's duplication report. even the gao has come in and said, this is a terribly mismanaged, ill executed system. so much so that there's highlights in the the gao's 2015 duplication report. my disappointment grew yesterday when the foia research center revealed to us that dhs hired contractors for the primary purposes of closing rather than completing cases. individuals requesting records from homeland security might hear from contractors multiple times inquiring about whether or not they're still interested in their requests. that always cracks me up, right? citizen, person from the media goes out of their way to put in a foia request so much time goes by that government comes back to them and says are you still interested? that takes time and resources. the state department is as bad if not worse than dhs on foia compliance. the agency has opened cases dating back for decades decades. last year the state department failed to fully respond to more than 65% of its requests. the center for efficiency government graded 15 of the top foia agencies and gave the state department an f on foia processing. the agencies before the committee today need to bring sunshine to their foia programs. the agency leadership has failed to make it a priority. and that makes the job of the witnesses before the committee much more difficult if not impossible. we know you have a tremendous amount of requests coming your direction. there are a lot of good people who work if your departments and agencyies and we thank them for their service. not everything is bad. but it is our role and responsibility to understand how it really works, what you're up against, what you're dealing with in a very candid way. so that we can help make it better. and that we can understand it. and there undoubtedly have to be changes. my guess is you want to see some changes. we want to see some changes. we want to ferret that out. we've heard from the people who are critical but you're right there on the front lines and you represent hundreds and literally thousands 0 people who are trying to do their jobs and deal with the tensions that come from a political persuasions that have been in both the democrat and republican side of the aisle. you have career professionals that have been there through lots of different organizations. we want to hear candidly from you what is working, what is not working but give us candid information so we can help better understand it. we thank you again for your presence and at this time ail now recognize the ranking member, mr. cummings for his opening statement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i thank you for holding these very important hearings on the freedom of information act which is the corner stone of our nation's open government laws. thank you also to our agency witnesses for being with us today. you do have a critical responsibility which is to make federal records available to the american public as effectively and efficiently as possible. you're also charged with implementing the directive president obama issued on his first day in office to implement a new presumption of openness that reverses the policy of with holding information embraced by the bush administration. your job is also extremely difficult and it's getting harder. you and by itchmplication, the president are being blamed for the increase in foia backlogs. as we heard at our hearing yesterday, foia backlogs have increased in part as a result of cuts to sergeancy budgets and the dwindling number of foia personnel forced to process record numbers op incoming requests. but we did not just only hear that. mr. mcgraw of the "the new york times" talked about a culture of unresponsiveness. and i hope that we will get to that and talk about that. because i agree with the chairman. in order to get to the bottom of this we've got to have an honest assessment of what's going on. there were a number of witnesses that came before us yesterday to talk about a fear of people who are dealing with the foia requests honoring them the way they should be because they're afraid to get in trouble. if that's the case, we need to hear about that. the number -- going back to personnel. the number of foia requests skyrocketed from 2009 to 2014. in 2009 when president obama took office, there were about 558,000 requests submitted to the federal agencies. by 2014 that number rose to more than 714,000, the surge of 28%. that's quite a surge. on the other hand, the total number of full-time agency foia personnel dropped to its lowest point since president obama took office. in 2009 the number of full-time foia staff at federal agencies was 4,000. in 2014 that number dropped to 3838. a decrease of about 4%. it seems obvious they congress cannot continue to starve federal agencies for resources through budget cuts. staffing reductions sequestration and shutdowns and then blame those agencies for not being able to do their jobs effective effectively. but again i want to go back. i want to not only deal with the personnel issues, but this whole culture that mr. mcgraw talked about of unresponsiveness. i want to deal with that too because i want the total picture so we can be effective and efficient in trying to remedy this situation. if we want foia to work, we need to restore adequate funding staffing and training so agencies can handle the increasing workloads they will continue to face. that's another issue. is there an issue of training. it's one thing to have personnel. it's another thing to have personnel that are properly trained. now but this is not what house republicans are doing right now, today. today, right now, down the hall in the appropriations committee, republicans are voting to withhold nearly $700 million, hello, $700 million from the state department's operational budget until it improves its document production processes. the operational budget includes the salaries for all, for all of the state department's foia employees. let me say that again. today with a record number of foia requests and a record low foia staffing the answer from the republicans is that we withhold two thirds of a billion dollars more than all state department foia staff salaries combined. how in the world is this supposed to help? it simply does not make sense. we know that there are problems with foia. we know there with delays. we know that we must do better. but it is hard imagine a more counter productive attack on a foia process. i also take issue with the claims that president obama has not been one of the most aggressive and forward thinking presidents in the history and pressing for more open government. i've often said that he would never get credit for anything. if things go wrong, they blame him. if things go right, he gets to credit. those who try to argue that president bush took the same kinds of transparency actions as president obama must have amnesia. there simply is no comparison. none. beyond ordering the presumption of openness for foia the obama administration issued a national action plan to establish a consolidated foia portal and enhanced training for foia professionals. president obama did that. established a foia advisory committee to improve implementation, increase proactive disclosures of government information. president obama did that. the administration implemented a new policy of disclosing white house visitor records. president obama did that. established ethics data.gov which posts lobbying, disclosure reports, travel reports and federal elections commission filings all in one place and it has made enormous amounts of government information available through data.gov. that's right. president obama did that. finally i suspect some of my colleagues will continue their focus on former secretary of state hillary clinton and her e-mail. let's review the facts. on december 5th 2014, secretary clinton provided more than 30,000, 30,000 e-mail totaling about 55,000 pages to the state department. the department has those e-mail and is currently reviewing them to make them available to the public under foia. this is a sharp contrast to former secretary of state colin powell who admitted that he used a personal e-mail account for official business all the time unlike secretary clinton, secretary powell did not did not preserve any of his official e-mails from his personal account and he did not turn them over to the state department. i'm not naive. i understand the republican focuses on hillary clinton as she runs for president. but if we really want to review compliance with foia, if we really want to review it and straighten it out and make it right and have the law, foia law to do what they're supposed to do and if we really want to be most effective and efficient we should not do so selectively by ignoring facts based on political expediency. as i've often said, we're better than that. to conclude, there's a may jr. bipartisan step we can take to improve foia now. in february i joined with represent iso that's what i said, i joined with former chairman, on a bipartisan basis to introduce the foia oversight and implementation act. we passed it out of our committee unanimously. out of this committee. unanimously. several months ago -- and i hope we can move forward in a bipartisan way to pass this bill. now the chairman said yesterday to me that we're going to see what we can do to work that out. and what we need from you is suggestions. sure maybe all of you are familiar with 653. and if there are things that you think we can do to improve that bill to make it so that it can be more effective and efficient and that you can do your jobs better, then we want to know it. ladies and gentlemen we can go round and round and round and round in circles and we'll be talking about the same stuff ten years from now and the backlog will be even greater. so i look forward to hearing what you saul have to say. give us the good, the bad and the ugly so that we can now effectively address this issue. mr. chairman i thank you for your indulgence. with that i yield back. >> i'll hold the record open for five days for writ statements. let me introduce them. ms. joy ba with is chief foia officer with the defendant of state. ms. barr was confirmed as the assistant secretary for administration in december of 2011. as assistant secretary she's responsible for the day-to-day administration of a variety of functions ranging from logistics, records management, privatety programs, the rk woing can tall fund and presidential travel. we appreciate you being here. ms. melanie ann pustay is the director of the office of information policy at the department of justice since 2007, has worked with foia for at least the last 12 years. the office of information policy sometimes we ferd to as oip is responsible for developing guidance for executive branch agencies on the freedom of information act. oip is charged with ensuring that the foia guidance a implemented across the government. before coming director she served eight years as the deputy director oip. ms. karen neuman serves as the chief foia officer within the department of homeland security. in her hole was chief privacy officer, ms. neuman is responsible for evaluating department wide program systems technologies and rule making for potential privacy impact. she has extensive expertise in privacy policy law both within the department and in collaboration with the rest of federal government. she centralizes both foia and privacy acts to provide oversight and support implementation across the department. mr. bordi fontenot serves as the assistant secretary of management in the department of treasury. the chief foia officer for -- which year did you become that? just this year. i wanted to make sure i had that right, january of this year. mr. fontenot serves as the secretary of treasury on the dwoepment and execution of treasury's budget and strategic plans and the internal management of the department and its bureaus. in january 2014 president obama nominated him as the treasury's chief financial officer. ms. mary howard is in charge of the disclosure division. she' served in this role since january of 2014. in this role she's responsible for managing a multifacetted privacy program and ensuring compliance with the privacy act, the freedom of information act and the internal revenue codes known as 6103. ms. howard represents the irs interest in identity theft information protection disclosure and data sharing. ms. howard began her career in 1988 and served in various yous roles throughout the agency and her career. if you would please rise and raise your right hand. the witnesses are to be sworn before they testify. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you. let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. as you take your seat, we would ask that you would limit your testimony to five minutes. your full written statement will be made part of the record. and with that we will now start with ms. barr and you're now recognized for five minutes. >> thank you chairman ranking member cummings and members of the committee. good morning. thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. my name is joyce barr. and i serve as thecy sis tant secretary ff administration as well as chief foia officer for the state department. i am a career foreign service officer with over 35 years of experience serving around the world. thank you for your interest in and advocacy for improving transparency to the public. we shared that goal at the department and work every day to achieve it. in addition to providing a range of support services around the world, the bureau of administration is also responsible for responding to requests under foia as well as managing and maintaining official department records. the state department is committed to openness. it is critical to ensuring the public trust and to promoting public collaboration with the u.s. government. however, meeting our commitment to openness is very challenging. we have a large backlog of over 16,000 foia requests. we know this backlog is unacceptable. and are working to reduce it. last year we achieved a nearly 23% reduction in our appeals backlog by streamlining case processing. we made progress. more is needed. the backlog is due to several factors. our caseload increase over 300% since 2008. in fiscal year 2008 the department received fewer than 6,000 new foia requests. but in fiscal year 2014 we received nearly 20,000. since the beginning of this fiscal year, we have already received over 15,000 new requests. second, many of these cases are increasingly complex. other national security agencies are exempt from release of some information under the foia. as a result, requesters often come only to the department to request information on any and all national security issues. the department is often the public's first and only destination for documents on these issues. these complex requests require multiple searches throughout me of our 285 missions across the globe. they involve the review of classified or highly sensitive materials and require coordination with other federal agencies. they can generate large amounts of material that must be reviewed by state and inner agency subject matter experts across the federal government. we receive many complaints about delays. but our goal is to do everything we can to complete each request as soon as possible. secretary kerry recently reinforced our commitment to transparency in his march 25th letter to our inspector general. in that letter he recognized the work that has already been done and noted the department is acting on a number of challenges to meet its preservation and transparency obligations. the secretary asked the inspector general to ensure we are doing everything we can to improve and to recommend concrete steps that we take to do so. i am here as a department's senior foia official to assure you that we have committed to working cooperatively with the ig with his review and any recommendations that may follow. my testimony for the record includes information about related issues such as our foia website and the role we play in helping the public get access to information from presidential libraries libraries. again the department of state is committed to public access to information. mr. chairman, i thank the committee for the opportunity to testify today and would be pleased to address questions that you or any other member of the committee may have on foia within the state department. thank you. >> thank you. appreciate it. ms. buspustay you're recognized for five minutes. make sure the mike tonecrophone is pulled up straight. turn it on. >> good morning. good morning chairman and ranking member cummings and members of the committee. pleased to be here today to discuss the foia and the department of justice's ongoing efforts to encourage agency compliance with the very important law. there are several areas of success that i'd like to highlight today. despite receiving continued record high numbers of foia requests and operating at the lowest staffing levels in the past six fiscal years, agencies have continued to find ways to improve their foia administration. 72 out of the 100 agencies subject to the foia ended the fiscal year with low backlogs of fewer than 100 requests. processing nearly 650,000 requests, the government also continued to maintain a high release rate of over 91%. agencies overall also continued to improve mayor processing times. for a number of years oip encouraged agencies to focus on the simple track requests with a goal of processing the requests within an average of 20 works days. i'm pleased to report this past fiscal year the government's overall average was 20.5 days for those simple track requests. and there's also many other achievements that simply can't be captured by statistics. agencies continue to post a wide variety of information online in open formats they're making discretionary releases of otherwise exempt information, they're utilizing technology to help improve foia administration. the department of justice continued to work diligently throughout the year to both encourage and assist agencies in their compliance with the foia. i firmly believe it's vital that foia professionals have a complete understanding of the law's legal requirements and the many policy considerations that contribute to successful foia administration. as a result one of the primary ways my office encourages compliance is through the offering of a range of government wide training programs and the issuance of policy guidance. if 2014 alone my office provided training to thousands of individuals on a range of topics including comprehensive guidance on the foia's proactive provisions. that included strategies for identifying frequently requested records and it also encourages agency to post records even before receipt of a single request. in accordance with the president's and attorney general's foia directives. first, in collaboration with the team at gsa we're working on a creation of a consolidated foia portal that will be added to the resources available on foia.gov. it will include additional tools to improve the customer experience. second, oi px has been working on the po tem content of a core foia regulation. we formed an inner agency task force to tack tl project. we've met with civil society organizations to get their input and the team is hard at work drafting language for this important new initiative. we look forward to our engagement with both civil society and the agent colleagues as we work forward on that project. third in an effort to improve internal best practices we launched best practices work shops and we started there with the important topic of improving timeliness and reducing backlog. these work shops provide a unique opportunity for agencies to learn from one another. and then finally just this past march i'm very pleased that we pleated our commitment to enhance foia training by making standard e learning training resources available to all federal employees. embracing attorney general holder's message that foia is everyone's responsibility, the new training resources target the entire spectrum of federal employees. these training resources are available to all agency personnel anywhere in the world and at no cost. they address the foia's many procedural and substantive requirements but they also emphasize the importance of good communication with requesters and good customer service. very important topics. given how important all of this is to the successful implementation of the foia, i'm very proud that oip can provide these resource to all government officials across the world. so in closing, in the face of many challenges this past fiscal year, agencies have achieved successes in many area. we certainly believe there's more work to be done and we're continually looking for way to continue the process we're proud of what we've done so far and we look forward to working with the committee as we jointly pursue the goal of improving access to information. thank you. >> thank you. ms. neuman you're now recognized for five minutes. >> good morning chairman ranking member cummings and members of the committee. i'm very pleased to be here before you today to discuss how dhs implements the freedom of information act. dhs is composed of several distinct components each with unique authorities and categories of records. our components operate their own foia offices staffed by foia professionals who respond directly to requesters seeking requests. every foia request deserves careful corporation to promote transparency while protecting the privacy of individuals and operational sensitive information. we have some significant challenges and we also have some -- we've done some good things. as you know, dhs gets the largest number of foia requests of any federal agency and produces the largest number of responses. in fact dhs received 40% of all foia requests submitted to the government in fiscal year 2014. in this 12-month period alone we received an unprecedented 291,242 requests. as a result, we also have the largest backlog. since january 2009, dhs experienced a 182% increase in its number of foia requests. at the same time our foia professionals have significantly increased their output to meet this increased demand. in fiscal year 2014 these professionals processed 238,031 requests. the department of homeland security takes our obligation to promote transparency and further the values of open government embodied in the statute very seriously. nonetheless, we face serious challenges to connecting requestsers to the records they seek. i'd like to briefly highlight some of the measures we've implemented to address these challenges including to reduce or backlog. the government accountability office was asked by congress to review dhs's processing of foia requests. in november 2014 gao published its report with four recommendations. we concurred with all four recommendations and are taking steps to address each one. for example, as recommended, we're in the process of finalizing our foia regulation, including preparing to publish a federal register notice seeking comment. we sought assistance in developing an implementation of a policy to ensure that all dhs components are capturing foia costs consistently. i've initiated several new measures that are designed to improve dhs foia operations in both the near term and the long term. first in january of this year i requested a top to bottom independent review of six dhs component foia offices. that review is currently under wap and is being conducted by the office of government information services. second my office is establishing a short term blanket purchase agreement for foia support services. this contract will be utilized as needed by our component offices that require additional help. my goal is here to empower the components to take quick action to manage the backlog surges before they get out of control. third, my foia leadership team has met with colleagues in other agencies to learn about the types of records that can be made available through technology and other ru teen procedures that are currently sought through a foia request. fourth, my office continues to look for greater efficiencies from the use of technology. we offer each component foia office the ability to use a centralized foia tracking processing and reporting case management system with customizable features. we're also working with the dhs information officer to develop an e foia mobile application that will enable the public to submit foia requests and check the status of the requests from the smartphone or mobile device. as a result of these measures, we're starting to see a slow but steady reduction in our backlog. yesterday i learned that as of may 2015 the dha backlog was reduced by 10% to 92066 since the beginning of the fiscal year. despite the challenges we face, i'm pleased with the administrative and technological infrastructure we put in place is resulting in a trend in the right direction. we're working hard every day to provide the access under the statute and there is room for considerable improvement. i look forward to working with you to improve foia at dhs and i welcome your recommendations and look forward to taking your questions. thank you. >> thank you. mr. fontenot. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify today on treasury's role on fostering transparency. i'm the assistant secretary of management at the department of treasury and the designated department's chief foia officer. i take compliance with foia seriously. although the nine treasury bureaus independently process the requests to each bureau, my team provides agency wide guidance and training, as well as monitoring treasury foia performance and proposing agency wide improvements. when i joined treasury six months ago, i was pleased to learn that they were implements new measures to improve efficiency treasury wide. the department mental offices, my department doubled the number of full time foia employees. first we devoted time closing the oldest cases. we made significant changes to procedures and cases and timeliness. we have more work to do. but these initial measures are already producing results. for example, in fiscal year 2014 the treasury wide foia backlog decreased by 8%. we closed 13 of our oldest 20 cases, agency wide. we also processed more foia requests in less time. treasury closed 73% of incoming cases requests within 20 days. that's a 3% increase over 2013. five of nine treasury bureaus closed more requests than they received during the fiscal year. four treasury bureaus ended the year with a zero backlog. and released more information overall. in response to 90% of cases in which responsive records were identified. in some today treasury is releasing more information processing more requests in less time and making tangible progress on reducing its pending foia inventory and closing its oldest cases compared to 18 months ago. but we also remain committed to making further strides. my team and i will continue to lean forward to drive improvements and provide as much information as we can as quickly as we can with the spirit and letter of foia. i welcome your questions today. thank you. >> thank you. ms. howard, you're now recognized for five minutes. >> thank you for having me here today. i'm mary howard and i'm the director of irs's privacy governmental liaison and disclosure operations. i'm here today to testify on the irs's policies and procedures in regarding and complying with requests for information about the freedom of information act. each year the irs processes thousands of foia requests most of which require labor intensive searches of both paper and electronic records. despite this volume and complexity, the irs closes more than 80% of its cases in 30 business days or less. the average cycle time generally hovers right around 21 days. the irs follows a standard proceed for handling each foia request it receives. this involves analyzing the request to determine whether it can be processed under foia determining the scope of the request and searching for responsive records, reviewing material to decide what should be released or withheld and sending a response to the requester. over the last several years our foia operation faced a number of challenges. for example, the size of an average foia request and the volume of potentially responsive documents have mushroomed as more and more requests require serging e-mail and other electronic documents. broad requests can easily result in the irs needing to collect and redact thousands of documents in response to a single requester. another challenge involves personnel. we've managed to protect the yor all staffing of the foia process in irs, experiencing only a slight decline over the last few fiscal years, despite financial constraints and related hiring freezes. but a high turn overrate created some difficulties. replacing our foia specialists involves not only hiring new workers but also training them to bring them up to the level to handle the complex requests. the cuts to the budget had a negative impact on the replacement hiring and the delivery of the training. the net result has been a gradual loss in the expertise in the foia area at irs over the past several years. the problem is expected to get worse. we estimate that more than 60% of our foia professionals will be eligible to retire over the next five years. another critical aspect of the irs's ability to adequately respond to foia requests involves the management of official records. here too the irs faces significant challenges. this is largely because we don't have systems that allow us to search and retrieve electronic cases and e-mails. we're also unable to categorize label and centrally store electronic records including e-mail. i hope you'll ask me some questions so i can give you more insight into that. without this capability we must conduct an account by account search for document to comply with the foia request. this is a tedious time-consuming process. additional funding would allow us to upgrade our infrastructure platforms. we could then respond to very large document requests far more quickly than we're able to now. let me turn now to the events of 2013, beginning that summer the irs was faced with an unprecedented number of foia requests related to the processing of applications for the 013 c 4. at the same time, four congressional committees, the treasury inspector general and the department of justice were all requesting large amounts of documents from irs on the same issues. the irs created a special team to review and produce documents responsive to the six official investigations. the team redacted the comets required by 6103 of the internal revenue code to ensure that federal tax information was prosected appropriately. because of this experience on conducting reviews and producing documents for litigation, the irs office of chief counsel performed the 6103 reviews and the document production. that was required for all of the requested documents expect those going to the tax writing committees. while counsel was conducting this effort, disclosure staff was addressing and responding to their regular foia case work that flows in at a rate of 10 to 12,000 cases per year. the irs determined that responding to the investigations would take precedent over responding to the request for information under foia. and the irs produced to congress more than 1 million pages of documents for those investigations. given that all of the foia documents need that 6103 review, we waited until we had fulfilled the request of the investigators until we went forward. of the 154 cases i mentioned, 34 remain pending with the dpis disclosure process. we regret that the process has taken this long but we felt there is no other way that we could respond appropriately to congress and the investigators. the irs remains committed to foia as we work through these challenges. this concludes my statement and i look forward to responding to your questions. >> thank you i'll now recognize the gentleman from michigan, mr. robert for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for the hearings of the past couple of days. as i've contemplated on what we've heard in the last two days, i'm just absolutely convinced that foia really isn't the problem. it's just an evidence within an outcome of the problem. increasing size of government and the criminal of government is the problem. i mean it's an absolute fact that we have amongst the highest paid bureaucratsed a smin tering these programs in government anywhere in world. we have the highest technology at least amongst the highest technology of any place in the world to administer our bureaucracy. we have the largest number of bureaucrats in the world to administer our bureaucracy. and with the size of government like this, why would we expect anything other than a huge huge number of foia requests coming from increasing number of american citizens who feel under attack from their own government. they're regulated. they're taxed. they're supervised. they're overseen. almost more than any other free country in the world. so i look at our panel of witnesses and i say how in the world can you be expected to do your job in a way that satisfies not only congress but the people of the united states. they're going to ask more because they don't trust us. they're tired of being overrun. i'll get to my questions. also with all due respect if dollars, more dollars were the answer, then the war on poverty, the war on hunger, the war on pollution, the war on crime, the war on many other things would be ended. by the way fast and furious benghazi, irs gate would be taken care of. we would know the answers. attorney general holder former attorney general holder wouldn't have been held in contempt of congress. lois lerner wouldn't have been held in contempt. foia isn't the main problem. liberty to mab's transparency from a limited government to succeed and we're not succeeding in addressing the concerns of our people. government has grown and thus it is increasingly mistrusted and it will be mistrusted in all sides of the aisles, politically speaking. so mr. chairman i again thank you for these hearings. it just makes it clearer and clearer why we are in the bat wl the budget to reduce government to the size that liberty can expand and not-m2 ms. neuman, dhs has the largest backlog of any federal agency. how does the duplicative process of requests contribute to a processing of requests contribute to backlog? and i refer specifically to the relationship between uscis and i.c.e. >> thank you. i appreciate that question. let me just say that with respect to the backlog, any significant delays in processing requests don't meet my standards and i expect to see improvement. that goes for duplication as well. and as you may be aware, the gao studied that aspect of our foia operations and made some recommendations that we are implementing in a number of ways. uscis and i.c.e. receive a significant number of our foia requests many of which are immigration related. there may be instances where one or more of those components holds files or holds records that are contained in the alien file. we do not we do not support unnecessary duplication and we have -- >> will the two agencies be put together in the arrangement that was in place before 2012 where they weren't duplicating? >> that's really not my decision to make. >> whose decision is it? >> it's up to the members of congress who write the statute. i will also tell you that we've implemented technology measures -- >> i don't understand that's our responsibility. it worked before 2012, at least they worked in that nonduplicative arrangement. why can't it be put back in that? it's not congress. >> so my focus as the chief foia officer on connecting requesters with their records. and i have got to spend my time looking at the way the agency is constructing now, what infeshcys if any are preventing us from meeting our transparency mission. >> so the answer is you're not going to do anything to put the two component parts back together to stop duplication? >> i'm focusing on connecting requesters with their records. >> mr. chairman, my time expired and i didn't get the answer were on i guess i did. >> i now recognize the gentleman mr. lynch for five minutes. >> thank you chairman and ranking member for your courtesy this morning. i want to thank the witnesses if are your help in addressing this issue. ms. barr, there has been a lot of discussion up to now about secretary clinton and her use of personal e-mail for official business. it's my understanding from the documents that we have here that secretary rice con da leeza rice did not use a personal e-mail account for -- a personal e-mail account for official business. is that right? >> yes that's what i understand. i understand that she used -- she has told us that she did not conduct a lot of official business overe-mail but when she did, she used the state department at. >> okay. how about secretary of state colin powell. in his auto biography he admits that he used his personal e-mail account for official business all of the time. i have a great quote here. he says, this is a quote from former secretary of state colin powell, quote, to compliment the official state department computer in my office, i installed a laptop computer on a private lane. my personal e-mail account on the laptop allowed me direct access to anyone online. i started shooting e-mail to my principle assistants to individual ambassadors and increasingly to my foreign minister colleagues who were trying to bring their ministries into the world at the speed of light. so do we have any e-mails from secretary powell? >> no, we do not have any e-mails from secretary powell. we did ask him if he had any official records. he noted when he came back to us that, you know, he started at what was then the beginning of the state department e-mail age but he did not have any records to return to us. >> and you know, there was some critical decisions made, his speech before the u.n. about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. we don't have any e-mails regarding that decision and how those statements were made? >> i have no personal knowledge about that, sir. >> yeah. you know this is troubling because it seems in the case of secretary clinton the way people handle their e-mails, at least it's been suggested that really determine her fitness of whether or not she can be president. that's basically the statement that is being made today. and i'm just i'm puzzled because secretary rice did not perform in this manner, secretary colin powell did not perform in that manner. and i'm just wondering if we have a uniform standard here it doesn't seem from the federal records act that it requires people to not use personal e-mail. >> when we are dealing with the federal records act, of course we have to work with employees to maintain records. but with regard to using nongovernment e-mail services, if people do that we ask that they capture those records by copying their official account. we are working very hard looking forward to make sure that people understand what their requirements are under the federal records act. if, for example, they are out and their blackberry stops working, to make sure that they copy their accounts. but overall i would say that what is most important to us is that we have that collection now and we are processing it accordingly. >> appreciate it. i only have a little bit of time left here. it's my understanding that former secretary clinton delivered about 55000 pages in e-mail. >> that's correct. >> have any of the other secretaryies of state during your time you've been there a while secretary rice secretary colin powell? >> no, only from secretary clinton. >> all right. that's about my time, mr. chairman, i yield back. thank you. >> i'll now recognize myself for five minutes. ms. howard, the white house on april 15th 2009 sent a directive out, it says from gregory craig, counsel to the president, says, quote, this is a reminder that executive agencies shall consult the white house counsel's office on all document requests. this need to consult with the white house arises with respect to all types of document requests including congressional committee results, judicial subpoenas and foia requests. so my question to you, ms. howard what percentage -- when congress sends you a request for information, what percentage of that do you share with the white house? >> to the extent that i've been involved in responses to congress or responses to foia, we have never shared information with the white house. i became aware of this memo when we were asked for some information to actually demonstrate how many times we had this interaction. it was a foia request. i was curious as to why that we were getting a foia request since we don't have interaction with the white house on foias. >> so you've never sent anything to the white house? >> i can't speak for the entire irs. i mean that would be a question for chief counsel or the commissioner. >> so if you get a subpoena from the united states congress you get a subpoena from me you don't share that with the white house? >> the fact that it exists? yeah, we may share the information that we got the subpoena or we may share the fact that we're working on a subpoena. but the actual documents produced for the subpoena. >> yeah. >> we would produce those documents and redact them for 6103. again that might -- >> what percentage of those do you share with the white house? >> what percentage do i share with the white house? >> yes. >> would be zero. >> you do not shoir thoseare those to the best of your knowledge -- >> the disclosure office does not consult the white house. >> the white house told you're supposed to do it. the white house directed you to do that. are you telling us that you didn't comply with the white house request. >> kind of towards the end of my career i'll be real honest with you. i saw this memo. pi was amazed to see the memo. it's written to agency counsel which is not me. i looked through the procedures that we have in our internal revenue manual which is basically how we run the operations and i never saw this. >> before -- >> i never saw any evidence that this was incorporated and i ignored it. >> when you respond to a letter from congress or there's a response to a subpoena from congress, who sees that before we get it? >> in most instances, counsel would look at something like that, the chief of staff or the commissioner. again, that's really a question for the commissioner in -- >> lois lerner request for documents from lois lerner, who saw those documents? who did you have to get clearance from before we get those documents? because we still don't have them all. >> the 6103 redactions, as i said in any testimony, were done by chief counsel, the office of chief counsel. we may have redacted some of those documents -- well you don't get the foia redactions. >> what signatures do you need to see on there before you send it back to us. >> i'm not certain because i'm not the one doing the sending. >> but you're the direct of this and you've heard of lois lerner i would hope by now. >> i know lois lerner. >> who do you have to check off with before we get the documents? >> again sir with all due respect that was not a process that i was personally involved in. >> yo had to guess that e with would ask about lois lerner. >> which is why the commissioner thought that perhaps he might be the best to answer your questions. >> you're the director. it's your job and role and responsibility. >> no, sir. my job is the foia program. >> your title, correct director privacy governmental liaison and disclosure. >> right. >> that is your title. >> that is my title. >> you're telling my ear not responsible for the governmental liaison and disclosure part of that? >> not in the context that you're asking me. >> why because it's lois lerner. >> no. because i think it was an unprecedented voluminous -- >> what was unprecedented about asking about information about lois lerner. >> i think lois lerner was the tip of the iceberg. >> really. so do we. what makes you think it's the tip of the iceberg. >> in terms the way the request wu structured. >> what was so striking about it? it's pretty simple. we're asking for all of her e-mails in a certain time frame. how hard is that. that should take about ten seconds, right? what's so hard about producing those documents? why does it take them so long. it's taken years. >> ki not talk to the specific documents about lois lerner. >> so when a request -- >> insight into -- >> when the request came in a letter and a subpoena who does that go to? >> the commissioner. >> it doesn't go to you? >> no. not at first. >> but when we send these documents over, this doesn't land on your desk? >> it does not land on my desk. >> does it land op your staff's desk? >> no. it landed on the desk of the commissioner and the chief counsel. >> they're solely responsible for the fulfillment of that request and for the subpoenas correct? if it doesn't go to you, you're the director of privacy governmental liaison and disclosure and you're telling me that your department, your group doesn't get that because it came from congress, right? >> no. because we made a business decision that because of the scope of that request we would set up a special project team and that -- >> who decided that? i want some names here. >> i think it was before his time. i guess the acting commissioner. it was before my time too. it's whatever i tell you is just hearsay. but it was my understanding that the -- >> we expect a little bit more. >> again it was not, it was not it was not directed -- >> it doesn't come through your office, your department your group, whatever you want to call it. >> we might be involved in it but so are the i.t. people. >> was the lois lerner case dealt with differently than anything else? you said it was unprecedented. i want to know why. >> i think because there was a lot of other 504 c 3 -- c 4 documents that were requested at the same time. >> so anything that had to deal with those documents, the c 4 documents, went a different direction than normally. >> it went into sort of a project team where we felt that we could handle -- >> there's a special project team that's set up. >> there was at the time. i don't believe it's still functioning. >> why was there a special team set up? >> because of the volume of -- >> it didn't have anything to do with volume. it had to do with the topic, didn't it? >> i don't believe so no. it was a business decision of how we would best use your resources. looking back on it, it was a positive thing for the disclosure office because we could do all of our regular foia work kb except for those particular topics. >> so i mean what you're telling me is anything that came in on this topic, c 4, not just lois learn, c 4 went in a different rout, to commissioner and the general counsel. there's only two political appointees in all of the irs, the commissioner and the general counsel, only two out of 90,000. and you're telling me that those requests went a different route than normally anything else does and it went to them kreth? that's exactly what you told me. >> i don't want to go on record as saying that i know specifically where requests went to. my understanding is that requests from congress are given a certain level of respect and concern so that they go to the commissioner's office first and are parcelled out as to who is going to work them after that. >> do you know who the lead of that special project team was? >> i do not. >> all right. my time has expired. we'll now recognize mr. cummings for five minutes. >> thank you very much. mr. neuman you've said there was room for i improvement. can you tell us what those improvements might be that you were talking about? you know, i want to get to the bottom line and be effective and efficient. so tell me -- >> as do i, congressman cummings. one of the things i did when i first came aboard was to try to understand what -- where some of the bottlenecks were in the department in terms of the component backlogs and understand what the reasons for those backlogs might be. in doing so i did identified some of the systemic challenges and decided that we really did need to address in the long term an independent comprehensive review of what these systemic challenges are are what the reasons are and then get some best practices place for dealing with those, in the interim i decided that i could implement some more immediate measures to address some of these challenges. for example. >> i want to know what still needs to be done to improve i don't have a lot of time. >> sure, we, i personally believe the that we can leverage technology and deploy much more advanced technology throughout the department to that can be used to the address. >> what's it going to take to make that happen? >> we're not process of doing that already. we rolled out a successful pilot to reduce the backlog and duplication and it's been adopted by 11 components thus far and others are in line to adop it. >> how many components are there? >> there are 15, 11 of these components have adopted this -- >> so you need four more is that right? >> yes, sir. >> four to go. when do you expect that to happen? >> i personally don't, i'm not aware of the time frame. i would be happy to confer with my staff. >> confer, i would appreciate it if you confer and get back to me and let me know when that will happen. i'd also like for you because i don't have a lot of time, i'll ask that you-all give us your recommendations, you know, as i listen you don't make everything sound so rosey and i want to try to get to the bottom line of what the problems are. we heard a lot of testimony yesterday and all fairness to you, i think all of you are probably doing a whole lo of good things, but the the same time we have to balance that against what we have heard over the last day or so. i want to ask you, will you do that for me ms. newman. >> yes, i will. >> i want to ask some key questions because i want to follow up on what mr. lynch was talking about and thank you for being here there have been intense discussion about former secretary of state hillary clinton and her use of personal e-mail for official business. however, new documents, new documents, which we received late last night raised significant questions about the e-mail usage of former secretaries of state condoleezza rice and colin powell, the state department sending letters to the former secretaries of state last fall requesting information about the use of personal e-mail for official business. on december 5th 2014 secretary clinton and her attorneys responded by providing more than 30,000 e-mails totaling 55,000 pages. the state department now has those e-mails and is currently reviewing them to make them available to the public. is that correct, everything i just said? >> yes, sir. >> all right. neither secretary rice nor secretary powell provided any e-mails to the department in response, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> not one. we notice secretary powell used a personal e-mail account for work because he wrote about this in his buy ogdeniography and talked about that. unlike secretary clinton secretary powell did not preserve any of these e-mails, is that correct? >> yes he told us he did not have access to those anymore. >> so that means you didn't have access to them? >> no. >> last night the committee received new documents regarding former secretary of state condoleezza rice. in 2007, the watchdog group citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington submitted a foyer request seeking state department policies governing the use of secretary rice's e-mail e counselaccounts and requested e-mails as well as quote e-mail messages that have been sent by the secretary of state from any private mail account and that pertained to official government business end of quote. we received the state department's response to this inquiry last night, i states that although department officials are still looking and i quote, no responsive material was found end of quote, so are you aware of any e-mails that have been identified from secretary rice's e-mail account? any? >> no, i'm not aware, well i want to make sure they understand your question, are you asking me if i'm aware of any e-mails from her account that should be regarded as responsive material to this request? >> that's right. >> okay, no, i'm not aware of any that are responsive to this particular request. >> all right. we already know you don't have e-mails from secretary powell is that right? >> yes. >> do you have e-mails? >> i have -- you mean personal? >> no, no no no no response to your request. you sent the request. do you have any e-mails with regard to the request? >> no. >> so ms. bar, as you stated today, can you tell us with certainly whether secretary rice even had an official state department e-mail account? >> yes it is my understanding that she had an official state department request. >> acounseldown. >> account sorry. i would also like to say that e maims are not the only way we capture records, we have cables, memos, agendas, we have lots of other ways that we capture official records so while in these two instances, we did not have e-mails to respond to requests. we have other types of records that rewe maintain that are looked at to see if we have responsive materials when people ask us through the process. >> i appreciate that. right now i'm talking about e-mails, you don't have e-mails from secretary powell. >> that are responsive to the request. >> yes, ma'am. and you haven't gotten them from secretary clinton, i'm sorry, sec tarretary rice. >> that is correct. >> it's amazing, secretary powell and rice served during critical times in this nation's history during 9/11 attacks the war in afghanistan and the war in iraq yet, as far as we can tell, state department officials don't have their e-mails from this eight-year critical period. ms. barr secretary powell is straightforward about his failure to preserve e-mails but secretary rice has never spoken publicly about hers, in response to the state department's letter last fall, her representative responded by proclaiming and i quote, secretary rice did not use a personal e-mail account for official business end of quote. do you know if secretary rice's attorney conduct add thorough review of her personal e-mail a account like secretary clinton did? >> i'm not personally familiar with what her attorney did to respond to that request. >> my time is running out. these new revelations are startleing so i hope we'll look at that era look we've been looking at the present here with regard to these e-mails, already. >> i think we recognize mr. meadows. >> thank you mr. chairman let me come to you, did you watch the testimony yesterday where we had 12 different witnesses across two panels talking able foyer requests? >> i didn't watch it but i was keeping up with it throughout the afternoon. >> so you are aware of their less than flattering testimony as it relates to your particular involvement with foyer requests, maybe not yours personally but the justice department, are you aware of that? there was less than flattering. >> i don't know if i would agree with that, i don't agree with that characterization. i understand that requesters have examples of things that are frustrating experiences. >> so what you're saying is that the testimony that we heard yesterday was just a few examples of frustrating because that's not what i got from the that and i would characterize it as less than flattering. i'm having a hard time reconciling your opening testimony with the testimony of a number of witnesses yesterday with regards to the department of justice and your responsiveness because you're opening testimony provided very glowing terms so i guess my question for you is on scoring different agencies on how they respond, who gets the best marks and who gets the worst marks on your scoring? because i understand you score. >> right, we do an assessment every year. let me -- >> just who gets the best ones? i don't need -- i've got five minutes, who gets the best scores and who gets the worst scores? >> well, we have, if you look at the assessment, we have a range of milestones, over 20 some milestones, we rank and score on a bunch of things. >> how does the justice department score on those milestones? >> justice department scores quite well. >> would you suggest if you're seeing the milestones and you're scoring the milestones the that the testimony from all these other folks who if they set milestones they wouldn't give you high marks, how do you give yourself high marks? >> i actually for the past two years, congressman, have been working collaboratively to set the milestones, it's actually been a joint effort. >> ms. atkinson gave us an example of foyer requests and it taking ten years her daughter was eight. she was 18 by the time the foyer request. would you say the that that is a great response? >> no of course not. >> would you say that that response is unique, that the there are none others like that throughout the foyer requests? >> of course not as well. >> so what part of violating the law and it gives particularry responses, what point of violating that law does the department of justice condone? >> i think that it's important, it's important to look at areas that need improvement in i. >> what part of the law. >> improving -- >> does the justice department condone? >> we -- >> so you don't condone violating the law? >> of course not, of course not. >> so i would think that would be your answer. do you violate the law? >> of course not. >> so you never violated that law? >> we work hard very we work very hard at my office. >> i believe the that. >> to promote transparency and compliance with the law. >> i believe that. so the question under sworn testimony today is the justice department does the not violate, has never violated the foya law, is that your testimony? >> i think what you're asking me is do we ever respond to requests beyond 20 working days. >> is that the law? >> the law allows for extensions of time. >> have you ever gone beyond the law? >> so i wouldn't characterize it as going beyond the law because the law actually recognizes in many different aspects the foya recognizes the reality, congressman the need for agencies to take more time to respond to certain requests. >> all right. is there anything in the law, so let me ask you, is there anything in the law that would ever give you waivers to the allow ten years to respond to the a foya request because i can't find it, can you show, direct me to where it would be ten years? >> sure sure, the way the timing provision is set out in the foya is it's in section 6. there is a basic response time of 20 days and you can ask for ten additional days and steps agencies can take if they need beyond the additional ten days. there is a series. >> can you show me where it's okay for ten years? >> do you believe it's in there for ten years? >> what i know is in there is working more than ten days. >> recognize the gentlemen from virginia. >> thank you mr. chairman. ms. barr i must say i am reeling from the stunning revolution that you have no e-mails from two former secretaries of state who covered the entirety of the bush administration, and i want to make sure i understood your answers to mr. comings very clearly. you are the top foia official at the department of state, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> if i understand your sworn testimony, you're saying that as of right now, the state department has the not been able to identify any e-mails from secretary powell or secretary rice is the that correct? >> what i was saying is that the state department did not have any e-mails that were responsive to the request. >> do you have other e-mails? >> i know that we have other e-mails for secretary rice. i'm not sure what we have in our collection for secretary powell my statements were based on what i understood to be a summery of how we had requested a number of former secretaries to come back -- >> ms. barr, my time is limited. my time is limited. i'm going to help you clarify your testimony. so are you saying you actually do have e-mails from secretary powell that -- >> i'm not sure if i have actual e-mails from secretary powell in general. is that what you're asking? >> i'm asking is there any evidence at all of any e-mails from secretary powell on his official or personal e-mail accounts that you have access to as the head foia official as department of stay? >> i know that he did not provide any copies of e-mails of official records. >> really? for four long years -- >> please let me finish, okay? >> please do so in a concise fashion. i only have five minutes. >> yes, sir. >> go ahead. >> i don't have any e-mails that were responsive to the our request. >> you keep using that phrase. do you have e-mails from colin powell that you have access to. >> my personal knowledge of what we might have in general i'm not sure. >> you're not sure. do you arehave access -- >> the thought the question asked to me before was much more specific. >> do you have access -- since you're not sure about colin powell, which i still find stunning, there is no evidence of any but you're the not sure. what about secretary condoleezza rice? >> i know she used a state.gov account and i'm sure we have access to them but i thought the question was in the context of responsive material or -- >> what do you mean? >> because we had a request. >> and your testimony was there is no evidence of e-mails from her responsive to the requests. >> yes. >> none? >> we didn't provide any. >> what happened to them? >> the it's not responsive, we don't supply it but that doesn't mean that the e-mails, that the there are no e-mails period from her. >> but there are some e-mails from her? you're not sure about colin powell but you're sure about secretary rice. >> i know secretary rice used the state.gov account. >> which means they are preserved somewhere. >> somewhere. >> have you ever seen one? >> no, not personally. >> i find that amazing as well. do the federal records act apply to secretaries powell and secretary rice? >> yes, it applies to all but again, federal records can be more than e-mail. >> i understand that. but let's stick with e-mails for a minute. >> okay. >> so is it in compliance with the federal records act to in fact wipe out e-mails whether they are on your personal acounsel or your official account? >> it is not, people are, we ask each employee to preserve official records and that's the responsibility for every employee. >> right. >> and we have to depend on individual employees to carry out their responsibilities. >> so just to summarize, if i get, and please correct me if i get i wrong your testimony is you're unaware of surviving e-mails from secretary powell response -- >> i you said personally. >> i understand, you have a title. presumably, you would know if anybody knew but we'll use your phrase responsive to the request. in that lane there are no surviving e-mails from secretary colin powell the that you're aware of. >> that are responsive. >> with respect to secretary rice similarly, you're unaware of surviving e-mails from secretary rice responsive to the request? >> that is creek. >> there may be or in fact your guess is there are surviveing e-mails from her but they are outside that lane of responsive to the request? >> yes, sir. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we'll rick news mr. heist for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. yesterday, as you well know, this committee heard testimony from several esteemed members of the press and outside groups who have experienced tremendous problems with foia requests and quite frankly, i was shocked and astonished by the testimony we heard yesterday. several comments stick to my mind, one in parparticular who used the phrase criminal obstruction to do with foia requests with the irss targeting of groups and an official told him if you scrutinize the government, the government will scrutinize you. moments ago ranking member cummings said all of you are making things sound rosey. we have a mess with potential criminal obstruction taking place. ms. howard, is that what tom fitten described common practice with the irs? >> it's not my experience it's any practice thewithin the irs. i don't see an intent -- >> so you see no targeting take place. you would deny what came out nationally. >> out side my area of expertise. i can speak to the records production. >> if someone makes a foia request to the irs, is that personal potentially a tar he for retaliation? >> no, sir. >> okay. so you would deny that there has been any type of retaliation audits that type of thing from the irs because of people so-called skrud newsingiez scrutinizing. >> the way foia requests come in, logged into a system and the folks that work the foia requests have access to the system and rest of the irs has no need for access -- >> that's not my question. my question is has the iirs participated? >> i have no direct knowledge of audit side of the house. that's not my area of expertise. >> but you have knowledge of foia side of things. >> and you're denying there would be any such retaliation. >> i have not shared any information with anybody that would be in a position to retaliate. >> okay. let me go further to a comment you said made a little bit earlier with the chairman regarding lois lerner are you saying and i just want to clarify your testimony here today, are you saying there was no special treatment that was given to her for protection in spite of fact that you yourself said that her case was the tip of the iceberg? >> when i meant was the request for her e-mails was part of the request this committee and other investigators made for information on the issue. one of the things i do want to clarify -- >> please be quick. >> okay. is that the title governmental liaison in my title is not the liaison with congress but with state and other federal agencies, that's where my area of responsibility is in addition to foia. so a lot of the requests that would come from congress would not automatically land -- >> we're not talking able request from congress we're talking about foia request and the other request. we're trying to get to the bottom of what appears to be out right obstruction and getting a rosey picture that is not an accurate picture. i want to shift to ms. newman, in your testimony, you mentioned that your agency avoids foia requests that might be operation licensetive material, is that a correct -- >> no it's not. we don't avoid any foia requests but we do consider foia requests that may be seeking information that is operational licensetive. >> is operation licensey sensitive. >> it would incloud in -- include law enforcement national security issues and we when we get a request. >> so there would be no other case where information -- listen, we had testimony one after another after another and i don't know where you guys he some of your information, quite frankly. we had people saying the average wait is years to get foia responses. i wish i had more time, my time is running out. the foia request is absolutely essential to government transparency and constitutional rule of law and the evidence is abun abundant this is being obstructed. this is an issue we got to get to root of and you folks are part of the problem. >> i recognize the gentleman from illinois ms. duckworth for five minutes. >> in september of 2012 the oigishoig ish issued a report on the foia program, office of information programs and services and the report states and i quote, the departments foia process is inefficient and ineffective, are you familiar with this report? >> yes i am. >> i know you had only been on job a few months before when it was issued but i wanted to ask you aly l bit more about i, report focused on the office of information programs and services that office is within the burro of administration, i understand, and you serve as the assistant secretary for that burro, is that correct? >> that is correct. >> i would like to go through issuesed issues raised in the report. it said, i just want to quote the report, it says persistent neglect of fund mental leadership responsibilities and management practices had profound consequences, the oig team's observations, discusses with staff and responses to oig's questionnaires indicated an office with problematic moral, perceptions of favoritism micro management, practices and confused lines of authority. this really concerns me. i understand that you had only been on the job just six months so the this investigation probably took place before you got there but how did you respond to those findings? >> well, i took those that oig report very, very seriously, i was within the first six months of my tenure and i immediately became involved in doing everything i could to address the issues. in addition to just devoting my perm time personal time to doing whatever i could to make sure employees received proper leadership training training, that there were clear lines of authority, he actually moved some people around. one part many of the problem is there were supervisors who were not physically located close to the employees that they were supervising in addition to that, a that time, i did have some positions that i was able to reallocate to that section. we also had a number of vacancies and in fact at the beginning of that perpiod, we were able to hire a new director who made a huge difference in that section. i is something that i am always involved with any of my units but this report was like the first very negative report i had received on one of my units when i started, so i took it seriously. >> are you still dealing with the issues in the report? >> yes, we've closed most of the reckommendations recommendations, but some of recommendations the that involved other burros, we're still working on it but the this is something, you know, we have to do a quarterly report to ig, so it's something that i talked to the senior management in that section about all the time. >> okay. the report found flaws in the department's records management. and it stated that the department's records management infrastructure is inefficient and ineffective and said failure to develop systems resulted in poor performance. is the state department overall taking steps to improve the record's management processes? >> yes we are. first of all we're participating in a government-wide working group that is dealing with records manage management, and i have been in a couple meetings and i can assure you that they are very passionate and involved people working very hard on this. in addition to that, as i mentioned earlier in my oral testimony, the secretary himself is very much committed to preservation and transparency and has asked the oig to look into a number of issues and what we are doing on records management is one of those issues. >> thank you. i hope that the state dpepartment will continue to make this a top priority. foia is important and i'm sure you know that this, i'm sure this committee and myself personally will be following up to make sure the that process continues, thank you. i yield back mr. chairman. >> we recognize mr. carter for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman, mr. chairman, members of panel, in preparation for this hearing, i actually used my search engine on my computer to look up foia request and i was quite surprised and somewhat disappointed, i have to be honest with you that one of the results is what i hold in my hand and this is handout from the website of the minority leader, the minority party leader in the senate, senator harry reid. i is a document that encourages deferred action, applicants to file foia requests, to file foia requests for records and immigration files so the lawful permanent residents here now can actually find out and be prepared when the parents of their child file for deferred status. i was shocked. it's quite impressive and offers tips as to what they should do to file the foia requests but clearly states in this handout, it clearly states that the united states citizenship and immigration services is not currently accepting any applications because of the court order that we're familiar with. yet, it still encourages them in this document to go ahead and file. it still encourages them to do that. ms. newman, the foia backlog has more than doubled. why is the this? more than doubled? >> congressman, the foia backlog more than doubled in parabecause we've received an enormous increase in the request for fiscal year 2014. ice and usids are the recipients of most of these requests as many of these requests seek immigration related records. i can't -- >> so you do think that it's a result of people encouraging these app these applicants to file requests? >> i can't speak to that but the trigger servearch in request. >> you do admit they are related to immigration requests? >> i am saying if i understand your question correctly, that a significant number of the requests received by the department are request for immigration records. >> fair enough. in your opening statement you said that the number of requests through dhs increased over 182%. >> since 2009. >> since president obama took office, that's correct. is that correct? >> since he issued his open government directive. >> so do you think since he issued his open government directive. >> 2009. >> so you think it's a result of the deferred action program? >> again i can't speak to the many events and activities out side of the department that may trigger a surge in foia requests. i can't speak to whether or not anyone is encouraging requests and whether those words of encouragement encouragement. >> ms. newman, are you familiar with the g 6 39 form? >> i can't say i am. >> when did you take over in this department? >> at the end of fiscal year 2013. >> that form i believe was just introduced in your department in year, so i would think that you would be familiar with it. >> if you might remind me what that is. >> it has to do with the app applicants to help expedite that. do you know whether that those number, that form has been used the increase in the usage of the form? >> i personally don't have awareness of the specific form you're talking about. i would be happy to consult with my staff and get back with you. >> i hope you will. i would think you would have complete awareness of that being the director, if there was a new form implemented to expedite some foia requests coming through. >> i'm not aware of specifics with respect to the processing of specific cases or specific types of cases. >> okay. can you get back with us on that and please provide for this not only that but what it's used for specifically because that's what i understand it's used for and if that form has been used and how much it's increased. >> i'd be happy to do so. >> thank you, appreciate that. i want to mention to you again mention to you, as well ms. new newman, i have a bill to address the backlog firefighter foia backlog requests. the majority of foia backlogs exist at dhs so this is something i hope you will look at and i hope it will be something to assist you and help you and help us to eliminate the backlog as best we can. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman and i yield back. >> thank you. i'll recognize the gentleman from the virgin islands for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. good morning witnesses, good morning to you-all and thank you for the information you're providing to us. one of the things the that i really wanted us to focus on is pie my colleagues here discussed there is a problem and everyone is aware there is problem, i don't think you sitting here are the problems. i think that the there are processes and directives and issues that have happened within your agencies that create these backlogs we're talking about and i would like to try and get to the root of what the what is the reason for this. we've talked about in some instances, ms. pustaayy, you have more requests and you highlighted in your testimony that the federal government receives 714,231 now foia requests in 2014 is that correct? >> that's correct. >> in the beginning of fiscal year 2009, i understand that the 557,000. >> right. >> that's an increase of 28%. >> exactly. >> so that's one variable that become as problem for us which is the increase in the number of foia request. ambassador barr i understand the department of state has an increase in over 300% of foia requests, is that correct? >> yes since 2008. >> so that's one side of the equation, i think what we haven't talked about is the other side which is the amount of resources that you have and i would have hoped that you-all would have brought that to light in some of your testimonies so i wanted to dig into that aly ly little by, as well. in 2009 instructed agencies with sizable backlogs to reduce those by 10%. was that correct? that a directive given to each one of you? yes? everyone issued that? ms. pus the urks srksuspustay, you said quote, we roughliest mate this three-week period could have resulted in 32,000 more foia requests being processed, right? >> that's correct. >> have you increased the resources you have to address the backlogs? >> well i can tell you that the challenges the that we've identified that agencies are facing with backlogs number one as you mentioned, the cedesteady increase in incoming requests and staffing has been at its lowest level this past fiscal year. it was lower than it's been for six years, so resources hiring freezes, government shut downs where requests can come in but nobody at the government can process them, they all impact. >> so ms. pustay with that you're talking about decreases. >> right. >> your office of information policy during fiscal year 2014, there were 3,838 full-time foia staff devoted to the administration of foia throughout the government. we understand that that is a 9% decrease in the amount of full-time foia staff from year before, but does that figure sound correct? >> the it certainly is not the size of oip, we're about 43 people at oip. >> throughout government to handle foia request. >> definitely the staffing level across the government have decreased. >> how does that impact the processing of the foia requests? >> we're trying very hard to find ways to gain efficiencies in processing utilizing technology and that's a big factor that we've been a big area where we've been putting emphasis and there are efficiencies to be gained with technology but at the end of day, you do need trained foia professionals who can analyze documents for disclosebility and so there is no substitute for personnel to handle requests. >> so it's your belief that having additional staff to process these back longs, as well as the additional foia requests would be the best way in which to handle these backlogs. >> i think having resources for both staff and technology together will be a very effective way. >> ms. newman, would you agree that would help your agency? >> in my case i don't want to get too far ahead of the inden penalty -- inwe denpe deninpen -- independent review. the value of staff resources with enhanced use of technology. >> secretary barr, would you say that would assist you, as well? >> yes, i do believe it would a assist me but i think that, you know, within many agencies we are all trying to meet our priorities and. >> so the foia requests a priority? >> yes, it is a priority. >> what would be the best way to address that priority? >> i think we have to com to work with technology to see if we can gain additional efficiencies but i also see that the increasing request are also part of the american public's increasing interest in what we do and i don't expect that to away. >> how do you address i? with technology alone or staff as well? >> we're all come paying with for resources. >> that's what you come to congress for is to ask us for those resources so you have an opportunity here to do that and i think you would avail yourself of that opportunity. >> yes, ma'am. >> i yield back my time. >> before you yield back, if you'll yield me a moment. >> of course mr. chairman, always, well not always but in this instance, yes. >> ms. pus urks srksuspustay, you said resources are down but if i heard you correct, can you please clarify from your perspective what subpoena hais happening? >> reinwe increased our resources to foia. in 2014 we had 151 full-time employees and that's a 21% increase over the prior two years. >> so to say that personnel resources across the board glove-wide ms. pus the -- pustay are down my team doubled the number of full-time employees dedicated to foia. that's not a decrease increase quite dramatic. we appreciate the dedication you made. >> mr. chairman, if i could correct the characterization, when i give the figure about staffing, i'm giving an overall number. the number of requests overall has increased overall -- >> i understand the questionrequests but you were talking about personnel. they doubled the number of personnel. >> i'm giving the figure for overall. each agency reports in the annual foia report the number of foia staffing so it's easy to look which agencies increased and decreased the exact numbers for them. >> you said they all decreased and he said they doubled. >> all staffing has decreased government figure overall. >> yeah, just real quick, i understand what you were saying about overall because i said i in my opening statement. >> thank you. >> and i just wanted to make sure we're clear, although, there are agencies that may have increased overall government and foia personnel decreased. >> absolutely. thank you. >> further yielding part of my point is it's in their best, some think it's in their best interest to just slow this down ride it out and others have given it more priority. we'll now recognize mr. cartwright. >> mr. chairman, in the wake of the edward snowden revelations, obviously, there has been a debate and public outcry over what some are seeing as the government's overly aggressive reaches into people's personal lives. i don't think most people would question that the need for the government to retain secrecy is important, in my mind, though, there is still an important role for foia requests to shine a like on glove actions that might the not be in line with the core values the that make our country great, ms. newman, i want to ask you with decreased funding and a shrinking number of foia staff what has the effect been on the ability to hold judicial and executive branchs accountable? >> well, certainly with the backlog that has impacted the speed, the speed with which we can respond to requests and fulfill those requests. i will say that dhs processed 238,031 requests up from 2013 so that's a 16% increase in the number of processed foia requests from the previous fiscal year. i would like to see greater improve mments to fulfill the values of transparency and shining a light on executive branch operations as you know that's embodied in the statute and our professionals are working hard to fulfill those requests and shine that light. >> wouldn't hurt to have more professionals doing this man and woman power work right? >> these are lean times for all federal agencies as you know. >> you are being very diplomatic but i have to move on, in his testimony, david mcgraw, says there are three areas of foia delays that need to be addressed. unresponsiveness, second agencies referring responses to other agencies and third, there are times where the information being requested is submitted by companies to regulators so the agency had to resolve private industry privacy concerns, congress is working on legislation to expedite the sharing of cyber threat between cyber companies and also within the government here in this committee, we passed out with approval hr 653, this committee reported it out with approval this year, ms. pustay would you comment on 653? are you familiar with that legislation? >> i'm not prepared to comment on any specific legislation congressman. >> okay. >> i certainly can speak to some of concepts that you just mentioned. >> well, let's do that. do you have recommendation how they might be applied to increasing government transparency? >> i think one of the key things that we've been doing just to take an example, after meeting with civil society representatives during my tenure as director of oip i was, i have been very impacted by the fact that the basic conacceptsepcept of better communication can go a long way to making the process seem more understandable and flow more smoothly and prevent disputes from happening. so in that sense, it's been a focus of mine i have done two separate guidance articles on the importance of good customer services and making sure requesters understand what is happening with their request the that they have a point of contact at an agency. >> i don't mean to cut you off. would you forward those to my office? >> absolutely. >> thank you. i want to conclude by following up on something mr. connolly from virginia was talking able talking about secretary of state condoleezza rice's e-mails and you were testifying your understanding was she used an official account to do e-mails had not ever seen one of those e-mails from her on that account or any other. my information is that secretary rice has not disclosed whether she used a personal e-mail account for official business. she has not disclosed whether she used a private e-mail account for official business and ms. barr, can you confirm or deny? do you know either way on that question? it's a yes or no. i have to hurry, yes or no? do you know? >> secretary rice told us that she did not use personal e-mail for official business. >> well, i'm going to invite my dear friend from south carolina who i know is looking into the question of e-mails of secretaries of state to really devil delve into whether secretary condoleezza rice used private e-mail a accounts for personal business. >> recognize the gentleman from south carolina. >> ms. barr you previously testified that the former secretaries e-mail arrangement with herself was not acceptable. those were the words you used, not acceptable, what made it not acceptable to you? >> i thought that i know that in my oral statement today i was talking about it. i think in my former testimony that was being asked the if i thought in general it was okay to use, if any employee would use a private e-mail account. >> in response to the a question when you testified before the senate and i'm sure the circumstances were was i okay to exclusively use personal e-mail with which to conduct public business and you used the phrase not acceptable. what makes i not acceptable? >> what we want to make sure that we do under the federal records act is to capture official records so they are available to what we do and how we come to those decisions. we don't like for records to be separated from agency so we with were very pleased to have these records back in our position so that they are paraof our collection and that we can make them available to the public. >> do you recall why secretary clinton availed herself of a personal server and used exclusively personal e-mail? do you recall the explanation given or have you been given an explanation why she went that route? >> i can't speak to that authoritatively, my understanding is that the secretary said that she did i as a matter of convenience. >> and you know what -- >> i don't know that personally. >> that's my understanding, too, in part because that's what she said. i guess my next question would be if it was solely for convenience, why not return the records the day you acceptseparated from the state department? >> i have no information. >> has she explained why she retained custody and control of the public records for almost two years after she separated? >> i'm not aware of the that, sir. >> do you know what prompted the former secretary to return those public records to the public domain? >> we sent a letter to secretary clinton, as well as to secretaries rice, powell and allbright and asked if they have records the that might have been generated on non-department systems that should be part of our official records. >> how were you able to compile with foia requests in the that almost two-year interim between the time you wroete the letter and when she retained control of the public records? >> sir, e-mails are not the only records. >> right, but as part of the record, if you receive add foia request that would have included e-mails, how would you have been able to compile with the foia request given the fablg you had neither care custody or control of the records? >> we would still search all of our records and we would still look at things like cables, decision memos other types of documents the that we keep to provide a record. >> you would have given what you had but made no representation what you provided was complete because you didn't have the full public records. >> well, we always look at what we have, sir. >> you can't get i if you don't have it, which raises the next question i have i was listening to my friend from maryland and my friend from virginia make note of the fact that former secretary did return e-mails, what guarantee can you give my fellow citizens what you have now is complete public record? have you been through all of her records to determine what is public and what is private? >> we are processing them now and no we have not completed. >> you're processing what was originally on the server or what she proed viededvided to you. >> we're processing what she provided to us. >> do you know what mechanism she would have gone through to determine what was public record or private or mixed use? do you know what made that initial determination? >> she told us theshe she erred on the side of inclusion. >> did she tell you she personally reviewed the e-mails or retained counsel to do so. >> i'm not aware if whether she personally did i or retained counsels. >> thank you for answering my questions, i'm over time and suffice to say i have a number of additional questions in this area. >> just for a moment -- >> i'm out of time but if i'm not, i'm not. >> just one question, ms. barr what e-mails are you processing for secretary powell and secretary rice? you said you're processing e-mails. >> for clinton. >> i mean yeah but what e-mails are you processing for secretary powell -- listen to me -- secretary powell any? >> no. >> are you processing for secretary rice? >> no. >> all right, thank you. i yield back. >> i recognize the gentleman from the district of colombia, ms. norton for five minutes. >> i understand ms. barr, while we have the secretary clinton's we don't have any from secretary powell because he didn't save his, is that right? >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you. now, when we he a chronic problem like the this that keeps coming back, we often set up an officer or another department or another part of the government to help us out so i noticed that of course, notice indeed in fact in hr 653 there is creation of a chief foia officer counsel. it could be run joinltly by the doj and office of glove ib for information, this is for ms. pustay because your office would be task to run the information services. do you support the notion of a chief foia officer's counsel? >> i'm not prepared to answer any specific questions able a specific legislative proposal but what i can tell you is that chief foia officers who are designated high level officials, designated by law with foia as it currently kpilsexists really hold the key to helping improve foia across the government and we do a lot to work with chief foia officers because the idea there is the that you want a high level official in every agency who has authority and responsibility to make as you were that the foia operations have sufficient staffing, have sufficient attention, have the resources that they need to operate and gearing off that important role that a chief foia officer plays starting in 2009 with the attorney general holder's foia guidelines we have the chief foia report and every year we ask, we at oip at the department of justice, we ask chief foia officers to report on the steps they have taken to improve compliance and address a range of issues use of technology proactive disclosures, timeliness in responding to the a request and every year we have been changing the met tricks that we ask and the questions that we ask of those chief foia officers because as we see foia processes improve or as we see steps taken to approve foia, we want to keep agencies to do more and better, so we with, it's an evolving process for us. so i think that we have a lot of good mechanisms in place right now that take advantage of the position of the chief foia officer. >> well, let me turn to the chief foia officers. how do each of you feel about the notion of a chief foia's counsel. would it be beneficial to you in any way? >> it's an interesting idea. i would have to give that some thoug thought and after doingm , so, i would be happy to share my thoughts with you. >> have you given any thought to that mr., you seem to be the ones that ought to be consulted about that. >> yes, ma'am, i have the not given thought to this as of now but i'm happy to take that back. >> well, i think the committee would benefit from your advice and counsel particularly since there is a subcommittee hearing here on government operations had a foia hearing and heard from frederick sadler. he had previously served as a foia officer add a food and drug administration and let me read what he said. i would seem appropriate to require agency representation at the highest level possible when the individual is also the most knowledgeable. past experience has shown that not every chief foia officer has the skill set since this is by definition not necessarily that individual's specialty. ms. barr i'll start with you, do you agree with mr. sadler's comment? comment? >> i think i would depend on how that person, you know, each agency organizes this issue differently. for the state dp i'm the chief foia officer, but i also have a lot of other responsibilities so i have a dpeputy assist tan secretary who is an expert in the issues and i consult closely with that person. >> what about exchange of ideas across agency lines? do you believe sharing of information about agency experience and their ideas and own best practices, what they have done right or wrong would improve the implantation of foia, would the foia officers have a view on that? >> i can certainly tell you that we definitely think that's in incredibly important. we have what i mentioned the crowuation of a best practices workshop series where the whole idea is to identify a top pick and as i mentioned, our very first top pick is improving timeliness and identify agencies that have achieved success in that area and then have them come and speak to the a gathering of anyone, every interested agency employee7%m share their best practices so that we can leverage success across the government. then what we've done at oip is take that further in that we are, we created a dedicated web page on the website where connected to the best practices workshop series where we list the best practices that came out of each of the sessions we've also issued guidance in relation to the best practices, so it's something that we've been doing already for a full year now and we feel that it's been very successful and it's a very important way to have agencies be able to capitalize on the good things and the invasions that one another is doing. >> we'll now recognize the gentleman from north carolina for five minutes. >> thank you. i would like to yield my time to the gentleman from north carolina. >> i appreciate you talking with me earlier, i want to pick back up where we were. i was seeking some level of assurance from you to the extent you could give one what was produced to the state department did in fact represent the full universal of what would be public record and i have no interest in private documents. i could careless. i'm interested in making sure the whole public universal is complete, so what assurance can you give the public that state department has everything that would be considered a public record from her tenure as secretary of state? >> she has assured us that she gave us everything she had and like we do with other federal employees, we have to depend on them to provide that information to us so i have documents and, you know, we've acre cementcepted her assurance that she's given us everything she had that should be part of our official records. >> well, you mentioned other federal employees which got me wondering and i wrote down a list of some other cabinet level folks that i have worked with in my time here. attorney general holder, did he have his own server? >> are you asking me? >> i'm asking whoever can answer it. >> attorney general holder used official doj account. >> he did. how about new attorney general lynch? does she have a personal server. >> same, as well. she's using an official doj acounsel. >> what about president obama, if you pursue theory of convenience, i can't imagine a busier person on the globe than president obama. did he have his own personal server? ms. barr? >> i have no knowledge. >> well well, reason i'm asking is because you said the that you're doing it the exact same way as any public official and my point is because of this arrange m that former secretary had with themself, you're not in a position to do the same you would with any public official because vice president biden and obama don't have the their personal attorneys going through the e-mails to decide what to return and not. i assume in your position as an apologizely kill non-political unbias position. am i correct? >> yes, sir. >> i believe the department of state has an insect torepector general, am i right? >> i asked them to look into system of issues. we are co-rare cooperating with them. >> do you know who nominated the kerr renl current inspector general? >> i don't have that information at my fingertips but i can get back to you. >> you don't have to. it was president obama. do you know who controlled the senate when he was confirmed? do you know what the vote was? it was unanimous. >> i knew you were going to give me that information. laugh [ laughter ] >> it was unanimous. i do know the answer to those two. he was unanimously confirmed by a senate controlled by the democrats which makes me think that he, like you is a neutral detached separating what should be in the public domain from what should be personal why not let the inspector general look at all the records just to make absolutely sure and that way we're not in a position of having to take someone's lawyer's word for it. why not do that? >> well with, it was my understanding, you're talking about the e-mail collection not the entire process? >> no, i'm talking about you had been put in the position of having to take a lawyer's word that you have all the public records, and perhaps it's just the being a lawyer i'm just wondering with a role to public instead of former secretary hiring an attorney to do i why can't the attorney that works for us why can't the inspector general do it? >> so you're asking me why can't the inspector general make the determination of whether we received all of e-mails? >> yes. >> i really can't speakculate. >> i'm out of time. hopefully we can he more time and we can speculate together. >> i recognize mr. duncan for five minutes. >> mr. chairman thank you for having these hearings. this is very very important and i would simply say that the record the testimony the record on these foia request is simply horrendous. we heard yesterday cheryl the atkinson say foia is a pointless, useless shadow of its former self-and testify erer self and said i took ten or 11 years to get a request she submitted submitted. another witness said that the pentagon, told him it would take 15 years to give him one and they said they would if he agreed to never file another foia request and the court ruled in his favor captioning performed by vitac the american people are not u going to stand for more secrecy. none of you are going to want to live with it all but can you assure me that if chairman chaffitz calls a hearing a year from now that we are going to hear much better stories than we've heard these past couple of days? you talked about timeliness and all these thing that is sound good. but shurg you don't accept or don't defend a system that takes 10 or 15 years to grant simple requests. we've heard these past we also want to use technology to find greater efficiencies in processing foia requests so we can proceed more quickly. >> i hope there's some requests bn granted without forcing lawsuits over it but i'm told that almost all of these foia lawsuits have ended up with rulings in favor of the plaintiffs. and against the parties. >> respectfully, congressman, that's really not accurate. the number of lawsuits is really small in comparison to the number of requests. we get 700,000 requests, 400-some lawsuits. it's an important right to have judicial review of an agency's action. but of course we don't want requesters to feel that where they have to go. we want to have -- i just also want to say that in terms of the results of litigation, the administrative conference did a study of just that exact point of who prevails and doesn't. and they found that year after year the government prevailed in foia law suits over 08% of the time. so i want to correct that -- 80%. so i want to correct that misstatement. >> you referenced a special project team that was created to deal with requests for information concerning the targeting and a former employee of the internal ref new service lois learner. when did this start? >> soon after the request came from congress. it's not unusual for us to gather together resources. >> i'm using the words you used. >> if i gave you the impression there was a title called special team that's probably not correct. >> i'm using what you said, special project team. >> a project team put together. >> you mentioned chief counsel. was the chief counsel at the internal revenue service part of the project team created shortly after it became known there was targeting going on? >> you would have to ask the commissioner about it. >> we'll do that. is it your assumption or do you believe -- you're the one that brought up special counsel both in your response to mr. chaffitz earlier. you think the chief counsel was part of the team? >> i think there were hundreds of attorneys part of the team. it was a production team. it was a way to enmass documents and mass produce them. >> you were asked about this. do you have any interaction before released information. i'm quoting from your response. we have never shared information with the white house. accurate? >> yes. >> your response. you go on to say in that same answer to the chairman i can't speak for the entire i.r.s. that would be a question for the chief counsel. i can simply speak for the disclosure office. do you know if the special project team that was put together most likely had the chief counsel? they were checking with the white house? >> i have no personal knowledge i know they amass hundreds of attorneys to go through the documents and redact them. >> do you think it's likely that the chief counsel talked with the white house? >> i think it's unlikely but i don't know. >> well, that would be in direct contradiction to the memo sent to every chief counsel back when this administration first started april 15, 2009. >> you don't think the white house has an interest in knowing about information related to the internal revenue service targeting people? equities is an interest. right? they have an interest in that. all document requests that may involve white house interests. that's pretty broad. and then the next paragraph gives clarification and says congressional committee request which you said the reason the special project team was created. the scope of the documents needed it was a business process. >> i'm out of time. thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. i'm going to recognize myself. i have a series of questions before we wrap up. members may have some other questions. i want to give you an opportunity to talk about the it challenges that the i.r.s. has and what you're dealing with. what sort of soft ware you're dealing with and how bad is it? >> well, i believe it was congressman carter when he was speaking referred to the fact that he had an opportunity to go on to a search engine on his personal computer. he put in a few key words that had to do with foia he pushed a button and he got all kinds of responses. that's not the way it works. we don't have that library of electronic documents that we can go in and search through a google or any of the other search engines that you might have we need the ability to tag the records. >> can you do key word searches? >> we can do key word searches within accounts. so that means if you're going to look for e-mails i would have to look at your account my account anyone's account that might be involved account by account and look within each of those. >> you can't do a massive look? >> it involves downloading. >> what soft ware do you use? >> that would be a question for the ifrpblt t. >> you don't know? >> >> a afe microsoft suite of products. >> you use outlook. you can't search your data base? >> i can my own account. >> we'll have to dive deeper into this. i would like actually if each of the five of you can help us understand how bad or how good you think the situation is. >> you know, i just want to add, too, that once you get the documents you still have to go through line by line to look for 6103 redactions and other exemptions. so it's not just about the it but certainly that's a huge thing. >> you mentioned the budget detailed worksheet that would be released in june of this year which would be any time. do you have that yet? >> be a little closer to the mic. >> i'm sorry. i'm not aware that it's been completed yet. i will check with my deputy chief officer. and if it has i will be happy. >> when it is complete -- you didn't represent it was. but when it is can you please share that with this committee? one of the questions we have is about the charges that were given to the public and the expenses that they have. when you do the search do you send it out to anybody you're not able to -- there's not a foia officer that can get in there and do a search term pul up every relevant email? >> there's no library no -- >> there is. this is a falsy. it's wrong to say there's no library. it's called email. and the reason we moved away from carbon copies and big ware houses with stacks and volumes of file folders is because electronically you can push a button, do a search, and generate that. this is the year 2015 here. we're not in the stone ages trying to knock something out on and copy it on a stone. it's called email and called microsoft. they're a big company. >> folder by folder by folder. account by account by account. >> and it's magic. you can get a 28-year-old it person in there and they can find it in a couple hours. that's why we don't believe you. don't say there's not a data base. it's called email. right? >> my understanding is that the capabilities of the system we have do not enable us to do that except account by account >> and i just fundamentally don't understand that and i don't understand how you pick dates. can you please try to explain -- we don't have time. it would take you ten minutes each to try to explain this. the frustration for so many people they don't know when -- and sometimes they'll last months and years. sometimes it's very atlanta. they need some exposure to that but there seems to be this great deal of mystery why you say it will be july and then july comes and the next thing you know it's october. it just seems like a slow walk. can you help explain to us why and how you pick the date? i also would appreciate from homeland security if they can help us understand the new rule making that they're involved with, with foia. >> the rule making process is under way. it has -- we are preparing to issue it for public comment. after which we will review the comments. >> we will be watching that because if homeland security thinks that they're going to come up with a new set of rules that are different -- this is again one of the frustrations. foia is what foia is but every time you go to a different agency they have different rules. they don't have standards where you just plug and play and operate equally. >> and the rule is implementing regulation. >> we're fascinating to see it. the other thing i'm frustrated. we talk about the score card. i believe this is put out by the department of justice. you come in and do this evaluation. and there's a color coded scheme here and it's different categories of presumption of openness, effective system in place for responding proactive disclosure. if you sat and listened to the sum testimony of today, and compare it to yesterday we had as wide array of people as we can possibly have from individuals to former cbs news reporter to -- i mean, we got as wide of a swatch of people as we possibly could. and there wasn't anybody that believed that in general things were going well. yet when you do your own score card, for instance at the department of justice, your solid green. you gave yourself five out of five on presumption of openness. five out of five on an effective system in place for responding. proactive disclosure. are you kidding me? the department of justice gives themselves a five out of five on proactive disclosure. you really think anybody in the world believes the department of justice is the most -- they're at the top of their game they got an a plus? do you really believe that? >> i do. >> you live in la la land. that's the problem. >> you're a very nice person and i'm sure most of the people are very nice people. 550,000 times americans put forward a request and got a rejection saying doesn't qualify. you think that's working? is that a presumption of openness? you think that's proactive disclosure? i beg to differ. we're at the heart of why i think there is a problem. because you all think you're doing a great job. >> we are constantly evaluating not just how we do at d.o.j. >> and your evaluation says you have no room for improvement. >> that's not true at all. you aren't looking at the whole category. >> i will go through each and er one of them. i just read. here it is. we have green. proactive disclosures are making available to the public. >> presumption of openness. >> exactly. we can argue about this. i beg to differ. we had 11, 12 peeming yesterday that differ on a bipartisan way i don't think there's anybody that would agree across the board most everyone of you got great scores. and i just don't buy it. i want to ask specifically about the department of justice. are you able to conduct an electronic search or do you rely on the individual agency employees proactively give you the information? >> what you're talking about i think is a roop low poverl -- rely on the individual agency employees proactively give you the information? >> what you're talking about i think is a improvement. we have the tools more sophisticated tools used in the discovery context which allows individual email accounts to be dumped or collected into one bucket. >> so you search the universal index. sthars? >> i don't think it's called a universal index but we have tools. >> the uni. >> we have tools. and we in fact -- >> you search the case files? >> we do sometimes. it depends on what -- we would only search case files if case files were relevant to a particular request. we have lots of different offices. we've been pushing for more sophisticated technology. we did a pilot at d.o.j. several years ago to show the benefits of being able to do things like searching multiple custodians at the same time. >> so my understanding is that the f.b.i. conducts the search. it does conduct on the universal index but that system does not allow for text base searchs. but does not search case files which contain uploaded versions. the ecf is searchable. i don't expect you to respond to that but i do want you to get back to us on this specific point. i want you to go down the line here. we went through with ms. howard here but let's go back to ms. bar. this is my last set of questions before i change my mind and ask another one. i want to know what is the instruction that you believe you've been given to interact with the white house? what percentage of the documents do you give to the white house or somebody who represents the white house? what is the expectation that you share information with them? do you need their approval before you send it back? how does that work? because this directive is really clear short, three paragraphs. i mean, they essentially want you to give them everything. and so my question is what do you have to do in order to fulfill the demand from the white house that you give them everything before you give it to us or to the media. >> it does include if the white house has equity in a document. we follow the standard foia process. >> how do you determine if it's white house equity? what is not an equity? >> when we get a request in we have a team of reviewers. and many of these because so much of our work deals with things overseas for the most part they're retired foreign service officers and some of them are even foreign ambassadors. in fact we have quite a few. once we get the results of that document search back then we go through line by line and at that point we look at whether or not we need to coordinate with other agencies. and that would be when we would include the white house if after they get these materials back they decide that they have an interest in that document. >> who at the white house? >> i'm not familiar with who exactly. >> if you could let us know. >> what i can tell you is the process of consulting with other agencies or -- which includes the white house has not changed. the this memo reflects the same practice that we've had administration to administration. i've been doing this a long time. the word equity is really just sort of a more modern term. but what is captured by the memo and what has been consistent from administration to administration is that when an agency finds communication that originated with another entity or that reflected communication with the other entity, that's when we -- an agency as a matter of good practice consults to get their views on sensitivity of the material. and oftentimes that can include of course getting their views that it's ok to release the material. so it's communications is what happens. >> i think it's a big source of why it's so slowed down. what percentage do you have to share with the white house before you share with us? >> the -- i can speak just on foia requests. i don't know the percentage of requests that have the equity of any particular -- >> ms. newman. >> it's my understanding with respect to the white house it happens very infrequently. >> why? the memo says it should happen on everything. >> well, again it's my understanding -- i don't process these requests or get involved in these kind of consultations but my understanding is that the kinds of requests we get don't involve white house equities. and of course when the request comes in there's -- if there's an indication that it is a request for white house records or information that would trigger the consultation. >> i'm not talking about white house. i'm saying if you have information in your possession at homeland and it comes from a member of congress, judicial branch it was a foia request g.a.o. request it should be shared with the white house. you tell me don't do that? >> no. i'm saying we follow d.o.j. issued guidelines that require consultation. >> what about the white house issued guidelines? because i'm reading the guidelines. we handed a copy of them. you don't or do abide by it? >> we adhere to the -- this memo in accordance with the d.o.j. guidance on that. we also report all such consultations publicly in our foia report. so you asked a question about whether these slow down or create additional delay in the process. i've implemented some procedures to try to minimize that delay or delay associated with any consultations including one senior professional mb of my foia team to be the contact. >> and they communicate with who? >> i would have to ask them. >> we'll try -- >> thank you. again i do not process specific foia requests. but treasury follows the department of justice guidance from 2011. with agencies and entities concerning documents that orget nated at those agencies or in communication. obviously in this respect gets involved. when those documents either originate or relate to the white house. so again we treat the white house just like any other agency related to foia. >> you were on a role. you're nuts if you think you're treating the white house exactly the same you treat the bureau of indian affairs. no way that's happened. with all due respect. we would like some feedback on this. i think the director from the white house is crystal clear and will continue to pursue that. i'm well over time. i recognize the gentleman from maryland. >> trying to figure out where we're going. you'll have to help me help you. i said earlier i wanted you all to get back to me with information as to all of you as to things that we could do to make things better. it's kind of hard to do that when you think you're almost perfect though. i'm serious. in some kind of way we've got to -- did you watch the testimony yesterday? any of you? hello. anybody? >> i just heard some of it. but i wanted to focus on preparing for today. >> no problem. did you? >> as i mentioned i was updated throughout the day on the testimony. >> as was i. >> i watched part of the hearing. >> i watched most of it. >> fine. it seems like a world of difference. let me tell you what i think is part of the problem. i do think a personnel issue is part of the problem. i mean, logic tells you that when you've got less people and more demands you're going to have problems. period. of the problem. i also think that there is a lot of things that you all are doing right. i mean, doing a great job at. then i think there are some cases that are maybe a little more complicated a little more controversial. and so the process is slowed down a little bit. then some instances perhaps a lot and some kind of way -- i mean, just listening to everything that's been said between yesterday and today that is where i come down on this. and in some kind of way we've got to i mean get past where we are because we can do better. it's easy to say that we are scoring excellent in this that that that ain't true, folks. it's not. so some kind of way we've got to close this gap. and the only way we're going to do it is that we have to be frank with each other. and we've got to begin to set i want to say goals but whatever you're going to send back things you should be doing could be better. and set some deadlines with regard to making those things happen. other than that, it's going to get worse. it's going to get worse. so i'm hoping that you all will do that. i've discovered from being on this hill for 20 years now almost that you almost have to -- we have to set deadlines to get things done. i've also noticed that a lot of times people who come before us they have a tendency sometimes to out wathe us. they know that congress is going to change, they know that we're going to move on to something else. and sometimes to then the next thing you know things don't get done. then they look towards the new congress and then it's worse. and then we just go through these circles over and over again. you have to see the cycle. let's look at former secretary rice. last fall the state department asked her along with other secretaries for information about official e-mails on their personal accounts. is that right? >> yes, sir. >> former secretary rice did not respond to the department hrs in response to your letter last fall she had a representative do that. that's what it says the state department's report. do you know who secretary rice's representative is? >> no. >> do you know whether it's an attorney? >> i assume so. >> according to the report former secretary rice's representative claimed that she did not use her personal email account for official business. do you know what his assertion was based on? do you have any idea? >> personally just what was told to us. i don't have personal knowledge of what was said. >> ok. and so you don't know whether she told him that or he reviewed the documents? you don't know? >> that is true. >> did you know if he thoroughly reviewed relating to official business or did he just take her word? you don't know? is that your testimony? >> yes. >> so let me just states for the record that when dozens of white house officials under the bush administration were using private email accounts at the r.n.c., we worked with their attorneys to ensure that they were recovering official e-mails and producing them. we did not suggest -- we relied on them to go through their documents, identify documents in response to our request, and produce them to us. attorneys do have a legal obligation to provide us with truthful information. and this is the same process we use for virtually every investigation we conduct. again, i just -- as we close, what -- i take it that you're getting ready to retire? is that what you've been trying to tell us? you're not out the door today? >> no. >> how soon? >> i don't know. i think about that all the time. >> take your time. >> but like many people in i.r.s. i am eligible to retire. what keeps me working is the dedication of my employees and the professionalism of my colleagues at i.r.s. >> we appreciate all of you and the employee that is work with you. what can we do to improve this system? >> well, from our standpoint we would like advanced technology. just to make it easier to do the searches. we would also like at i.r.s. access to a really good foia system that would help us be more consistent and accurate with our redactions so that we could get more done with the same amount of people. the other thing that my folks do in disclosure other than just the foias is they're responsible for doing 6103 redactions for subpoena information around litigation and also for just making sure that the employees across i.r.s. with interaction with tax payers know the disclosure laws and have their questions about disclosure answered as they need on a day-to-day basis. so we have those responsibilities too. and i think the technology would go a long way. we would like additional staff. i think what we see is a trend in the complexity of requests. so instead of requesting for mostly taxpayers asking for their own files we're seeing more and more of the types of requests that you had witnesses speaking about yesterday that are very expansive in their stope and nature and rely on us going to multiple custodians to find and retrieve those records and then volumes and volumes of pages. so we need people, we need people who are trained well in those in the exemptions. and we need technology to help us with all of that. >> again, thank you. i can obviously tell you what we have done. the department we've added resources, we've added people. we've added -- >> what about train sng >> we've added better data and we've trained 100% of our foia professionals and i think that's yielded results. we received about 14,000 requests overall last year and we closed about 14,000 as well. again, in improvement year over year. >> would you say based upon what you said you have a situation of best practices there? >> again, we are always looking for best practices. we try to adopt as many best practices as we can from the department of justice. our team works with them quite a bit. so again i think we're moving in the right direction but obviously we can always do more. >> i really appreciate the question. i have been giving it quite a bit of thought. in my case in the case of my agency it's somewhat difficult to say because we are in the midst of this independent review that i have commissioned. i think it is really important that i personally understand what the actual systemic challenges are that are facing my agency so that not only we can understand how to address those but so that we can communicate back with you about what it is we actually need. because it may be tempting to turn to what might seem like an obvious solution today but that solution may not actually address what the actual problems are. i do think that foia as a 40 plus-year-old statute may not have contemplated the kind of technology that is available not only to seek information but to respond to those requests. and to that extent i think it's worthwhile considering how the statute might be updated. otherwise, i think it is a very good question and i am interested in polling my foia unit along with that and the outcome of this review i would be delighted to get back to you with with my thoughts. >> i hope you would get back to me within 30 days. >> i think the number one thing from our perspective is that we really appreciate and need the support of congress for adequate resources for foia that would help us both with personnel and with i.t. they're both inextricably intertwined. >> and training. >> although we feel as though we've done very well with training with the resources we've just made available we've been encouraging agencies to do training. we are now asking agencies and getting a very good response that agencies are giving their employees substantive foia training and we ourselves provide training to thousands of personnel every year. so training i think we have handled in the sense that we can do that now and we're continuing to focus on that. >> technology to help us quickly go through the various -- we have information all over the world with different systems. that would be helpful. and of course people. and at the same time since we do have an inspector general taking a look at our processes, we also hope to get something from that as well. but it's -- it's a very serious problem. but for us it's also a complicated problem. just trying to get all of the information in the right place quickly so that we can be responsive. >> i want to thank all of you very much. and we look forward to hearing from you and working with you. >> i think -- i just want to make a comment on the i.t. part of the equation. one of the frustrations is if you look at the amount of money that we pour into i.t. at the i.r.s. it's roughly $2 billion per year. now, you have 90,000 employees. it's unfair to just divide that number and calculate out some 20 plus thousand dollars per person. but it's an extraordinary amount of money. my guess is if we went to almost any corporation private sector and said we're going to give you a $2 my guess is if we billion a year over year, billions of dollars for your i.t. and then to have such a dilapitated system, we just don't understand that. it's not as if we're not pouring resources and -- into i.t. budgets. you have billions of dollars at your disposal. and every time i turn around i hear across agencies how bad it works. and we are -- and i'm doing this off the top of my head but it's something like 75 plus billion a year. billions. is spent on it in the united states with our government. it doesn't work. we didn't get into the data breaches that are happening at the i.r.s. if you think there's a data base that can't be searched because microsoft wasn't smart enough to think about that, we have a big big problem. if you think there's a i want to make sure that you and your staff know how much we do appreciate. it's a huge volume. it is supply and demand and the demand has been greatly increased. that puts a lot of pressure on a lot of people. i'm a huge believer that the overwhelming majority of our federal workers work hard and smart try to do the right thing. we're trying to do the right thing. pressure on a lot of people. i'm a huge believer that the overwhelming majority of our federal workers work hard and smart try so while these are sometimes tough and pointed and direct that's what they're supposed to be. that's our constitution. we are supposed to be self-critical. that's what we do. that's how we get better. we can't just put a smiley face and say it's all good. there will be a foia reform bill. we passed one out of the committee. i want to take another breath and do several panlts and do your perspective the media the outside groups so we get that just right. we're going to look back at that bill see if we can't tighten up a couple other things maybe lessen the number of exemptions. i think it's something that we have got to be able to look at. and then probably speed up the other parts of the process so it makes your job smoother and easier. you have all these charts and graphs and what can we release. let's do what president obama says. let's err on the side of release it. i don't think your folks and your departments agencies have the freedom to do that. i think they are slowed down in what the "new york times" called their representative this culture that says -- and it's happened over a long period of time not just one administration. the culture that doesn't want to make a mistake and consequently we aren't giving the american people what they paid for. we all work for them. you all work for them. we've got to be more responsive. they're telling us it's not working. so we have to change something. we can't just keep doing the same thing. i think it's been a productive two days of hearings. there's still more to learn. thank you for your time and your patriotism and your dedication to the country and your government. and we thank you. this committee stands adjourned. >> next q&a with done richie and former house historian ray smock. and live at 7:00 a.m. your calls and comments on "washington journal." [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption contents and accuracy. visit ncicap.org >> tonight on the communicators on c-span 2. >> the new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114th congress with color photos of every senator and house member plus bio and contact information. also district map, a foldout map of capitol hill and a look at congressional committees, the president's cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors. order your copy today. it's $13.95 plus shipping and handling through the c-span online store. ♪ >> this week on "q&a," our guests are historians don ritchie and ray smock. they talk about the history of the house and senate, focusing on leaders, characters legislation, and scandals. brian: don ritchie, you spent 40 years as historian in the united states senate. what was the toughest part of the job? donald: finding out what had just happened so that we could answer the question. reporters would catch us out of breath and want an answer about something historical. it clearly had something to do with something that had just happened in the senate. we had no idea what that was. we had to tell them to calm down, tell us what happened, and try to provide historical context. brian: really i think you spent about 12 years in the house. what about your answer to that question? raymond: i had to create the office. luckily, i had the senate historical office for a couple years.

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