designated high level officials, within even agency. do you recognized by law with foia as it currently existed 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 you want a high level official in every agency who has an authority and responsibility to make sure there is sufficient staffing and attention and have the resources they need to operate. gearing off that 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 a request. and every year we have been changing the metrics we ask and the questions 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 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 thought and after doing so, i would be happy to share my thoughts with you. >> have you given any thought to that mister -- you seem to be the ones that ought to be consulted about this. >> 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 at a food and drug administration. and let me read to you what he said. 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? >> i think it would depend on how that person, you know each agency organizes this issue differently. for the state department i'm the chief foia officer but i also have a lot of other responsibilities. so i have an deputy assistant 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 implementation of foia. would the foia officers have a view on that? >> i can certainly tell you that we definitely think that's incredibly important. we have what i mentioned, the creation of a best practices work shop series where the whole idea is to identify a topic. 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 employee and 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 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

universe of what would be public records. and again i have no interest in private documents. i really could care less. i'm interested in making sure the whole public universe is complete. so what assurance can you give the public that the 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 accepted 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. >> i can let you know attorney general holder used an 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 account. >> what about president obama, is there any indication -- 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 you're doing that the exact same way as any

public official. and my point is because of this arrangement that former secretary clinton had. you're not in a position to do the same. 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 non-political unbiassed position. am i correct? >> yes, sir. >> i believe the department of state has an inspector general, am i right? >> i asked them to look into system of issues. we are cooperating with them. >> do you know who nominated the 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. [ laughter ] >> it was unanimous. those may be the only questions i can answer today. but i do know the answer to those two. president obama nominated him. he was unanimously confirmed by a senate controlled by the democrats which makes me think that he, like you, is a neutral detached arb titter who is solely interested in 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, 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 cynicism of actually being a lawyer, i'm just wondering who with a fudishiary duty to the public can make sure the public record is complete? instead of former secretary hiring an attorney to do it. why can't the attorney that works for all of 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 speculate. >> i'm out of time. hopefully i'll get some more time and we can speculate together after that. i yield back. >> 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 that we heard -- the testimony that we heard yesterday. the record on these foia requests is simply horrendous. we heard yesterday cheryl the atkinson say foia is a pointless, useless shadow of its former self and said it took ten or 11 years to get a request she 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 and said it was ridiculous. they came up with that 15 year business. mr. mccraw from "the new york times" who said "the new york

times" just that one business had to file eight different lawsuits last year. foia lawsuits. i'm told that there were 422 foia lawsuits just in 2014. we had another witness ms. mitchell, who told about the years she had spent litigating foia. and brought in here numerous, probably looked like about ten or 12 notebooks full of pages that finally were sent to her with practically everything, thousands of pages with 100% of -- on most of those pages totally redacted. and it really was just useless. i can tell you, the american people think the federal government is already far too big, out of control and far too secret. and the american people are not going to stand for more secrecy from the federal government.

and i would say to each of you and to any foia officers that might be listening that if you don't start doing better, this committee, this congress is going to have to come down very very hard and come up with some legislation that i'm sure none of you are going to want to live with at all. but ms. pustay can you assure me that if chairman chaffetz calls a hearing a year from now that we'll hear much better story that what we've heard these past couple of days? i mean, you talked about timeliness and all these things that sound good. but surely you don't accept or don't defend the system that takes 10 or 15 years to grant simple requests? >> no, of course not. i'm looking and the -- the whole -- what we do every day at oip is work very hard to try to

help agencies improve their administration of the foia. and we do that through a number of ways. and we want fundamentally for all agency professionals who are handling foia requests to understand the law and their obgagdsob obligation obligations. that's why we focus on training and why we're happy to complete e learning training resources that are available to anyone anywhere in the world free of charge. at its foundation we need trained foia professionals. we also want to make sure there's good customer service as i mentioned so requesters understand the process and know what's happening. we also want to use technology to find greater efficiencies and processing foia requests so we can proceed more quickly. there's a lot of things that we can do and we're trying very hard to help agencies do better. >> i'm assuming that there are some requests that granted without, i hope there is some requests being granted without going or forcing lawsuits over

it. but i'm told that almost all of these lawsuits, these foia lawsuits have ended up in rulings in favor of the plaintiffs. and against the department. >> no, respectfully congressman, that's really just 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 like 1% of requests. we don't want anybody to have to go. it's an important right to have a judicial review of an agency's action. of course, we don't want requesters to feel that that's where they have to go. we want to have -- >> do you agree this system that you need to do better, that this system must be improved and must be faster? >> we're constantly looking for waywise to improve it. we constantly want things to be faster. i just also want to say in terms of the results of administrative did

a study. i want to correct the misstatement that you were -- >> but you were -- you do accept the fact that when we have requests that are taking 10 or 15 years to grant that -- >> of course. >> -- a system is broken. >> it's not that the system is broken. the system works well for many requesters. since 2009, agencies have responded to nearly four million requests. every time a student gets their information for their paper or reporter get information for his article, that's a success story for foia. but at the same time, i'm not saying there's not problems and there's not areas where we can improve.

that's what i try to focus on in my office. really every single day, is to try to help agencies improve. >> we heard yesterday about some problems we shouldn't have been hearing about. i can tell you that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> now recognize the gentleman from ohio for five minutes. >> you had an exchange earlier -- i apologize i couldn't be here. you had an exchange where you recognized a special project team that dealt with requests for information concerning the targeting and a former employee at the internal revenue service lois lerner. when did the special project team start? >> my understanding is it started soon after the request came from congress and other investigators asking for documents. around this whole issue. that would have been somewhere in -- >> about two years ago. >> spring, early summer of 2013. >> a little over two years. okay. and it was -- that was the

reason why to deal with requests from congress? >> i think this is very -- >> was it also requests from outside folks people like we heard from yesterday who represented groups that had been targeted, was it to deal with that as well? >> it was. there was a recognition that most of the documents would be responsive to congress, the investigators and the foias. so we centralized the whole process for gathering them and redacing them. >> was that unusual for the irs to do,? >> i see the irs as an ongoing basis. when we have surges of work. >> it's not unusual for them to put together a special team. >> it's not unusual for us to gather together resources that are going to be focused -- >> are they called special teams. i'm using the words you -- >> if i gave you the impression there was a title called special team, that's probably not true. >> i'm using what you said special project team. >> it was a project team put together. >> okay.

and who was on that team? >> my first hand knowledge of that is none. >> you can't tell us who is on it? >> i can't tell you who it was on, no. it was made up mostly of chief counsel, their attorneys they pulled them offline to work on them. we took resources that were familiar -- >> let me stop you there. you mentioned chief counsel. was the chief counsel at the internal revenue service part of the team after it became known there was targeting going on two years ago. >> i have no personal knowledge. you would have to ask him or the commissioner that. >> we'll do that. is it your assumption or do you believe -- you're the one that brought special counsel both in your response to mr. chaffetz earlier -- not special counsel -- chief counsel. do you think chief counsel is part of the team? >> there were hundreds of attorneys that were part of the team. it was a production team. it was a way to amass documents and mass produce them.

>> okay. all right. and you were asked by the chairman earlier about did -- do you have any interaction with the white house before you release information. i'm quoting from what your response. to the extent i've been involved in responses to congress or to foia we have never shared information with the white house. accurate? >> yes. >> you go on to say in a that same answer to the chairman, i can't speak for the entire irs, that would be a question for the chief counsel of the commissioner. i can simply speak for the disclosure office we do not interact with the white house. do you know if the special project team that was put together gathering all this information most likely had the chief counsel on it. do you know if they were check ing with the white house before they gave information to congress and/or other foia requests? >> i have no personal knowledge how that team acted. except i know they amassed hundreds of attorneys to go through the documents and redact them for 6103. >> do you think it's likely the

chief counsel talked to the white house before he gave information to the white house? >> i think it's unlikely but i don't know. >> that would be in direct contradiction to the memo sent to every chief counsel back when this administration first started, april 15th, 2009. the need to consult with the white house arises with respect to all types of document requests, including congressional committee requests, judicial subpoenas and foia requests. so we have this memo from greg craig to all chief counsel you're telling me it's likely the chief counsel of the irs was part of this special project team created just to deal with requests about the targeting and lois lerner. then you're saying you think it's unlikely they checked with the white house. which would be a direct contradiction to what they were told to do by the white house chief counsel? >> except the memo does specify documents with white house equities. i'm not sure that the documents we have -- >> you don't think the white

house has an interest in knowing about information related to the internal revenue service? equities is an interest, right? they have an interest in that. all document requests that may involve. may involve white house interests. that's pretty broad. the next paragraph gives clarification to that. and says congressional committee requests which you said is the reason the special team was created. not to mention goa requests judicial response and foia requests. i would say if the chief counsel who is part of this special project team. which i think is something we're going to find out and the chairman will be pushing for that. he wouldn't be following the memo if he wasn't consulting with the white house? do you agree? >> sir, the special project team was put together not because the responses were due to congress, but because of the volume and number of investigators and the scope of the documents that were needed. it was a business reason.

a business process. >> i'm out of time thank you mr. chairman. >> i'm going to recognize myself. i have a series of questions i need to do before we wrap up. and members may have some other questions. ms. howard i want to give you an opportunity to talk about the it challenges the irs has and what you're dealing with. what sort of software are you dealing with and how bad is it? >> well i think -- 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 cue words that had to do with foia. he pushed a button and got all kinds of responses. that's not the way it works in irs. we don't have that library of electronic documents that we can go in and search through a google or bing or any of the other search engines that you might have. we need the ability to actually tag those records so that we know what they are who created

them how -- >> can you do key word searches? >> we can do key word searches within accounts. 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 then look within each of those -- >> you can't do a massive look into -- is. >> it's not some sort of massive data base that would be a question for the i t. >> you don't know what software you use? >> what software i use on my computer? i have a microsoft suite of products including out look exchange. >> you use outlook. you can't type a word into outlook? >> i can my own account. >> we'll have to dive deeper into this. i'd like actually if each of you, each of the five of you can help us understand how bad or how good you think the it situation is. >> you know, i just want to add too, once you get the documents

you still have to go through line by line by line to look for 6103 redactions and other exemptions within foia. it's not just about the it but that's a large thing ing irs. >> ms. neuman you mentioned the budget detail work sheet that would be released in june of this year. which would be anytime. do you have that yet? if so can you provide it to this committee? >> i do not have that yet. i would -- >> you've got to be closer to the mic. >> i'm sorry. i am not aware that it's been completed yet. i will check with my deputy chief foia officer. if it has i will be happy to -- >> when it is complete -- you didn't represent it was complete. when it is complete can you please share this with the committee. >> absolutely. >> one of the questions we have is about the charges that are given to the public and the expenses that they have. let me start with you -- let me go back to ms. howard here.

oftentimes people are frustrated because the law says you need to respond within 20 days, you can give a 10 day extension. oftentimes it's month before they hear again. how do you pick those dates? >> they are just an approximation of when we think the document production will be done. certainly in the case of c 4 issues or the c 4 cases, we had just no idea the volume of documents that would be required. and how long it would actually take for the responses to congress and the investigators to be completed. >> when you do the search you send a request out to anybody you think -- you can't on them to individually do it? you're not -- there's not a foia officer that can get in there and do a search term, pull up every relevant e-mail or document? >> there is no library or -- >> there is. this is a fallacy. it's wrong to say there's no library. it's called e-mail. the reason we moved away from carbon copies and big warehouses

with stacks and volumes of file folders is because electronically, you can push a button, do a search and generate that. this is, you know the year 2015 here. we're not in the stone ages. trying to knock something out and copy it on a stone. don't tell me there's not a data base. it's called e-mail and it's called mike are soft. >> folder by folder by folder. account by account by account. >> it's magic you get a 28-year-old it person in there and they can find that in a couple hours. and that's why we don't believe you. don't say there's not a data base. it's called e-mail. right? i mean -- >> my understanding is that the capabilities of the system we have do not enable us to do that except account by account by account. >> and i just fundamentally and totally do not understand that. and i don't understand how y'all pick dates. can you please try -- we don't

have time. it would take you ten minutes each to explain this. the frustration for so many people, they don't know -- sometimes it will be months and years. sometimes it's legitimate. they need some exposure to that. there seems to be this great deal of mystery as to why you say it will be july, and then july comes and the next thing you know it's october. and it just seems like a slow walk. can you help explain to us why and how you pick the dates? i also would appreciate from homeland security if they could help us understand the new rulemaking they're involved with with foia. the foia law is the law. so why do you have to develop new rulemaking and what in the world is that going to look like? >> are you asking me a question? >> yeah. >> so the report recommended we finalize our interim foia regulation, which embodies foia

policy and guidance at the department. the rulemaking process is underway. we are preparing to issue it for public comment. after which we will review the comments varfully and the rules -- >> we will be watching that. if homeland security thinks they're going to come up with a new set of rules that's different. this is one of the frustrations. foia is what foia is. but every time you go to a different department and agency they've got a whole set of different standards. they don't have standards plug and play and operate equally. and that's a frustration. >> that's implementing regulation. it's not intended -- >> we're fascinated to see it. the other thing i'm frustrated at is this -- we talked about the squoercore card. this is put out by the department of justice. you do this evaluation and there's a color coded scheme. it's effective system in place for responding, improved timeliness in backlog reduction.

if you sat and listened to the sum testimony of today and compare it to yesterday, i mean, we had as wide away ofrray of people you could have. we had a cbs news reporter to vice, we got a wide as a swatch of people as we possibly could. there wasn't anybody that believed that in general things were going well. when you do your own score card. the department of justice, you're 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. do you 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, five for

five? do you really believe that? >> i do. >> you live in la la land. you live in fantasy land because it ain't working. you're a very nice person. i'm sure most of the people are very nice people. it ain't working. 550,000 times americans put forward a request and got a rejection saying doesn't qualify. do you think that's working? is that a presumption of openness. do you think that's proactive disclosure? i beg to differ. it's -- we're at the heart of why i think there is a problem. because you think you're doing a great job. >> we are constantly evaluating, not just how we do at -- >> you're evaluations says you have no room for improvement. >> that's not true at all. >> why do you give yourself a five out of five. >> you're not looking at -- >> yes i am. i just read the different deaths disclosures, green, all green. >> we have green for proactive

disclosures. those are making available to the public -- >> presumption of openness? >> exactly. >> effective system in place for -- >> responding to requests. >> you have an effective system. we can argue about this. i beg to differ. we had 11 12 people yesterday that absolutely differ. on a bipartisan way i don't think there's anybody that would agree with you. across the board most all of you got great scores. i just don't buy that. 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 to proactively give you the information? >> this -- what you're talking about i think is a really important improvement of foia administration. and we do have within oip the tools that are more sophisticated tools that are used in the discovery context. which allow individual e-mail

accounts to be dumped or be collected into one bucket. >> so you searched the universal index, is that right? >> well i don't think it's called the universal index. we have tools that -- >> the uni? >> we have tools that allow us to search multiple e-mail custodian simultaneously. >> do you search the electronic case files? >> we do sometimes. it depends on what -- we would only search case files if case files were relevant to a particular foia request. we have lots of different offices. what i want to emphasize is that technology is incredibly important to foia administration. and we be been at the forefront of pushing for use of more sophisticated technology that process and handle foia requests. we did a pilot at doj 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 fbi conducts a search on the -- does conduct searches on the universal index, but that system does not allow for text base searches. the fbi does not search the electronic case files. which contain uploaded versions of the bureau's records. and the electronic case file is text searchable. that's the disconnect. i don't expect you on this response to respond to that. i want you to get back to this on this specific point if you would. >> sure. >> okay. i have a few more questions but i want -- i want you to kind of each go down to line here. we went through with ms. howard here. let's go back to ms. barr. 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 concise, 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 or to the judicial branch? >> well, we have a standard process that we follow for foia. and it does include if the white house has an equity in a document that we're working on, we do consult with them as appropriate. but 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 reviewers because so much of our work deals with things overseas, for the most part, there are retired foreign service officers and some of them are either -- even the foreign ambassadors. in fact we have quite a few. they look at it, we decide where we need to search for documents. and then once we get the results of that document search back, then we go through line by line and at that point, we love 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 do you send that to? >> i'm not familiar with who exactly. >> if you could let us know, we would appreciate it.

ms. pustay? >> what can i can tell you, this memo reflects the same practice we've had administration to administration. i've been doing this for a long time. and the word equity is really just sort of a more modern term. what is captured by the memo and what has been consistent from administration to administration is that when an agency finds communications that originated with another entity, or that reflect a communication with the other entity that's when we -- an agency as a matter of good practice consults with that other entity to get their views on the sensitivity of the material. that can include of course getting their views it's okay to release the material. it's communications is what happens. the -- >> i think it's a big source of why it's so slowed down. what percentage of the information do you have to share

with the white house before you share it with us? >> i can speak just of foia requests, i don't know the percentage of requests that have -- the equity of any particular -- >> ms. neuman? >> yes, it's my understanding with respect to the white house this happens very infrequently. >> happens what? >> 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 kinds of consultations. my understanding is the kinds of requests we get don't involve quote, white house equities. of course, when the requests comes in there's -- you know if there's an indication that it is a request for white house records or white house information that would trigger the consultation. >> it doesn't. 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 the judicial branch it was a foia request. it should be shared with the white house? >> if we -- >> you're telling me you don't do that. >> i'm saying we follow doj guidelines that require consultation not only -- >> what about the white house issued guidelines? i'm reading to you the guidelines. we handed you a copy of them. this is the guideline. you don't abide by it or you do? >> we adhere to this memo in accordance with the doj guidance on that. we also report all such consultations publicly in our foia reports. so you asked a question about whether these consultations slowed down or created additional delay in the process. i've implemented procedures to try to minimize that delay associated with any consultations, including directing one -- a seener professional member of my foia team to be the point of contact for those consultation. >> they communicate with who? >> i would have to ask them.

>> we'll try mr. fontenot. >> thank you. again, i do not process specific foia requests. but treasury follows the department of justice. we consult concerning documents that originated at the agencies or in communication with the agencies. in this respect, treasury may consult with staff from the president or white house. when those documents either originate or relate to the white house. and so again we treat the white house just like any other agency related to foia. >> you are on a roll. i was believing everything you said until you said that last sentence. you're nuts if you think you're treating the white house the same you treat the bureau of indian affairs. there's no way that's happening. with all due respect we're trying to get some grip on it. we would like feedback from this. i think the director from the white house is crystal clear.

we'll continue to pursue that. well over time. i recognize the gentleman from maryland, mr. cummings. >> thank you very much. you know a lot of times i've said in these hearings and i try to figure out where we're going. and i -- you have to help me help you. i said to you a little bit earlier, ms. neuman 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. i mean, some kind of way we got to -- you know, did you all watch the testimony? did any of you watch the

testimony yesterday? any of you? hello? anybody? all right. ms. barr did you watch any of the testimony yesterday? >> 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 i was when i was preparing for the hearing. >> i watched part of the hearing. >> i watched most of it. >> and when you hear the testimony that you all gave today, compared to what we heard yesterday, it seems like a world of difference. and 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 when you've got less people than you are -- and you got more demand, you're going to have problems. i mean, period.

i also think that there is -- there are -- a lot of things that you all are doing right. i mean, doing a great job at. there are things -- some cases that are maybe a little bit more complicated, a little more controversial and so the process is slowed down a little bit. and in some instances, perhaps, a lot. and some kind -- i think -- i mean, just listening to everything that's been said between yesterday and today, that's where i come down on this. and some kind of way, we got to get past where we are. because i think we could do better. it's easy to say that we are scoring excellent in every -- this, that that, that. that ain't true, folks. it's not. some kind of way, we've got to

close this gap. 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 some kind of -- i want to say goals, but things -- whatever you're going to send us back are things you should be doing that could be better. and set some deadlines with regard to making those things happen. other than that, it's going to get worse. i'm telling you, 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 almost that you almost have to -- we have to set deadlines to get things done. and i have also noticed that a lot of times people who come

before us, they have a tendency sometimes to outwait us. they know that congress is going to change they know that we're going to move on to something else. then the next thing you know things don't get done. and then they look to the new congress and then it's worse. we just go through these circles over and over again. you have to have here for a while to see the cycle. i've seen it. so going to you, ms. barr. i want to ask a few questions. i want to clear up this thing. we are making a big deal with regard to secretary clinton, my colleague, the gentleman from south carolina mr. gowdy i have a tremendous amount of respect for, suggested we should not take secretary clinton's word for the fact she has produced all her e-mails relating to official business. he also suggests secretary clinton's lawyers do not have any duty to insure compliance with the federal records laws.

but, ms. barr, 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. >> and former secretary rice did not respond to the department herself in response to your letter last fall. she had a representative do that, that's what it says in the state department's report sent to the national archives on this issue. do you know who secretary rice's representative is? >> no, not offhand, sir. >> do you know if it's an attorney? >> i assume so, yes. >> okay. according to the report the department sent to the archives former secretary rice's representative claimed she did not use her personal e-mail 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. >> okay. 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 her personal e-mail account to find e-mails relating to official business or did he just take her word, you don't know that's your testimony? >> yes. >> let me just state for the record that when dozens of white house officials under the bush administration were using private e-mail accounts at the nrc -- rnc we worked with their attorneys to insure that they were recovering official e-mails and producing them. we did not suggest pinging their servers, we relied on them to go through their documents and produce them to us. tarns do attorneys have a legal obligation to provide us with

truthful information. this is the same process we used for virtually every investigation we conduct. again, i just -- as we close, what -- ms. howard, i take it you're getting ready to retire, is that what you're trying to tell us? are you on your way out the door today? >> no. >> how soon will you be gone? >> i don't know. i think about that all the time. >> take your time. >> like many people in irs i am eligible to retire. what keeps me working is the dedication of my employees and the professionalism 06 my colleagues at irs. >> we appreciate all of you and the employees that work with you. what can we do to improve the system? >> well i think -- >> then i'll be finished mr. chairman. this is where i want to wrap up. >> from our standpoint, we would like advanced technology. i think just to make it easier to do the searches. we would also like at irs, we

would like 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 ornther than than just foias, they're responsible for doing redactions for subpoenas information around litigation. and also for just making sure that the employees across irs who have interaction with taxpayers knows the disclosure laws and have their questions about disclosure answered. as they need on a day-to-day basis. we have those responsibilities, too. and i think the technology would go a long way. we would like additional staff. i think -- you know what we see is a trend in the complexity of requests. instead of requests being 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 scope and nature. and rely on us going to multiple custodians to find and receive -- retrieve those records. and then volumes 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. >> mr. fortuno? >> again, thank you. i mean i can obviously tell you what we have done. you know, as a department we've added resources. we've added people. you know we've added -- >> what about training? >> we've added data and we've trained 100% of our foia professionals at the department and i think that's yielding results. we've received about 14,000 requests overall last year and we closed about 14,000 as well. again, an improvement year over year. >> would you say maybe -- based

upon what you just said -- >> yes, sir. >> -- 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. again again, i think we're moving in the right direction but we can always improve. >> i appreciate the question. i have been giving it quite a bit of thought. in the case of my agency it's somewhat difficult to say right now because we are in the midst of this independent review that i have commissioned. i think it's really important that i understand what the actual systemic challenges are that are facing my agency so not only we can understand how to address those but so we can communicate back what we need. 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-year-old -- 40 plus year old statute may not have contemplated the kind of technology that's available not only to seek information but to respond to those requests and to that extent i think it's worth while considering how that -- how the statute might be updated. and otherwise i -- you know i think it's a very good question and i'm 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 my thoughts. >> i'm hoping that you all will get back to me within 30 days. yes? would you all do that please? >> certainly. >> all right. go ahead. >> certainly. >> 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. it would help us both with personnel and with i.t.

they're both inextricably intertwined. >> and training. >> and training as well. although we feel we've been doing pretty well with training with the resources we've had made available. we're encouraging agencies to do training. we're 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. training i think we have handled in the sense that we can do that now and we're continuing to focus on that. >> ms. barr? >> technology to help us quickly go through the various -- we have information all over the world with different systems. that would be helpful. 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 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 with you -- from you and working with you. i yield back. >> thank you. i thank you all to be here. i want to make a comment on the i.t. part of the equation. you know one of the -- one of the frustrations and -- is if you -- if you look at the amount of money that we pour into i.t. at the irs, it's roughly 2$2 billion per year 2 billion. now you have 90,000 employees, right? 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 -- any corporation, private sector and said, hey we're going to give you a $2 billion a year year over year we're going to keep giving you billions of dollars for your i.t. and then to have to come back later i mean we just don't understand that. it's not as if we're not pouring resources and -- into i.t. budgets. you've got billions of dollars at your disposal and every time i turn around i hear across agencies how bad it worked and we are -- i'm doing this off the top of my head, but it's something like 75 plus billion dollars a year, billion is spent on i.t. in the united states with our government. it doesn't work. and then we get data breaches. i mean we didn't even get into the data breaches that are happening at the irs. so we have got to get a grip on what is important, what is

working, what is not working and if you think that there's a database out there that can't be searched because microsoft wasn't smart enough to think about that, we've got -- we've got big, big problems. so i want to make sure that you and your staff know how much we do appreciate. it's a huge volume. you know it is supply and demand and the demand has been greatly increasing and that puts a lot of pressure on a lot of people. and i'm a huge believer that the overwhelming majority of our federal workers, they work hard they work smart they're trying to do the right thing. we're trying to do the right thing, too. so while these hearings are sometimes tough and pointed and direct and -- that's what they're supposed to do. that's the way -- that's our constitution in motion. 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 on everything and say, oh, it's all good. would he want to help solve

those problems. we're not only the oversight committee, but we're also supposed to be government reform. there will be a foia reform bill. we passed one out of the committee. i wanted to take another breath and do several panels get your perspective, the media, outside groups so we get that just right. you don't get but once every couple decades a chance to reformulate something. we're going to look back at that bill. we're going to see if we can't tighten up a number of things, maybe lessen the number of exemptions is something we have got to be able to look at and then probably speed up some of the other parts of the process so that it makes your job smoother and easier. you have all these charts and graphs and hey what can we release and not. let's do what president obama said. let's err on the side of release it. release it. and i don't think your folks in your departments and your agencies have the freedom to do that. i think they are slowed down in

what the "new york times" called, this representative, this culture that says -- and it has happened over a long period of time, not just one administration, a culture that doesn't want to make a mistake and consequently doesn't want to release it and consequently we aren't giving the american people what they paid for. we all work for them. you all work for them and we've got to be more responsive. they're telling us it's not working, and so we've got to change something. we can't just keep doing the same thing. so i think it's been a productive two days of hearings. still lots more to learn. thank you for your time and your patriotism and your dedication to the country and your government. we thank you. and this committee stands adjourned.

when congress is in session cspan 3 brings you more of the best access with congress with live coverage of hearings news conferences and key public affairs events, and every weekend it's american history tv traveling to historic sites. discussions with authors and historians, and eye witness accounts of events that defined the nation. cspan 3, coverage of congress and american history tv.

august marks the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki during world war ii. tonight on cspan 3, american history tv takes a look at the manhattan project and those directly involved. coming up next two women who worked on the project talk about their experiences. that's followed by a look at how the soviet union tried to obtain atomic secrets with the help of an american citizen. later a discussion on the role general leslie groves and physicist j. robert oppenheimer had in ensuring the manhattan project was a success. between 1942 and 1946 the manhattan project was a classified research program that produced the world's first nuclear weapon. those involved included rosemary lane who worked as