caller: freedom of information act, at what . will it kick in. to me that the american people will never learn about what documents will have. guest: the freedom of information act is always an effect. records having to do with the assassination are among the most requested and most saw after. more relevant is whether there are other additional documents that have been classified that will become declassified in the future that you could access to the national archives. i deal with those questions. when you look at finding new information, the declassification process is more likely to show was something new about that. host: matt says -- guest: that is a great question. there are lots of ways that foia needs to change. one of them is is possible for the process of submitting requests and getting responses to be much more efficient. if you look in england and the u.k., they have a website called what do they know. any citizen can submit a request to the website and the e-mail and send it directly to the right government representative and when th

not impossible for certainly the public in the the attorneys to get in fact when i file a freedom of information act request for these medical records i'm basically told it's a privacy issue and i would be invading the privacy of the detainees in terms of obtaining them so there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered because we just don't know the answer any idea how many detainees were a subject of this and where exactly this goes on. this was happening at guantanamo at prisons in iraq and afghanistan. is named and what one detainees called the prison of darkness in kabul. so the report looked at the inspector general for the department of defense looked at sixteen hundred interrogation plans covering four hundred eleven detainees it's unclear again how many detainees this this involved in terms of the you know the medications that they were given but the report does say you know many detainees i do want to point out though that the report also says that as a matter of government policy they could not substantiate the investigation could not substantiate as a matter of government polic

our freedom of information act request identified those bonuses of $10,000 and up. the government payroll records don't record those bonuses at all. if not for that 9 wants to know freedom of information act request, those numbers may have never come out. i'm investigative reporter, 9news now. >> now, we go to the controversy over the lengthy power outages following the storm. a montgomery county council member now pushing for the maryland governor, martin o'malley, to fire the whole public service commission. at large councilman hans has started an online petition for his cause and in it, he says only the psc can change pepco and only the governor can change the psc. he admits this storm was the worse yet, but he points to long outages during storms in past years and right after hurricane isabel in 2003. so far, more than 3100 people have signed on to that petition. so, it is gone from hammering pepco to calling for the heads of the regulators. is it all too much? shouldn't they get a break considering how much damage was caused by that rare and powerful storm a few

exactly the report was classified and we followed freedom of information act requests actually my colleague jeffrey kaye who is the lead reporter on the story he filed the freedom of information act requests i filed what's known as a mandatory declassification review we wanted to get the you know the ball rolling in the hopes of getting it out there sooner but it's it's very interesting in terms of the timing when it was released the report makes notes that jose padilla who is the u.s. citizen was declared an enemy combatant held at the u.s. naval brig in south carolina that he was the subject of a deliberate ruse in which he was told by his interrogators that a routine flu shot with truth was truth serum so what happened there is that you know jose pedia sued donald rumsfeld other bush administration officials for his treatment and torture the supreme court recently rejected that his attorney did not have this report did not have this evidence when they took this case to the supreme court or even to the court the various the lower courts court of appeals which rejected it had they had this

our freedom of information act requests identified those bonuses of $10,000 and up. government play role records don't record those bonuses at all. if not for that 9 wants to know freedom of information act request, those numbers may have never come out. i'm investigator reporter russ ptacek, 9news now. >>> now to utah a bizarre suicide case in which the killer try to steal an airplane. he killed his ex-girlfriend in colorado and today he tried to make a get away. he climbed a fence in utah, boarded a 50 passenger jet and started the engine. the plane crashed into parked cars. when police got there, they found him dead of a gunshot wound. >>> we move on to campaign 2012 tonight where mitt romney now trying to get back on the offensive after days of president obama slamming him for his business record. romney told the crowd mr. obama funneled federal grants to companies that he says belong to big democrating sfourtters and donors. -- supporters and donors. >> that kind of capitalism does not create jobs and it does not create jobs here. >> at a fundraiser in san antoni

investigative reporting, the freedom of the commission act is -- the freedom of information i is important to that. a lot of commercial stories seem to make it to the top. guest: i think it is an interesting question and something we have thought about at the bbc quite a lot. the freedom of information act in america, many american journalists i know get frustrated with it. it can take years for a request to come through. the great thing is is based on the presumption that information is available unless there is a good reason for it not to be. over the years, it was almost the reverse in countries like britain. information was kept unless there was a recent to release it. i think the last labor government brought it in 10 years ago or so. interestinginterest thin things is that the bbc is held to account by the facts. people can ask where the license fees go. we have numerous questions. i will be asked how many people we're sending to the u.s. presidential elections, how much it costs, which tells the state in. there are safeguards which enable us to protect journalists to get on with the

when we used the freedom of information act, we go asking for documents that we don't know exist, and so we used the freedom of information act as a democracy's x-ray, how do we get documents that we need, questions, hunches, based on conduct of what we've seen already when the fbi's been tracking young muslim men between the ages of 18 and 33 asking to come in for a voluntary fingerprinting and photographing, mapping out mosques. we had a hunch that they had to some training material works that were going to be troubling and problematic, and lamentbly our hunches were borne out. i think, frankly, one thing that the fbi has to do, that i would encourage, director muller is a man with whom we have great disagreements. we have sued him dozens of times, but for the record he's a man of enormous credibility. he's probably the men in the justice department, both under the bush and obama teams and whom i have the greatest regard and respect sine qua non and i would encourage you and him to take up more active perceptions on the threat assessments which is only the tip of the iceberg. the at

when we used the freedom of information act we go asking for documents that we don't know exist. and so we used the freedom of information act as democracy's x-ray. how to get documents that we need. that questions, hunches, based on conduct of what we've seen already when the fbi's been tracking young muslim men between the ages of 18 and 33 asking them to come in for voluntary fingerprinting, photographing, mapping out mosques. we had a hunch they had to have some training materials that were going to be troubling and problematic. and lamentably our hunches were borne out. i think, frankly, one thing that the fbi needs to -- i would encourage, and director mueller is a man with whom we have great disagreements. we've sued him dozens of times,

army criminal investigative command has responded to a freedom of information act request and as it turns out the u.s. army is actually investigating the bradley manning support network which is a national international group that advocates to help out manning said twenty four year old private first class was accused of leaking documents to wiki leaks eight hundred days behind bars almost still no trial and do a lot of people in this group the bradley manning support network i mean we're talking about like journalist journalist honestly little civilian people who you know pay pal five dollars just to go to his defense fund yes pretty much anyone you know thousands of people who are just you know trying to encourage real transparency in the united states it's no big deal so they're under investigation by the u.s. army and they won't say a what they're investigating or for how long it will be investigating or when it will and but if you go to our two dot com slash usa you can see the file there go through the stories read more about manning aren't all that ok all right artie producer and he

. >> this is the freedom of information act. >>> rodeo bull is safe and being trapped for hours in thecounty. you can see the rescue there. >> that bull was up to its next in water and it took four hours to sedate it and hoist the 2200 bull out of 7 feet of water. >> well, just ahead. >> they are seeing something different about apple computers. >> you will hear about it in two and a half minutes. . >>> you can see the dow is up 62 points. it is holding strong despite the weaker homes report. >> this is the world of finance and social media will be watching closely as it put out the first earnings report since going public. >> they have been on debut since may. >> options analyst believe facebook is in for another wild ride tomorrow when the earnings report comes out. they are predicting a possible high of 32 and a low of 24. >> well, today. it plans to release the operating system. mountain lion, it will make mac computers work more like eye phones and ipads and that's what microsoft is doing with it's soft wear. >> it is sold as a download. >> the new home for the 49er assist beginni

but our freedom of information act request showed he wasn't alone and it went on for years. received 33,880 in a bonus in 2009. 15,500 in 2010, and another 22,000 in 2009 followed by 10,000 in 2010. of the most recent bonuses, documents uncovered by 9 wants to know 6700 high ranking officials splitting more than half a million in bonus money. all between $8,000 and $10,000 a piece. today's announcement would eliminate 85% of that. acting administrator said quote, i believe that these immediate changes will help the agency achieve better clarity about our compensation and hiring process as we continue to bring the maximum level of efficiency and effectiveness to the work we do every day. >> still, there are a lot of bonus questions. gsa has not answered. identified those 10,000 and up bonuses, but government records released don't record them at all. so this hasn't shown up anywhere else if it wasn't for that request from 9 wants to know, it's unlikely anyone would know about those 67 bonuses. >> now 85% of these officials will have their bonuses cut. >> they are going away. i

i am alive in part because of freedom of information act requests filed in the 1980's before we even had the drug a.z.t.. filed to find out about clinical trials on experimental drugs at the national institutes of health. once we had the information, we were then able to look for the similar drugs for sale either in europe or down in mexico. i mention this because for me, sunshine, open government, access to public records, and enforcement of the laws for those public foyers is a life and death matter in some situations. having said that, i would like to address the terrible undermining of the sunshine ordinance task force by supervisor scott weiner in the past couple of months. he has removed extremely qualified people from the task force and, unfortunately, he has replaced them with certain members who admit in public that they are unqualified to be sitting on that panel. after supervisor weiner installed todd david, the first task force meeting happened and i was at that meeting and asked todd david and was captured on camera and it's on youtube, what are your qualifications? and h

in a unique position, part of the appraisal industry and a long-term tenant, through the freedom of information act i have gotten the operating contract that was entered into. as part of the contract and your special provisions, it is for all boating and waterways loans that the agency shall review charges of public and privately owned facilities in the general area and shall set rates that are sufficient and reduce gross income payment and other evidence of indebtedness as described. by contract, they are required by contract to do this a minimum of once per year to set their rates to in essence balance the budget. under market rate, they have been raised sufficiently. on the record, david paterson is an excellent appraiser with an excellent reputation when it comes to real estate appraisals. i would suggest that this is probably his first on slip rental fees. i would like in it to rent for apartments. south beach lists the current rent at about one and a half months old. 15 of these arenas are public. one of the reasons that i find mr. tattersall's reports flawed, in his analysis statement, he sa

of information the aclu obtained? >> sure. thank you for the question. >> the aclu freedom of information act to find out how the statute had been immremed and all of the records are now we've made them available on our website, but the records show, among other things, that the government has repeatedly violated minimization and targeting rules. and at least some of those violations resulted in the collection of americans' communications. there have also been violations of the targeting restriction against directing surveillance from americans. in some cases, americans have been targeted inappropriately and unlawfully. there was also at least one occasion in which the fisa court apparently got so frustrated with the executives' repeated violations that the court ordered the justice department to provide reports every 90 days to explain compliance issues, and on the one hand i think that's the sign that the fisa court sometimes does have the authority to do what they want them to do, on the other hand it raises real concerns about whether we can trust the executive branch to police these limitations, and i think that we have at

the banks right well after the tarp money in two thousand and eight mayor bloomberg did a freedom of information act and discovered that in addition to the seven hundred billion that hank paulson got for his friends on wall street also got sixteen seventeen trillion foras friends on wall street and also the banks in europe now this is basically what we've been saying now for a while in that the the willingness to add here to the generally accepted accounting principles anywhere in the world is now out the window the solution all was is to simply create a new funding vehicle to roll up risa cura ties a create a bigger debt burden on the same diminishing level of collateral and make up the difference through austerity measures so this is just another one of those tricks right exactly and they've got a limited amount of. it is not letting where you're at the system unless of course they lend it i mean they did do a trillion dollars recently or a trillion euro. to the banks but these were at one percent banks which would then lend to the government so you know i was there i. bet there's a limit on the a

are victims when they work for the hotel chain and nearly four years after changes to the freedom of information act first went to a into effect it's finally happening the f.b.i. now willing to abide by a little known provision in the law that requires all government agencies to provide records of investigations to anyone who requests the documents so what took so long for this to happen next week will question more well those are just a few of the stories we have in store for you next week along with more news and in-depth interviews so keep it tuned in right here to our team that's going to do it for now check out our you tube channel youtube dot com slash r t america you can also follow.

currently has two lawsuits under the freedom of information act seeking information about the cia's use of drones to targeted killings and out these three killings of u.s. citizens issue in this other lawsuit and the government claims that it can either confirm or deny whether the cia even has a targeted killing program or whether the government was responsible for. the public statements the president and leon panetta and others have made acknowledging this program. well i mean we've been covering all those stories here on the show you know and so if you ask me it's always crazy the way that the courts actually side with the how do you think of us applies to you know not only are we looking at constitutional violations because all of these people were american citizens but can you manage to make an argument here about international law you know about what our use of drone strikes abroad what counts as a war zone anymore really isn't in this particular legal battle. yes absolutely we're representing the families of three u.s. citizens and really the only legal relevance that citizenship

ignoring the evidence or lying i mean in australia actually australian journalists issued a freedom of information act request in their own country for australian diplomat diplomatic cables different in the wiki leaks cables about their conversations with the us and their investigation into a songe and base the cables ended up coming back to them saying exactly what we've been saying for eighteen months now it's of the u.s. is involved in an expansive investigation to go after a songe among other charges with conspiracy to commit espionage and not only that if we don't want to believe the australian diplomatic cables we can just believe the justice department which said on friday that the wiki leaks matter an investigation is ongoing so the idea that this investigation is a figment of his imagination just doesn't comport with the facts yeah certainly this is a story that is developing and changing almost on a daily basis appreciate having you come on the show to weigh in trevor temp with the electronic frontier foundation thanks for having me. all right well the tough economy and the stagnant rate of

my first reaction when i saw that is, if i want one of those, i have to go through the freedom of information act to do it. is that a little bit unfair to the outside world, that you can get something declassified that i couldn't? >> new yorko, i wouldn't think . for example u.s. ambassador to nato back in 1973, '4. and there's -- there are certain things where they just declassify after a certain period. and i was president reagan's middle east envoy in the 1980s, and as i talk about in the book, meeting with saddam hussein and those things. a great, large fractions of those things are automatically declassified. and then we had a number of the things that i dictated, of course, classified only because they were time sensitive and i classified them originally. and the pentagon does this in the normal course of things and they have. >> i i have bunch of coves sitting if my lap, good and bad, of your book. to start with, who made the decision to give the first interviews to abc? >> oh -- >> and why? >> i don't know why. i suppose various networks indicated they'd like to do it and then the publish

the video was released as part of a request through the freedom of information act. trainer deep under water. he only suffered a broken foot and he is still working at sea world. >> speaking of water creatures, any marine biologists would be proud to discover a new species of shark. >> imagine if you found eight new species? he did so after spending two months studying in the indian ocean. the next task is to study the life history and impact on the environment around them. >> sharks have not been explored as much as we think because they are in the deep sea and it took us like one week to get out there >> he is carrying on extensive measurements on the sharks. his reward for the task, he gets to name all the species. >> we have a lot of low clouds and fog around the bay area. spreading inland now at about 1,500 ft. so we see delays of about one hour for minutes at sfo. as we head throughout the day we still have some great weather coming our way. as we had throughout the day we will see mostly sunny skies inside the bay and the valleys. fog will stick around the coa

that you were talking about that came out earlier this week also says you know the the freedom of information act requests that were put through by michael moore and others have determined that the white house actually was being kept informed that there was that recording to get nation about pressing the. occupy movement and so the white house was very much involved and certainly no they're just not saying anything about they are right bonding to the requests have been made by the u.n. weapon ter regard that's been there for months now regarding the treatment the treatment occupiers and the suppression of first amendment rights so they're not saying anything but they certainly have said things behind the scenes and were certainly kept aware and were involved in coordinating statements that were made about what was happening so their silence is sort of we just don't take responsibility for it but we you know you can't say that they aren't really only responsible you know while person i'd like to hear a little bit more from this administration in that regard now you know i want to i want to change

feel their presence as they could when they're flying above their heads and you know our freedom of information act lawsuit showed that actually a few dozen law enforcement agencies already have authorizations and they're going to try to get more and homeland security at the same time as giving them free money to buy these this technology and there's no doubt that law enforcement are going to be using them and it's important for people to know that sooner of later absolutely as you say if nothing else to to let their lawmakers unlock their local officials know that this is something they're concerned about trevor tam activist at the electronic friend frontier foundation joining us from san francisco california. well you don't have to look far to know that we are fake into a very contentious and expensive political season with of course the presidential campaign not to mention all the contests for local and state lawmakers as well as those running for u.s. senate and congress and one thing that you hear time and time again especially from those long time politicians is that things have never been so

reveals that the government is doing just that the report which was made public thanks to a freedom of information act request shows that military prisoners are prisoners excuse me in military custody or forced to take powerful mind altering drugs here's how the lead investigative reporter for truthout dot org jason leopold summed it up . in the case of one detainees that we identified in the report. you know he said that his interrogator essentially asked him. or he confessed to his interrogator that he was a member of al qaida and we also know that this detained he was injected with how do all we also know from the report that the inspector general determined that this detainees was diagnosed as borderline with borderline personality disorder schizophrenia and psychotic and after he made this confession while he was on these while he was on this anti-psychotic they kept locked up in guantanamo for three more years it was jason leopold lead investigative reporter for truthout dot org and an update now to this story in response to these recent allegations the pentagon sends out a new report claiming t

that's according to the documents that fox news obligated through freedom of information act request with the general services administration. the documents show over the past six years the gsa has lost or did not keep records on a number of events. while dozens other show travel costs that are similar to the las vegas convention. >> and then, mr. hot tub the former general services administration executive, he live the g.s.a. in the wake of the scandal. and now, doug has the news in washington, dc. the yens were supposed to be work-related? >>reporter: they are supposed to be but look at that g.s.a. conference. it is called a team building exercise but employees were making noise to the inspirational words of a facilitator. >> listen to each other. accountability. to the back beat. >>reporter: no know if they kept their integrity but they got cash, they got to keep that. our freedom of information revealed 75 pages of g.s.a. employees, 50 on every page, who received cash awards at this conference averaging $1,000 each. the cost to taxpayers? $3.6 million minus the $104,000 for the co

audrey tucker obtained documents through the freedom of information act she believes are proof that theederal aviation fast tracked the project despite safety concerns that the 400 foot turbine would be a danger to commercial auf wiedersehen yags. >> we have at the federal and saturd stated level a strong green agenda. this project is an example a green agenda at any cost and deserves the scrutiny of congressional investigation. >> cliff sterns who led the investigation surrounding the taxpayer supported solyndra is calling for the probe. cape wind spokesperson says despite the concerns raised bio opponents the project has been heavily vetted. >> cape wind has been through the most comprehensive review of any in the northeast u.s. if we are on any sort of fast track i hate to see the slow track. >> after the u.s. court of appeals overturned the agency's ruling last september that the turbines posed no hazard to aviation. they believe they will rule cape wind regardless of pressure from the public. >>> it is 48 minutes after the top of the hour. still ahead skip the trip to the doctor's

ago and you had a guest on happened to be the celebration of the 46th anniversary of the freedom of information act. and the gentleman represented the sun shine foundation and callers were calling in trying to get information as to the freedom of information act and how to apply to get information about different people and their backgrounds and at one point it came around to the point your guest stated that one way to avoid the freedom of information act was to do pretty much what mitt romney did when he left office. he simply destroyed all of his records so it would become impossible to research any of his time in office. i just wonder if that statement was true. and is there any other way to back it up? >> what do you think? do you think the statement was true or not? >> i mean, that's the first time i had ever heard of it. but watching mitt romney on tv and all the ads and everything people are interestd in his financial affairs and he seems to very secretive it wouldn't surprise me. host: let's look at some of the other headlines. back to your calls. 100 days before election day. good morning.