close X
06/29/2015

Cause of Action Forces U.S. Treasury to Stop Snooping on Americans

Treasury Department concedes to Cause of Action’s request to stop collecting online users’ location data

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action, a nonpartisan government accountability organization, last Thursday submitted a letter to the Treasury Department requesting it cease the unauthorized collection of users’ location data online and investigate the program. By Monday morning, the Treasury website in question no longer prompted users to allow it access to their location, marking rapid progress towards government reform, while supporting our claim the practice was indeed unauthorized.

While performing its oversight work recently, Cause of Action utilized a Bureau of the Fiscal Service (“BFS”) website under the control of the United States Department of the Treasury to conduct research. We were surprised to find that when we attempted to access the Treasury Financial Manual located at tfm.fiscal.treasury.gov, the website prompted us to allow it access to the our current location.  We were presented with a message stating the website “wants to track [the user’s] physical location,” and required us to choose to allow the Treasury Department to access our location or to not allow.

“When a government agency uses taxpayer dollars to collect private information about the people they serve, and does so without any apparent authority, we must take every action available to reign in this abuse of executive power,” Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein said. “While we commend the agency for quietly stopping this practice, our work continues to find out all the details about the agency’s unwarranted data collection.”

Cause of Action believes that the location access request by Bureau of the Fiscal Service constituted an unwarranted invasion of privacy, could discourage individuals from accessing government information, and was unlawful under applicable statutes, regulations, guidance, and policy. We are concerned that BFS was collecting data on the location of website users without any proper authority.

Read More Here

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR FOIA REQUEST

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION

Press Release Learn More
06/26/2015

The Government is STILL Watching You

Cause of Action demands the Treasury Department stop collecting user location data online

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action, a nonpartisan government accountability organization, has submitted a letter to the Treasury Department requesting it cease the unauthorized collection of users’ location data online and investigate the program. Additionally, CoA has requested all relevant information on this data collection through a Freedom of Information Act.

While performing its oversight work recently, Cause of Action utilized a Bureau of the Fiscal Service (“BFS”) website under the control of the United States Department of the Treasury to conduct research.

We were surprised to find that when we attempted to access the Treasury Financial Manual located at tfm.fiscal.treasury.gov, the website prompted us to allow it access to the our current location.  We were presented with a message stating the website “wants to track [the user’s] physical location,” and required us to choose to allow the Treasury Department to access our location or to not allow.

“In light of an unprecedented data breach at the Office of Personnel Management that affected as many as 18 million people, and the subsequent White House cover-up, it goes without saying this new discovery of more government data collection is incredibly troubling,” Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein said. “We have dedicated ourselves to finding out what is going on behind the government curtain and continue to be amazed at the woefully failed White House pledge to run the ‘most transparent’ administration in U.S. history.”

Cause of Action believes that the location access request by Bureau of the Fiscal Service constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy, could discourage individuals from accessing government information, and is unlawful under applicable statutes, regulations, guidance, and policy. We are concerned that BFS is collecting data on the location of website users without any proper authority.

Cause of Action has requested that the Treasury Department cease the unauthorized collection of information at tfm.fiscal.treasury.gov, review the propriety of this collection of information, and submit this matter to the Office of the Inspector General for investigation.

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR FOIA REQUEST

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION

Press Release Learn More
06/24/2015

Top Export-Import Bank Official Deleted His Text Messages After We Asked For Them

WASHINGTON — As the Export-Import Bank fights to renew its charter this week, it will also have to contend with a new lawsuit we filed today after learning that a senior bank official destroyed federal records.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, our organization discovered that Ex-Im’s Chief of Staff, Scott Schloegel, deleted text messages he sent and received during the week of last year’s election.

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR COMPLAINT

On November 14, 2014, Cause of Action submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to Ex-Im. The request sought text messages, Blackberry messenger chats and SMS messages sent or received by top officials during the period of days between November 2, 2014 and November 8, 2014.

Ex-Im received our FOIA request on November 20, 2014, yet it did not respond to us until May 12, 2015, nearly six months later.

In its response, Ex-Im said, “the messages for Scott P. Schloegel were accidentally deleted on approximately January 1, 2015.” In one of the documents produced to us, Schloegel states in a signed declaration that he “deleted, by mistake, the messages on . . . [his] phone for the period in question.”

The date of Schloegel’s signed statement was March 27, 2015 — over four months after the Bank received our request for his records.

Due to Schloegel’s destruction of records, we have filed a legal complaint against the Bank. The complaint calls on Ex-Im, and the National Archives and Records Administration, to ask the Justice Department and/or Congress to initiate action to recover the deleted messages.

Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein issued the following statement:

“The fact that a top official at the Export-Import Bank deleted his text messages several weeks after our organization asked to see them raises serious questions. Furthermore, it’s puzzling that it took the Bank another four months to let us know that this happened. The public deserves to know what their government is up to, and we will work tirelessly to continue to hold these federal agencies accountable.”

The full list of officials whose records we sought includes:

  • President and Chairman Fred Hochberg
  • Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff Scott Schloegel
  • Deputy Chief of Staff Gaurab Bansal
  • Senior Vice President of Communications Bradley Carroll
  • Senior Vice President of Congressional Affairs Erin Gulick
Press Release Learn More
06/17/2015

Cause of Action Launches Investigation Into The Justice Department’s Settlements With Large Financial Firms

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action (CoA), a nonpartisan strategic oversight group committed to ensuring that discretionary decision-making is accountable, transparent and fair, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking clarity from the Justice Department on its legal authority to enter into financial settlements and arbitrarily allocate settlement funds.

Additionally, CoA is petitioning the Treasury and Justice Departments to show how the bank settlements comply with the Miscellaneous Receipts Act and the Government Corporation Control Act.

Click here to view the FOIA and the petition for rule making

Last August, the Department of Justice entered into a record $16.65 billion settlement with Bank of America, marking the agency’s largest victory against major banks that sold residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) prior to the 2008 financial crisis. Related settlements reached with Citigroup and JP Morgan brought the total DOJ victory against these three banks to a whopping $36.65 billion.

Typically, settlement funds are directed to the Treasury for appropriation by Congress. Of that nearly $37 billion dollars in settlement funds, the Justice Department has directed $13.5 billion to consumer relief efforts and third-party consumer groups – that’s more than the entire IRS budget in FY2014.

For example, provisions of the BofA settlement require the bank to pay at least $20 million to housing counseling agencies approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and at least $50 million to Community Development Financial Institutions certified by the Treasury Department.

The payouts raise the question of whether the Justice Department has the legal authority to enter into these colossal settlements, and distribute funds to unrelated third parties instead of victims aggrieved by the Banks’ actions.

Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein issued the following statement:

“Lacking accountability and proven effectiveness, when the government forces economic redistributions through discretionary grants, it not only hinders long-term social change, it encourages waste fraud and abuse by grant recipients who are not held accountable for protecting the poor versus protecting themselves.”

Policy experts have written and testified before Congress expressing their concern that the settlements impermissibly settle claims of DOJ and other agencies, improperly distribute funds to unrelated third parties, and do not ensure that the funds DOJ and third parties receive are used to redress the harms identified in the settlements.

To date, the Justice Department has failed to identify any legal authority allowing itself to arbitrarily mandate these measures. Absent regulatory guidance, federal agencies are required to go through the rulemaking process, which the Justice Department has not done.

During a recent House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law hearing, Epstein testified that the “Bank of America settlements were not subject to notice and comment. These were unelected officials engaging in decision-making that the public had no stake in.”

Responding to inquiry from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), Epstein noted, “in the case of Bank of America, that settlement agreement was never approved by a court. As you pointed out in your arguments about arbitration, you actually believe in a very robust court system. Yet that robust court system has nothing to do with the programs and policies that have been discussed here today.”

To ensure that government decision-making is transparent and fair in order to protect against the misuse of tax dollars and arbitrary abuses of discretion by the unelected, Cause of Action has requested access to the following documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act:

  • All records referring or relating to DOJ’s authority to agree to the Consumer Relief Donation Provisions of the RMBS Settlements.
  • All records referring or relating to DOJ’s authority to assume the contractual claims/settlement terms of the FDIC and SEC.
  • All records referring or relating to DOJ’s authority to enter into and/or reasons to execute the RMBS Settlements without notice and comment rulemaking.
  • All communications within DOJ, and/or between DOJ and any of the following: a) Bank of America; b) Citigroup; c) JP Morgan; d) FDIC; e) SEC; f) HUD; g) Treasury; h) the White House; i) the RMBS Working Group; and j) the states of California, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York, regarding the RMBS Settlements.  You may limit the scope of this search to communications referring or relating to “Operation ChokePoint”, “CDFI”, HUD-approved housing counsel*”, “Neighborworks”, “Home Affordable Mortgage Program” and “HAMP”.
  • All records referring or relating to DOJ’s authority to bind private parties to comply with HAMP by entering into the RMBS Settlements.
  • All records referring or relating to (a) Huduser.org; (b) OMB Circular A-25; (c) the Chief Financial Officers Act; (d) the Anti-Deficiency Act; (e) “publicity or propaganda”; (f) the Colorado Division of Housing; (g) Empire Justice Center; (h) Center for New York City Neighborhoods.  You may limit the scope of this search to records concerning the Consumer Relief Donation Provisions.
Press Release Learn More
06/4/2015

Documents Obtained by Cause of Action Show that Officials Worried About Hillary’s Emails But Took No Action

Earlier this year, Cause of Action sought documents from the State Department OIG and the National Archives and Record Administration (“NARA”) regarding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to conduct official State Department business.

The State Department OIG claimed that there were no responsive documents to our FOIA requests from Harold Geisel’s tenure as the department’s Acting Inspector General.

[Letter from Erich O. Hart, General Counsel, Dep’t of State OIG to Cause of Action (May 15, 2015)]

NARA, however, confirmed that responsive OIG records existed, though it claimed exemption(s) over any such document(s).

[PDF pp. 1-2: Letter from Joseph A. Scanlon, FOIA Officer, NARA to Cause of Action (May 20, 2015)]

Emails show that, as early as 2012, NARA officials were concerned that Mrs. Clinton might alienate federal records from government control.

[PDF p. 3: E-mail from Paul M. Wester, Jr., Chief Records Officer, NARA to Margaret Hawkins, NARA, et al. (Dec. 11, 2012)]

By 2012, the State Department had replaced its outdated cable communication system with the State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset (“SMART”), which “contains an email management component for capturing record email.”

[Politico: Dep’t of State, Summary Current State of Records Management at the State Department, at 2 (Mar. 27, 2012) http://images.politico.com/global/2015/03/18/statenara2012.pdf]

SMART is supposed to operate so that when “Department personnel send cables and record emails, a copy of the message is automatically sent to the Department’s official archive, which is an enterprise-wide electronic repository.”

[Politico: Dep’t of State, Summary Current State of Records Management at the State Department, at 2 (Mar. 27, 2012) http://images.politico.com/global/2015/03/18/statenara2012.pdf]

Since 2009, however, NARA consistently identified problems with the SMART system as a permanent recordkeeping system at the State Department, but no action was taken to address the issues.

[PDF p. 148: Email from David Langbart, NARA to Michael Kurtz, NARA (Nov. 2, 2009) (discussing major problems with SMART’s technical handling of email attachments)]

NARA also was aware of the failures across the State Department to retain record emails.

[PDF p. 152: Email from David Langbart, NARA to Michael Kurtz, NARA (Jan. 22, 2010) (discussing problems with State employees not properly using SMART’s “record email” retention function)]

Despite this awareness, NARA, under then-acting IG James E. Springs, failed to secure Mrs. Clinton’s emails in July 2014, although it had the opportunity, as implied in meeting notes between NARA and State.

[PDF pp. 54-57: NARA – State Dep’t Meeting Notes, eRSC Meeting (July 14, 2014) (noting that rollout should “move in to [deputy secretary] on to the Office of the Secretary” and “[a]ll submitted to NARA by Dec. 2016”; explaining that senior officials’ emails serve as a “catchers mitt” to preserve departing officials emails)]

During that same July 2014 meeting between NARA and State, NARA notes, “program office using gmail with no r/k system — Must be maintained in r/k system *which should be the eRSC*” The handwritten notes even indicate, “adoption of Google Aps at DOI has almost been a total disaster.”

[PDF p. 53: NARA – State Dep’t Meeting Notes, eRSC Meeting (July 14, 2014)]

In October 2014, NARA had reason to know that the State Department was seeking a legal justification for noncompliance with applicable regulations relating to email records.

[PDF p. 58: Email from William P. Fischer, Agency Records Officer, Office of Info. Programs & Servs., Dep’t of State to Lisa Haralampus, NARA, et al. (Oct. 20, 2014) (Former NARA official W. Fischer seeking “to ensure that whatever we say is consistent with law and regulation” with respect to a “Draft Email Policy”);

[PDF p. 59:  Email from Paul M. Wester, Jr., Chief Records Officer, NARA to Gary M. Stern, Gen. Counsel, NARA, et al. (Mar. 2, 2015) (forwarding discussions about Clinton’s email use, reflecting concerns about Mr. Fischer’s attempt to justify what was later to be disclosed as Clinton’s potential alienation or destruction of federal records).

In February 2015, weeks before news emerged revealing Hillary Clinton had been using a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State, the State Department sent a memo to NARA that would suggest State and NARA were both aware of email preservation issues with State Department Senior Officials.

The memo alerted NARA that the State Department had recently issued guidelines “reminding [Senior Officials] of their overall records management responsibilities, including e-mail, and issued a directive to preserve electronically the e-mail of Senior Officials upon their departure from the Department.”

[Letter from DOS Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to NARA Archivist David Ferrerio (February 2, 2015)  http://foia.state.gov/_docs/Records/FY2014%20Senior%20Agency%20Official%20for%20Records%20Management%20Annual%20Report.pdf]

Given NARA’s stated concerns with SMART, its knowledge in 2012, its opportunity to remedy in 2014, and its knowledge of the State Department’s efforts to remedy the process in February 2015, NARA either was aware of the failure to preserve Hillary Clinton’s emails or was extremely negligent in its efforts to monitor the preservation of senior officials’ emails.

Press Release Learn More
06/2/2015

Dan Epstein Discusses Recently Uncovered Government Documents That Reveal Critical Faults with the Federal Records Archiving System

Tonight on Fox News’ Special Report, Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein will speak with Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen about recently uncovered government documents that reveal critical faults with the federal records archiving system during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

Internal agency documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests submitted to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) show that as early as 2012, officials were concerned the State Department’s maintenance of Clinton’s official emails could be in violation of the Federal Records Act, yet they did nothing to prevent this breach of federal law.

The urgent need for permanent Inspector Generals at executive agencies has been recently highlighted by revelations that Clinton exclusively used a private email system for official government business.

Agencies are required to collect, retain, and preserve federal records, which provide the Administration, Congress, and the public with a history of public policy execution and its results. However, internal emails show that since 2009, NARA consistently identified problems with the State Department’s retention policy but failed to take any remedial actions to prevent the loss of critical records.

Knowing the deficiencies at State Department, internal meeting notes reveal that NARA, under the direction of then-acting IG James Springs, still failed to secure Clinton’s emails in July 2014 although it had the opportunity to do so.

Months later, emails show, NARA officers highlighted concern over an attempt made by the State Department to find a legal justification for their failure to adhere to record maintenance mandates.

Given NARA’s long-term knowledge of deficiencies with the State Department’s records system and its lost opportunity to fix the problem in 2014, the agency was either aware of the failure to preserve Clinton’s emails or was extremely negligent in overseeing the general preservation of senior officials’ emails.

Epstein Testifying Before Senate Committee

During Clinton’s entire tenure, the State Department’s acting IG was Harold Geisel. In 2013, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs sent letters to Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama noting that the “gap of more than 1,840 days is the longest vacancy of any of the 73 Inspector General positions across the federal government.”

On Wednesday June 3rd, Dan Epstein will appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee to discuss the critical need for permanent Inspector Generals within our nation’s federal agencies to serve as watchdogs and prevent this precise lack of oversight from happening again.

Press Release Learn More
05/27/2015

Cause of Action Sues the Justice Department For Information On Tax Detail Program

Cause of Action, a nonprofit government accountability organization, recently discovered that the Department of Justice has been placing their Tax Division attorneys, some of whom have worked directly on the IRS targeting scandal, in the White House to provide legal advice to the President.

Having found no evidence of agency policies in place to safeguard against confidential tax information being shared with the wrong people, this practice of DOJ attorneys being detailed at the White House is alarmingly urgent.

In April, Cause of Action submitted several Freedom of Information Act requests and sent a letter to the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. These documents sought answers to whether appropriate legal and ethical safeguards are in place at both the Office of White House Counsel, as well as the DOJ, to ensure that detailed attorneys are appropriately screened to prevent confidential taxpayer returns and/or return information protected under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code from being unlawfully accessed or disclosed.

Having received no response from the government since our April requests, Cause of Action on Tuesday filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service.

As the complaint states, CoA is seeking the release of records relating to how the federal government protects Americans’ private tax information when government attorneys have the power to access and disclose that information. These records have been requested and improperly withheld by the Internal Revenue Service and United States Department of Justice.

“Given the IRS’ track record of failing to protect confidential tax information, this lack of agency oversight is a threat to our privacy and democracy,” said Cause of Action President Dan Epstein. “Ethical and legal protocols at these agencies should be held to the highest standards, especially when government attorneys are accessing confidential taxpayer return information while intermittently leaving to work in the White House.”

The case number is 15-cv-00770.

[Read the Complaint below]

 

ECF No. 1 5.26.2015 Complaint

ECF No. 1-1 5.26.2015 Exhibits 1-15 to Complaint

Press Release Learn More