Cause of Action, along with MuckRock News and National Security Counselors, have submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Federal Trade Commission seeking to determine whether agency employees may be attempting to shield government records.
The FOIA specifically seeks “access to all records referring or relating to, but not maintained or hosted on, the domain name ftcexchange.com.”
The existence of this domain was recently confirmed via emails obtained by MuckRock showing that FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez lobbied former Sen. Jay Rockefeller to delay important FOIA reform legislation late last year. MuckRock requested those emails based on a tip from Cause of Action.
The emails show not only how the FTC lobbied aggressively against transparency reform, but also that Jeanne Bumpus, the FTC’s congressional liaison, used a non-government email account, ftcexchange.com, to lobby the FTC.
“While this revelation may come as a shock to some, opacity at the FTC is nothing new to us,” said Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein.
On a related note, Cause of Action is currently defending LabMD, a cancer detection facility that is being targeted by the FTC. Throughout our efforts, the FTC has failed to fully cooperate with our requests to view agency communications regarding the case.
