Tag: police state

The Foilies 2022

Each year during Sunshine Week (March 13-19), The Foilies serve up tongue-in-cheek “awards” for government agencies and assorted institutions that stand in the way of access to information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock combine forces to collect horror stories about Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state-level public records requests from journalists and transparency advocates across the United States and beyond. Our goal is to identify the most surreal document redactions, the most aggravating copy fees, the most outrageous retaliation attempts, and all the other ridicule-worthy attacks on the public’s right to know.

And every year since 2015, as we’re about to crown these dubious winners, something new comes to light that makes us consider stopping the presses.

As we were writing up this year’s faux awards, news broke that officials from the National Archives and Records Administration had to lug away boxes upon boxes of Trump administration records from Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private resort. At best, it was an inappropriate move; at worst, a potential violation of laws governing the retention of presidential records and the handling of classified materials. And while Politico had reported that when Trump was still in the White House, he liked to tear up documents, we also just learned from journalist Maggie Haberman’s new book that staff claimed to find toilets clogged up with paper scraps, which were potentially torn-up government records. Trump has dismissed the allegations, of course. 

This was all too deliciously ironic considering how much Trump had raged about his opponent (and 2016 Foilies winner) Hillary Clinton’s practice of storing State Department communications on a private server. Is storing potentially classified correspondence on a personal email system any worse than hoarding top secret documents at a golf club? Is “acid washing” records, as Trump accused Clinton, any less farcical than flushing them down the john? 

Ultimately, we decided not to give Trump his seventh Foilie. Technically, he isn’t eligible: his presidential records won’t be subject to FOIA until he’s been out of office for five years (releasing classified records could take years, or decades, if ever).

Instead, we’re sticking with our original 16 winners, from federal agencies to small-town police departments to a couple of corporations, who are all shameworthy in their own rights and, at least metaphorically, have no problem tossing government transparency in the crapper.

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A 93-Year-Old Woman Couldn’t Pay Her $2,300 Tax Bill. The Government Sold Her Home and Kept the Money.

Whether or not Geraldine Tyler will live to see the resolution of her case remains unclear.

The 93-year-old left her Minneapolis condominium in 2010 after a nearby shooting and a disturbing encounter left her uneasy. But she was unable to finance both her new apartment and the property tax on her erstwhile condo, accruing $2,300 in debt.

Over the course of the next five years, the government raised that debt by over 550 percent, tacking on almost $13,000 in additional penalties, fines, and interest. And when Tyler couldn’t pay that, it seized her property, sold it for $40,000—and kept the profit.

Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that was OK.

“Tyler does not argue that the county lacked lawful authority to foreclose on her condominium to satisfy her delinquent tax debt,” wrote Judge Steven Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. “Rather, Tyler argues that the county’s retention of the surplus equity—the amount that exceeded her $15,000 tax debt—is an unconstitutional taking.”

Put more plainly, Tyler is not contesting that she failed to pay her property taxes, nor is she trying to evade responsibility for doing so. Her suit doesn’t seek the full $40,000 value of the condo but rather the excess proceeds that the government made from the sale of her property.

The court’s conclusion: She has no right to that cash.

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Homeland Security secretly collected data on Americans without a warrant

Senator Ron Wyden is calling for an investigation after finding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has secretly monitored and collected records on 200 million American money transfers without obtaining a warrant for at least the past 12 years.

After reviewing a letter Wyden wrote to the DHS inspector general, the Wall Street Journal reported that it was the first time Congress learned about the program, the Oregon Democratic senator’s office first learned of it last month.

The Division of Homeland Security was collecting data on domestic and international money transfers of that amount going to or from Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas – as well as money transfers over that amount going to or from Mexico from anywhere in the U.S.

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California authorities RAID three preschools to enforce mask mandates, separating children from adults

A state agency in California allegedly conducted mask raids on a pre-school and interviewed children alone without parental consent. According to parents, the three locations of the Aspen Leaf preschool in San Diego were simultaneously “raided” in January. This after the school was forthright and clear with parents and regulators about their decision to not mask the young students in their care.

The Voice of San Diego reported that officials separated the preschoolers, aged one- to four-years-old, from each other and the adults at the locations to question the children about the school’s masking policies.

In their decision to not mask the pre-schoolers, Aspen Leaf’s owners believed that since the pre-schoolers would not be masked while eating or sleeping, there was no point masking them for the rest of the time, either. The owners also felt that the masks would hinder the children’s development.

The California Department of Social Services is responsible for overseeing compliance in preschools. Though regulators legally have the authority to isolate and interview, children’s parents at Aspen Leaf stated in a complaint that they believed that should only be done in extreme cases, such as alleged child abuse.

According to The Voice, Kevin Gaines, deputy director of child care licensing, wrote to one Aspen Leaf parent, who lodged a complaint, that regulators “…determined that the interviews were conducted in an appropriate manner and were a necessary component of the required complaint investigation.”

He added that “Staff are trained to conduct interviews with children in a manner that avoids causing undue stress,” and that Aspen Leaf adult staff were in the “line of sight” of each child during interviews.

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