Gov't keeps names of civilian workers secret

Since 1989, TRAC has been posting on the Internet a database with the name, work location, salary and job category of all 2.7 million federal civilian workers except those in some law enforcement agencies. The data are often used by reporters and government watchdog groups to monitor policies and detect waste or abuse.

Recently, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility used the database to identify and locate U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists for a survey. Many of the scientists complained of political intervention into their research.

TRAC used the data to monitor the Bush administration’s promise to increase security along the Canadian border after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Six months later, TRAC found Border Patrol agents on that border were up from 331 to just 346. Another year later, the number had reached 515, but not one was assigned to the Canada-Alaska border despite Alaska’s potential strategic targets.

The New York Daily News used the data to find the names of guards at a federal detention center where prisoner abuse was alleged. Another reporter used it to find the names of Transportation Security Administration guards assigned to New York’s LaGuardia Airport to pursue cargo theft allegations.

"Secret governors are incompatible with a free government,” the TRAC co-directors wrote the federal Office of Personnel Management last Feb. 2 when the agency withheld the data. "Basic information about the employees who carry out the day-to-day actions of government is critical for meaningful public oversight.”

They are David Burnham, a former New York Times reporter who directs TRAC’s Washington office, and Susan B. Long, a Syracuse University professor who runs its upstate New York office. The suit was filed in federal court in Syracuse, N.Y.

OPM spokesman Mike Orenstein said the agency would not comment until it had time to review the lawsuit.

Using FOIA, TRAC has obtained the data on compact discs every three months since 1989. But the federal government began publicly naming its employees, their job category, salary and workplace in 1816.

The first entry in the 1816 register was James Madison. He was identified as president of the United States in Washington at a salary of $25,000 — and born in Virginia. The second entry was Secretary of State James Monroe, salary: $5,000.

Lower on that page were Treasury Department messenger John Connell, a Marylander who worked in Washington for $410 a year, and Comptroller’s Office clerk Richard H. Briscoe, another Marylander working in Washington, for $1,000 a year.

The last complete data set provided by OPM covered 2003. Since then, all records of civilian employees of the Defense Department have been withheld and name and duty locations were withheld for an estimated 150,000 other civilian workers, the lawsuit said. The others work in 650 occupations at 250 different agencies including the Federal Trade Commission, the National Park Service and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

Gary A. Lukowski, OPM’s workforce information manager, wrote TRAC in late 2004 that the agency was reviewing its policy "on disclosure of individual employee records as this relates to the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act.”

Last spring, Lukowski forwarded the 2004 discs and noted that the "major change affecting your request is that individual records for the Department of Defense are excluded from the file provided.” He told TRAC it would have to request the records from the Pentagon directly.

The lawsuit said that, in violation of the FOIA, OPM did not even mention that another 150,000 names and workplaces had been deleted or why and that OPM has not responded to requests to explain its new policy.

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On the Net:

TRAC report on lawsuit: http://trac.syr.edu/foia/