Mr. POWERS. Approximately. Mr. DRINAN. Thank you. Mr. EDWARDS. Your average is about the same as the CIA's, then. In 1975 they received 7,393 requests, 4,577 were no record. So there were 62 percent that they had no record of. So they were able to solve those problems of 62 percent immediately. Only 38 percent of the requests had a record in the CIA. Now, are you telling us that about 38 percent of the requests received have a record, or what percent is it again? Mr. POWERS. We would be talking, I guess, about 66 percent, then. Mr. EDWARDS. Have a record or do not? Mr. POWERS. Have a record. Mr. EDWARDS. Sixty-six percent have some sort of a record? Mr. EDWARDS. Now, suppose it is a very easy one, and it can be handled in 1 or 2 or 3 days. Do you put that at the bottom of the pile for 8 months later treatment? Mr. POWERS. Yes, sir; we do. And if I may, rather than just answering it so tersely, because what you are suggesting or what you are referring to here, when I first came to the section, and because of the backlog we had, it was one of the first things that I had addressed myself to. The problem is that if we are going to make someone wait for 6 months, and then go back to them and say, here are two pages, two documents, whatever it may be, but something very minimal, that I know myself that I would be quite upset at that, that I had to wait 6 months, and then I get two pages. Or that we were not able to positively establish the identity of the individual coming in, and from our review of our central indices we can only tentatively say that a record in there may be identical with that individual, and then 6 months later go back to him and say, now that we have had a chance to look at it, it isn't you. That is almost as bad as the first instance. If there was some way that we could determine the volume of documents or records that may be involved in a particular request, go through and get rid of all the easy ones, and if we had 6,000 requests, maybe there were 4,000 easy ones, and we could do that in a few months. And then we would have that 2,000 hard core that may take months and months to do. But at least we would have satisfied 4.000 people. But the problem in doing that, and in trying to be fair, and then looking through initially to determine the size--and we opted for the fairness doctrine, I know I can hardly say fairness when we have the backlog, but that was the intention at least of putting everyone in chronological order, that everyone was put in the same position, and when you come in to be fair and impartial to all, you would be handled in the order in which your request had been received, other than those in which there was no record. And in those cases then we would make that prompt first response and tell them so. Mr. EDWARDS. What percent of the requests have to do with subjects or people in your domestic intelligence area as opposed to the criminal investigative files? Mr. POWERS. I have no idea, sir. We do not keep any records on something like that, whether it alludes to criminal or securityMr. EDWARDS. Could either of the other gentlemen hazard a guess on that? Mr. POWERS [continuing]. Other than just saying, a large percentage maybe. We are in the area of speculation. I truly have no figures, other than a canvass of everyone and just say, based on what you have received. From what I have observed I could go and say that the majority would be, in quotes, of a security nature as opposed to criminal, the majority. The precise number I cannot tell you. Mr. EDWARDS. I think it is pretty clear that it must be. And I think you would have a much more accurate guess as to that, one of you gentlemen should. You have only since 1974 maybe 150 or 200,000, whatever the figure might be, domestic intelligence cases. That is so much larger than the criminal cases that the Bureau would have open at the time. So there must have been people more curious about their own records with regard to domestic intelligence, not criminal intelligence. Mr. POWERS. We received a number of requests concerning matters of a criminal nature and from prisoners alluding to a matter on whom we have a criminal investigatory file. Mr. EDWARDS. Would you furnish something for the record, a typical month's group of requests, broken down that way, or over a period of time, and spot checking it. I think it would be helpful to us. Mr. POWERS. Yes sir, we will give it to you during a given period. Mr. EDWARDS. The gentleman from Virginia. Mr. BUTLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to share this information with the rest of the committee. It is very helpful to me to have these figures in some perspective. But the thing that is beginning to concern me is the diversion of the personnel. Does this operation adversely affect the primary mission of the FBI itself? Where are you finding the personnel you keep transferring to this function? Mr. POWERS. Well, when the FOIPA section was staffed, it was staffed in a sense really by robbing from our other divisions, and field offices, particularly in the Records Management Division, a number of highly qualified and experienced personnel were taken to initially set up for the reviewing of the files. Mr. BUTLER. Are we going to be getting behind in other aspects of the ordinary administration of the FBI if this takes place? Mr. POWERS. There have been some instances where we are behind. Jim, could you help me? Mr. AwE. It definitely affects the records operation, because a lot of qualified employees that we have had in the Records Management Division have been sent to the FOIPA section. And we have lost a lot of experience, and we have to try to get new employees, we have to go through a training program with them, and it makes it less efficient for us in doing it in this fashion. Mr. BUTLER. I can see that. That is the fairly obvious answer to it. What I am trying to figure out is whether you have a personnel training program for this particular aspect of the FBI, as obviously it appears to be a permanent problem, whether you are going to be robbing from the other divisions? Over the long haul, how will the Bureau provide the personnel to handle this? Mr. POWERS. Sir, as we stand now, with an approved complement of 194, and a further increase up to 220, this next increase will cause us to take personnel from other divisions. There is no getting away from that. Now, once we reach the point where we feel we are able to handle the requests and cut into the backlog, I do not foresee at this time any further massive increases in complement. So that all we would be talking about at that time would be normal attrition for any number of a variety of reasons, for all we would then be needing would be one person who left or one agent who may be reassigned or moves upward, something like that. Outside of this next push of 24, I cannot foresee any further major increases. We sincerely hope, with this number being assigned, with the problems we have because in our own division in the FBI because of the lack of space by taking over every room that we come by, personnel and equipment, and so forth, that we have now reached the point that we will be able, barring anything unforeseen in the influx of requests, to handle that. And it won't have that effect. Then we will be in a sense our own training ground. Employees will perhaps not come right into that section. We will still take experienced personnel, but it won't be such a drastic import at any one time. Mr. BUTLER. You are finding that it takes some degree of sophistication to handle this responsibility? Mr. POWERS. Yes, sir, I certainly do. I have been here for, say, 7 or 8 months now. I will be very candid, I still do not feel that I have a complete grasp of the nuances of both of these acts that we spend considerable time on. Among the agent personnel, and in conferences, we have conflicts among ourselves as to the interpretation, good intentioned conflicts. And it is very seldom that we really get a consensus of opinion, because variances of facts may just change everything in a given case. And yes, we put quite a responsibility on our clerical employees in doing this type of work. And that is why we feel right now that we need the degree of supervision that we have in overseeing their work. Those who have been here for a year or so are doing a remarkable job. But it does take time, I would say 6 months, before we really are getting our money's worth out of that employee as regards FOIPA moneys. Mr. BUTLER. Have you reduced this particular problem to guidelines or a manual? Mr. POWERS. Not yet, sir. We are going in that direction, instituting almost a specific unit now for that purpose, so that as these problems come up we are getting additional guidance and instructions from the Department in connection with our appeals, judicial guidance from court interpretations, yes, we will be reaching that point when that can be done. We have not arrived at that goal as yet. Mr. BUTLER. One more suggestion. You dispose of several inquiries on the basis that you have no record. That is fine. Is there any way you can determine how accurate you are in making that determination? For instance, do you have an error rate? Mr. POWERS. We have a few examples. I would say it would be really minuscule. When I say a few, in human error we have missed. I think two to my knowledge since the time that I have been there. And those are the only two that I know about. And then another agency had a request made to them. They had notified the requester that they had some documents from the FBI, and would we recheck our records. To my knowledge that was just a human factor. Mr. BUTLER. So you feel pretty good about that? Mr. POWERS. Yes sir. Mr. BUTLER. And this does not indicate any fallacies in your indexing system? Mr. POWERS. No sir. They receive the same service-we would for an agent writing in to try and find out something about a bank robber or a kidnaper. They receive the same type of treatment. And we have the expertise, and the desire, if there is a record to locate it. Mr. BUTLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Drinan. Mr. DRINAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, gentlemen. I have some strong feelings about this question, because I corresponded with Clarence Kelley for months and months before I got the 81 pages that the FBI kept on me. Let's get to the heart of this thing. Most of this junk ought to be destroyed. And the Attorney General himself says that. Here is a letter of June 11, 1975, from Edward Levi to me: A Committee of the Department of Justice attorneys is now at work, they meet several times a week, putting together proposals for an Attorney General's directive on FBI file keeping. The problem, as you know, has many facets. The burdensome cost of keeping a lot of innocuous, irrelevant paper is only one of them. However, the Committee's work is proceeding well, and I hope we can soon resolve the questions you have raised. That is 13 months ago. Has anything happened to destroy some of these things so that you wouldn't have to keep them? Mr. POWERS. I do not know what the present status of that inquiry with the Attorney General and the Bureau stands, Congressman. Mr. DRINAN. You are not telling us anything, sir. You should know. You want to reduce your problems. I don't want to say that you are stonewalling, but you say you have no figures on criminal security. You can't tell us about COINTELPRO. You can't tell us why you can't release all of them, or why you aren't working with the Attorney General. You can't tell why you are so unprepared. You say delay is not intentional. I have to say, just putting it on the efficiency basis, I can't conceive of General Motors or any corporation or any bank operating this way. I have to say that the delay is intentional, that there are ways by which you can correct this situation. I have all types of correspondence from constitutents who are annoyed and perplexed and worried that the FBI goes on month after month in defiance of what the intention of Congress is. So I say that the delay is intentional. And you say that 220 people can correct it. When is that going to hap pen, when are you going to get rid of the backlog? Do you have a target date? Mr. POWERS. If I may address myself to one of the points that you had, the number of individuals only making one request, I wasn't sure that that had been addressed to me. I don't know if you are talking about individual requests or what, sir. Mr. DRINAN. I have the ball park figure of 9,000 out of 24,000 for whom you have no record. But respond, if you will. I am dissatisfied. and I read all the material yesterday. I am just dissatisfied with the nonprogress that is being made. Mr. POWERS. Well, with regard to the destruction of records, if rec ords were destroyed and we did not have them to assess, we would certainly be able to expedite requests. There is no question on that. There are certain archival rules with respect to destruction which must be observed. Perhaps Mr. Awe would be able to furnish something in that respect. And with respect to the inquiry between the Attorney General and the Bureau, I am under the impression, but I am just speculating, that that may still be an ongoing stage, I don't know if there has been a resolution. I can just go on what we have now for destruction of records, pursuant to archival authority. Mr. DRINAN. Would you agree with Mr. Levi that a lot of the material that you hand out is innocuous and irrelevant? That is what it was in my case. You started keeping a file for some unknown reason in 1958, when I was dean at the Boston College Law School and conducted a civil rights conference addressed by the Governor. Some Agent in the FBI in Boston started a file in the central Headquarters on me. It continued year after year, when I was in the civil rights movement and the peace movement. The whole thing is just absolutely outrageous. Edward Levi has said that and other people have said it. I assume that this goes on; I have no indication that it has terminated. Do you see new papers coming in as irrelevant and innocuous as I said? Mr. POWERS. I should have mentioned, too, on the destruction of records the moratorium that we are under as it concerns intelligence, security, and extremist files, which has a definite bearing on the destruction of records. Mr. DRINAN. What do you mean the moratorium? You don't collect those anyway? Mr. POWERS. No. We are not permitted to destroy any such records. With respect to your question, is there any information in our files which may-and I forget the exact words-but perhaps is not entirely relevant or pertinent? Yes sir, there have been some instances. Mr. DRINAN. I mean all of this 81 pages is irrelevant to anything the FBI is supposed to be doing by law. Mr. POWERS. Now, with respect to your other question, are we trying to do anything about that? Yes sir. Once again, in the light of the Privacy Act, the instructions have been issued to the field, a reminder to them that in connection with an authorized lawful investigation, the facts to be determined should just be germane to the investigation, and they should have a reawareness of first amendment rights so that what is collected is only pertinent to Mr. DRINAN. There is no investigation. Let me make it clear, Clarence Kelley said to me: You have not been the subject of an FBI investigation, and our records contain the following. So it is not an investigation. All right? But are you still investigating? Are you still having all of this innocuous and irrelevant material coming in? I quote Mr. Levi. Mr. POWERS. No. At the present time Mr. Levi and the Bureau, if they do not have them already, have established guidelines as to what mav be the proper subject of investigation in the security field. Mr. DRINAN. OK. I have seen guidelines before that have been violated egregiously. How much comes in day after day from the COINTELPRO successors regarding present extremists and the alleged subversives? Mr. POWERS. I have to say that I am not in a position, I am truth 82-629-77- -33 |