FBI Patriot Act Abuse

I received a letter, dated March 25, 2008, from David M. Hardy, FBI Section Chief, RIDS Record Management Division, yesterday, in response to a FOI/PA Request that I had filed. Coincidentally, I expected a reply to my Feb. 16, 2008 FOI Appeal regarding the FBI’s failure to respond to my Jan. 5, 2008 FOI/PA Request in which I requested a copy of all my correspondence, including a VHS tape, that I sent to FBI Director Mueller. Since Mr. Hardy neither referenced the date of this FOIA Request nor supplied a copy of it, I can only conclude that it’s my Jan. 5, 2008 FOIA requesting a copy of my complaint to Dir. Mueller charging FL LEO’s with illegal electronic surveillance and harassment. Hardy, however, did supply a Request No.: 1111513-000 to this otherwise unidentified request. In his letter, he wrote; "To promptly respond to requests, we concentrate on identifying main files in the central records system at FBI Head- quarters as well as the FBI Jacksonville Field Office. No records responsive to your FOIPA request were located by a search of the automated, Electronic Surveillance, and manual indices." He then notified me that I could file an administrative appeal. Besides not identifying my request by date or supplying a copy, Mr. Hardy improperly incorporated my Jacksonville FOIPA Request into his reply even though I didn’t mention Jacksonville in my Jan. 5, 2008 letter requesting copies of what I sent to Director Mueller.

Mr. Hardy’s incorporation of my Jacksonville FOI/PA Request in my request for FBI DC HQ records is suspicious, especially since I didn’t mention Jacksonville in my Jan. 5, 2008 request. I filed two earlier FOIPA Requests: one with FBI HQ (Request No.: 1091663-000) and one with the Jacksonville FBI Field Office (Request No.: 1095794-000). In response to both these requests Section Chief Hardy wrote the same stock reply quoted above except this time he included the FBI Jacksonville Field Office reference even though I didn’t mention Jacksonville in my request. When I appealed his two earlier request responses, I was told in effect to bring the FBI to court to obtain these records although they didn’t cite any FOIA exemptions to reject my appeals. Consequently, I filed two additional requests, specifically identifying the requested records. The Jacksonville FBI Office lied that they didn’t received the request addressed to them, even though they signed for the USPS EXPRESS MAIL envelope and an Agent confirmed that it was in their system.

This is a repeat of my experiences with FL State Attorney Meadows where he refused at first to even acknowledge a public records request and then refused to answer a simple question whether or not he viewed a VHS tape that I submitted as evidence. The FBI is covering up for Florida law enforcement and by doing so violate the Patriot Act.