Americana: Good Intentions

• Share

Congress in 1975 gave Americans the right to find out what information is kept on them in Government files. However laudable the law's purpose, some of the Freedom of Information Act's most avid users have turned out to be criminals. Last month Convicted Felon Gary Bowdach told a Senate subcommittee that he had filed "scores" of FOI requests with the FBI for himself and fellow inmates at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta "to try to identify informants." Why? "To eradicate them," Bowdach replied.

Indeed, of the 60,000 FOI requests processed by the bureau, about 2,500 of them have come from curious criminals. In one city, which FBI officials refuse to name, 30 organized crime figures—the Who's Who of the area's underworld—filed FOI forms. The Drug Enforcement Administration has received requests for Government information from, among others, Mafiosi Carlos Marcello of New Orleans, Rene Picaretto of Buffalo, and Carmine Persico of Brooklyn.

The FBI and DEA carefully blot out names and other clues to informants' identities but cannot otherwise refuse criminals' requests. Under the law, they have the same right as any other citizen to find out what is in Government files about them and to correct any misinformation.