We wonder who this is?
Cut-and-paste and the message is revealed!
Oh no! OIG figured it out |
While DOI Inspector General Earl E. Devaney was at the
FBI on Wednesday talking about "burgeoning" crime within the $16 billion Indian gaming industry [without providing many examples] his staff was busy posting some important documents on the
OIG web site.
One was an interim report on
Indian Country Detention Facilities, completed back in April but not made public, including to members of the
Senate Indian Affairs Committee, until now.
The other was a rather juicy smackdown of
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Virginia), summarizing the results of an investigation into the Bureau of Indian Affairs' actions affecting the Ione Band of Miwok Indians of California. The letter -- boldly labeled "REDACTED" -- stated that "Names [were] removed in accordance with FOIA exemptions 6 & 7C" but OIG didn't do such a great job complying with the Freedom of Information Act.
First, the
text version "removed" names by replacing them with the exact number of characters in the person's name! It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Deputy Regional Director xxx xxxxxxxx = Deputy Regional Director Amy Dutschke.
But if that was too hard to figure out, OIG conveniently left Dutschke's last name in a section of letter refuting allegations against her. Good going!
Moving onto to the
Adobe PDF version, things weren't much better. The names of the BIA employees were "removed" but a simple cut-and-paste to any text document "revealed" them all! So much for promoting excellence, integrity, and efficiency.
[BTW, what's up with the disabled right-click folks? You're a taxpayer-funded agency. If web users want to download your stuff, post it on their blogs, email it to friends or throw it in the trash, it's their American right! We wouldn't be surprised if your Naziscript violates some open-government law on the books somewhere.]
Of course, after OIG discovered the slip-up, which we pointed out
yesterday, the two versions with the problems were removed from the OIG website and replaced with truly redacted versions. [See
here and
here.] Even the titles of the BIA employees were removed. Luckily, we saved copies of the originals. The sad thing, though, is now that OIG knows what happened, you can bet it won't happen again with future reports. [Wait, we're talking about DOI here, of course it will happen again!]
At any rate, it's nice to see that OIG can be just as technically challenged as the
BIA. And don't be too hard on yourself folks, the
Department of Justice made the exact same mistake when officials there posted an internal report on
workforce diversity that was heavily "redacted" yet easily readable by anyone. Your government at its finest.
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