IGs Seek More Access to Agency Data
Frustration over lack of access to agency information by federal inspectors general is bubbling over into public view. Scores of IGs packed into a Capitol Hill hearing room Feb. 3 for a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee session examining what the IG community and some in Congress see as a growing trend of agencies locking down information being sought by investigators.
“If inspectors general can’t do their jobs, we can’t do our job,” said committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).
The hearing, the first under the new chairman, comes in the wake of an August 2014 letter signed by 47 of the 72 federal IGs complaining about “serious limitations on access to records that have recently impeded the work of inspectors general at the Peace Corps, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice.”
The IGs of those three agencies renewed their complaints in testimony at the Feb. 3 hearing. Although the specifics of each case vary, the essential complaint from IGs is that agencies often respond to requests for information that appear to be clearly authorized under the 1978 statute that created the IG post with claims that the information is protected by some other legal framework.
The FBI, for example, has put limits on IG access to information that is protected under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and information from wiretaps and grand jury proceedings. The Peace Corps’ IG encountered restrictions on the release of sexual assault complaints under a law that guarantees anonymity to victims under most circumstances.
Full article by By Adam Mazmanian, FCW
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