A 24-year (and counting) wait for FOIA records

Twenty-four years after a young and optimistic journalist-in-the-making typed up a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI, Seth Rosenfeld — now an award-winning muckraker with a few gray hairs — is still waiting for the records.

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When he made his request, Rosenfeld was researching Cold War FBI activities at the University of California. Well, actually, he's still researching it.

To date, his saga has included three lawsuits and orders to release the records from five federal judges. It's cost the FBI more than $1 million and prompted the release of more than 200,000 pages of documents — though more records are still being held.

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In 2002, Rosenfeld used the documents to write an award-winning package of stories describing how the FBI campaigned in the 1950s and '60s to curb the Free Speech Movement at the University of California-Berkeley and plotted to oust UC President Clark Kerr.

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"The (FOIA) statute says 20 days," said Barbara Elias, the FOIA coordinator at the National Security Archive, who surveyed federal agencies to find the oldest pending request. "There is no excuse that could extend search and review to 24 years." She said she'd urge Rosenfeld not to get frustrated and give up.

He's not about to.

"I still want to see what these records say," he said. "They concern the nation's largest law enforcement agency's activities at the nation's largest public university at a crucial time in U.S. history. I'm more curious than ever."
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