Deleted Tweets @usgslive
| Tracking # |
DOI-USGS-2024-000159 |
| Submitted | June 29, 2024 |
| Est. Completion | July 31, 2024 |
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Communications
From: Muira McCammon
Dear Freedom of Information Officer:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, to the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey on my own behalf as an academic researcher at Tulane University.
Requested Records
I request all agency records from March 2010 to the present concerning Tweets deleted or drafted and not sent from the @usgslive account associated with the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey.
I believe the records that I seek are located, inter alia, within agency headquarters, in email records, and in third-party platforms used to manage the Agency’s social media accounts.
The records I request include, but are not limited to:
1. Records of all tweets deleted by the Twitter handle associated with the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey (@usgslive), including:
a. Any tweets that were published on Twitter and subsequently deleted for any reason; and
b. Any tweets published by other accounts that were retweeted by @usgslive and subsequently deleted for any reason.
2. Records of all tweets that have been kept in draft form beyond their expected date and time of publication, on Twitter or in a third-party social media management platform, for any reason.
3. Records related to the drafting or deletion of tweets, including:
a. Any correspondence or record of correspondence regarding the drafting or deletion of specific tweets
i. including correspondence sent through official government email addresses or messaging services; and
ii. including correspondence sent through private third-party services such as Gmail or Slack; and
iii. Including any messages, notes, or annotations created on a third-party social media management platform.
b. Documentation of the agency’s existing policy regarding the preservation and maintenance of tweets as per the Federal Records Act, and Federal Records Management Bulletin 2014-02 (available at https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2014/2014-02.htm), which stated that “social media content may be a Federal record when the use of social media provides added functionality, such as enhanced searchability, opportunities for public comment, or other collaboration… A complete Federal record must have content, context, and structure along with associated metadata (e.g., author, date of creation). The complete record must be maintained to ensure reliability and authenticity.”
c. Any briefings, reports, memoranda, legal opinions, policy statements, or talking points used or disseminated within the Agency regarding the drafting or deletion of tweets.
I urge the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey to process this request consistent with “a general philosophy of full agency disclosure [under FOIA] unless information is exempted under clearly delineated statutory language,” United States Dep't of Def. v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. 487, 494 (1994), and the Justice Department’s policy directing a presumption of disclosure. See Dep’t of Justice Office of Information Policy, President Obama’s FOIA Memorandum and Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines: Creating a “New Era of Open Government” (2009), available at https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-post-2009-creating-new-era-open-government).
Request for Public Interest Fee Waiver
I request a waiver of fees because disclosure of the requested records is in the public interest. It “is likely to contribute significantly to the public understanding of the activities or operations of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(iii).
First, the records concern the operations or activities of the government. Government social media accounts are used to disseminated information to the public, make official pronouncements, and generally serve as an important touch point for governments to receive public input. See Social Media Use by Governments: A Policy Primer to Discuss Trends, Identify Policy Opportunities and Guide Decision Makers, OECD Working Papers on Public Governance, available at https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jxrcmghmk0s-en. Social media use, including tweets posted by @usgslive and then deleted, or never posted, is an important part of this activity.
Disclosure of the requested information is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government. Specifically, the requested records will reveal substantial new information about how the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey defines and manages tweets. They will allow the public to see what published messages have been rescinded and the process by which these public statements were retracted as compared to the processes employed by other agencies. For example, my research on the Twitter account of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base revealed to the public that the account had systematically deleted controversial tweets. See Brady Dale, To What Extent is a Tweet a Federal Record?, TECHNICAL.LY BROOKLYN (October 24, 2017), (https://technical.ly/brooklyn/2017/10/24/muira-mccammon-talks-gitmo-radical-networks/).
Finally, the records are not primarily in my own commercial interest. I seek the requested information for newsgathering purposes, and expect to incorporate it into journalistic work product to be disseminated to the public, like those already produced. See Muira McCammon, Trouble @JTFGTMO, SLATE (April 17, 2018), https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/why-did-the-joint-task-force-of-guantanamo-start-deleting-tweets.html; Muira McCammon, Can They Really Delete That?, SLATE (April 17, 2018), https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/why-did-the-joint-task-force-of-guantanamo-start-deleting-tweets.html.
For the reasons above, I respectfully request that the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey grant a public interest fee waiver for this request, and that all fees related to the search, review, and duplication of the requested records be waived. If the fees will not be waived, I agree to pay up to $100 for the processing of this request. If the estimated fees will exceed this limit, please inform me before you begin processing.
Request for “News Media” Fee Status
As a freelance journalist, I am a representative of the news media and do not seek the records requested for commercial use. Therefore, if the agency does not find that my request meets the standards required for a public interest fee waiver, I request that fees associated with the processing of my request be limited to reasonable duplication costs. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II).
I am a representative of the news media because I “gather[] information of potential interest to a segment of the public, use[] [my] editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work, and distribute[] that work to an audience.” Id. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II). I can “demonstrate a solid basis for expecting publication… by a… past publication record.” Id. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II).
My work has been featured in publications including Slate, VICE, the Massachusetts Review, Kill Screen, and more. I have previously requested documents obtained via FOIA from a range of federal agencies and government officials regarding the deletion of tweets from official Twitter accounts. I used that information to write a series of articles outlining both how individual agencies decided whether or not to delete tweets and more broadly how the government regards Twitter statements. These articles have been published, disseminated, and further reported upon to a broad audience. See Muira Mccammon, Trouble @JTFGTMO, SLATE (April 17, 2018), https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/why-did-the-joint-task-force-of-guantanamo-start-deleting-tweets.html; Muira Mccammon, Can They Really Delete That?, SLATE (April 17, 2018), https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/why-did-the-joint-task-force-of-guantanamo-start-deleting-tweets.html..
Therefore, if this request is not classified as being in the public interest, I respectfully request to be classified as a “news media” requester for purposes of fee assessments.
Request for “Educational Requester” Fee Status
I am an Assistant Professor at Tulane University. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School and a Master’s in Law candidate at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. I am writing a book, in part, on communication and deletion practices of U.S. government agencies. This research has, to date, been presented at the International Communication of Association’s annual conferences in Prague (2018) and Washington D.C. (2019) as well as the National Association of Government Communicators’ annual conference (2024)—in addition to many other more local conferences. My research is specifically focused on US government policy and practice regarding the drafting and deletion of tweets and U.S. federal agencies’ responsibility to follow the U.S. Federal Records Act. A search for “any” deleted tweets is neither random nor unreasonable, but a precise description of the records that I seek. A number of other agencies (aforementioned and other) with official Twitter accounts have successfully produced records of deleted tweets in response to similar requests by myself. Some of my preliminary research has also appeared in peer-reviewed journal articles, including at New Media & Society and Information, Communication, and Society.
***
I request that responsive electronic records be provided electronically in their native file format, if possible. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(B). I further request that you provide an estimated date on which you will finish processing this request. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(B).
Thank you for your consideration of this request. As per 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i), I expect your determination on whether to comply with this request within twenty (20) days. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me at the email address listed below.
Yours,
Muira McCammon, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Tulane University
Assistant Professor (by courtesy), Tulane Law School
mmccammon@tulane.edu
From:
Dear Muira McCammon,
The status of your USGS FOIA request #DOI-USGS-2024-000159 has been updated to the following status 'Received'. To log into the PAL Application click on the Application URL below.
https://foiaxpresspal.doi.gov
The message is being sent from an unattended email box. For any future correspondence, please contact the bureau contact at https://www.doi.gov/foia/contacts.
Sincerely,
DOI FOIA Office
From:
Dear Muira McCammon,
Department of the Interior has received your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and assigned it control number DOI-USGS-2024-000159. Please cite this number in any future communications with our office regarding your request.
Please See attachment for description.
The message is being sent from an unattended email box. For any future correspondence please reach the bureau contact at https://www.doi.gov/foia/contacts.
Regards,
DOI FOIA Office
From: U.S. Geological Survey
Dear Ms. McCammon:
"On July 2, 2024, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office received your FOIA request and assigned it control number DOI-USGS-2024-000159. Please cite this number in any future communications with our office regarding your request. You request the following information:
All agency records from March 2010 to the present concerning Tweets deleted or drafted and not sent from the @usgslive account associated with the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey.
I believe the records that I seek are located, inter alia, within agency headquarters, in email records, and in third-party platforms used to manage the Agency’s social media accounts.
The records I request include, but are not limited to:
Records of all tweets deleted by the Twitter handle associated with the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey (@usgslive), including:
Any tweets that were published on Twitter and subsequently deleted for any reason; and
Any tweets published by other accounts that were retweeted by @usgslive and subsequently deleted for any reason.
Records of all tweets that have been kept in draft form beyond their expected date and time of publication, on Twitter or in a third-party social media management platform, for any reason.
Records related to the drafting or deletion of tweets, including:
Any correspondence or record of correspondence regarding the drafting or deletion of specific tweets
i. including correspondence sent through official government email addresses or messaging services; and
ii. ii. including correspondence sent through private third-party services such as Gmail or Slack; and
iii. Including any messages, notes, or annotations created on a third-party social media management platform.
Documentation of the agency’s existing policy regarding the preservation and maintenance of tweets as per the Federal Records Act, and Federal Records Management Bulletin 2014-02 (available at https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2014/2014-02.htm), which stated that “social media content may be a Federal record when the use of social media provides added functionality, such as enhanced searchability, opportunities for public comment, or other collaboration… A complete Federal record must have content, context, and structure along with associated metadata (e.g., author, date of creation). The complete record must be maintained to ensure reliability and authenticity.”
Any briefings, reports, memoranda, legal opinions, policy statements, or talking points used or disseminated within the Agency regarding the drafting or deletion of tweets.
You classified yourself as a representative of the news media. As an assistant professor and researcher for Tulane University, we have reclassified you as an educational or noncommercial scientific institution. As such, we may charge you for some of our duplication costs, but we will not charge you for our search or review costs; you also are entitled to up to 100 pages of photocopies (or an equivalent volume) for free. See 43 C.F.R. § 2.39. If, after taking into consideration your fee category entitlements, our processing costs are less than $50.00, we will not bill you because the cost of collection would be greater than the fee collected. See 43 C.F.R. § 2.37(g).
Considering your fee category is not charged for search nor review costs and we do not anticipate duplication costs; we are not making a determination on your fee waiver request at this time. If we anticipate any fees associated with processing your request, we will then make a determination regarding your fee waiver request.
We use Multitrack Processing to process FOIA requests. The Simple track is for requests that would generally take one to five workdays to process. The Normal track is for requests that would generally take six to twenty workdays to process. The Complex track is for requests that would generally take twenty-one to sixty workdays to process. The Extraordinary track is for requests that would generally take more than sixty workdays to process. The Expedited track is for requests that have been granted expedited processing, which are processed as soon as practicable. Within each track, requests are usually processed on a first-in, first-out basis.
Your request falls into the Normal processing track. There are 13 requests pending ahead of yours in this processing track. Presuming that our current FOIA capacity and burden remain constant, we expect that we will dispatch a determination to you by July 31, 2024.
You may narrow the scope of your request to obtain quicker processing in your currently-assigned track or move the request into a different track, which may enable us to process it more quickly. If you have any questions about this, please contact us at foia@usgs.gov.
The 2007 FOIA amendments created the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) to offer mediation services to resolve disputes between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies as a non-exclusive alternative to litigation. Using OGIS services does not affect your right to pursue litigation. You may contact OGIS in any of the following ways:
Office of Government Information Services
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road - OGIS
College Park, MD 20740-6001
Telephone: (202) 741-5770
Fax: (202) 741-5769
Toll-free: 1 (877) 684-6448
E-mail: ogis@nara.gov
Web: https://www.archives.gov/ogis
Please note that using OGIS services does not affect the timing of an appeal with the Department’s FOIA & Privacy Act Appeals Officer. Contact information for the Department’s FOIA Public Liaison, who you may also seek dispute resolution services from, is available at https://www.doi.gov/foia/foiacenters.
If you have any questions about your request, you may contact Patricia Orlando by phone at (916) 365-6479, or by email at foia@usgs.gov.
Sincerely,
Patricia Orlando
Government Information Specialist
U.S. Geological Survey
(916) 365-6479
From: U.S. Geological Survey
Dear Ms. McCammon:
"On July 2, 2024, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office received your FOIA request and assigned it control number DOI-USGS-2024-000160. Please cite this number in any future communications with our office regarding your request. You request the following information:
All agency records from February 2013 to the present concerning Tweets deleted or drafted and not sent from the @usgsnewsall account associated with the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey.
I believe the records that I seek are located, inter alia, within agency headquarters, in email records, and in third-party platforms used to manage the Agency’s social media accounts.
The records I request include, but are not limited to:
Records of all tweets deleted by the Twitter handle associated with the Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey (@usgsnewsall), including:
Any tweets that were published on Twitter and subsequently deleted for any reason; and
Any tweets published by other accounts that were retweeted by @usgsnewsall and subsequently deleted for any reason.
Records of all tweets that have been kept in draft form beyond their expected date and time of publication, on Twitter or in a third-party social media management platform, for any reason.
Records related to the drafting or deletion of tweets, including:
Any correspondence or record of correspondence regarding the drafting or deletion of specific tweets
i. including correspondence sent through official government email addresses or messaging services; and
ii. ii. including correspondence sent through private third-party services such as Gmail or Slack; and
iii. Including any messages, notes, or annotations created on a third-party social media management platform.
Documentation of the agency’s existing policy regarding the preservation and maintenance of tweets as per the Federal Records Act, and Federal Records Management Bulletin 2014-02 (available at https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2014/2014-02.htm), which stated that “social media content may be a Federal record when the use of social media provides added functionality, such as enhanced searchability, opportunities for public comment, or other collaboration… A complete Federal record must have content, context, and structure along with associated metadata (e.g., author, date of creation). The complete record must be maintained to ensure reliability and authenticity.”
Any briefings, reports, memoranda, legal opinions, policy statements, or talking points used or disseminated within the Agency regarding the drafting or deletion of tweets.
You classified yourself as a representative of the news media. As an assistant professor and researcher for Tulane University, we have reclassified you as an educational or noncommercial scientific institution. As such, we may charge you for some of our duplication costs, but we will not charge you for our search or review costs; you also are entitled to up to 100 pages of photocopies (or an equivalent volume) for free. See 43 C.F.R. § 2.39. If, after taking into consideration your fee category entitlements, our processing costs are less than $50.00, we will not bill you because the cost of collection would be greater than the fee collected. See 43 C.F.R. § 2.37(g).
Considering your fee category is not charged for search nor review costs and we do not anticipate duplication costs; we are not making a determination on your fee waiver request at this time. If we anticipate any fees associated with processing your request, we will then make a determination regarding your fee waiver request.
We use Multitrack Processing to process FOIA requests. The Simple track is for requests that would generally take one to five workdays to process. The Normal track is for requests that would generally take six to twenty workdays to process. The Complex track is for requests that would generally take twenty-one to sixty workdays to process. The Extraordinary track is for requests that would generally take more than sixty workdays to process. The Expedited track is for requests that have been granted expedited processing, which are processed as soon as practicable. Within each track, requests are usually processed on a first-in, first-out basis.
Your request falls into the Normal processing track. There are 14 requests pending ahead of yours in this processing track. Presuming that our current FOIA capacity and burden remain constant, we expect that we will dispatch a determination to you by July 31, 2024.
You may narrow the scope of your request to obtain quicker processing in your currently-assigned track or move the request into a different track, which may enable us to process it more quickly. If you have any questions about this, please contact us at foia@usgs.gov.
The 2007 FOIA amendments created the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) to offer mediation services to resolve disputes between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies as a non-exclusive alternative to litigation. Using OGIS services does not affect your right to pursue litigation. You may contact OGIS in any of the following ways:
Office of Government Information Services
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road - OGIS
College Park, MD 20740-6001
Telephone: (202) 741-5770
Fax: (202) 741-5769
Toll-free: 1 (877) 684-6448
E-mail: ogis@nara.gov
Web: https://www.archives.gov/ogis
Please note that using OGIS services does not affect the timing of an appeal with the Department’s FOIA & Privacy Act Appeals Officer. Contact information for the Department’s FOIA Public Liaison, who you may also seek dispute resolution services from, is available at https://www.doi.gov/foia/foiacenters.
If you have any questions about your request, you may contact Patricia Orlando by phone at (916) 365-6479, or by email at foia@usgs.gov.
Sincerely,
Patricia Orlando
Government Information Specialist
U.S. Geological Survey
(916) 365-6479
From: U.S. Geological Survey
Dear Ms. McCammon,
We have completed processing your FOIA request DOI-USGS-2024-000159. Please find attached our response letter. If you have question regarding this response, please contact me by phone at (916) 365-6479 or by email at foia@usgs.gov<mailto:foia@usgs.gov>.
Sincerely,
Patricia Orlando
Government Information Specialist
U.S. Geological Survey
(916) 365-6479
foia@usgs.gov<mailto:foia@usgs.gov>
From:
Dear Muira McCammon,
The status of your USGS FOIA request #DOI-USGS-2024-000159 has been updated to the following status 'Closed'. To log into the PAL Application click on the Application URL below.
https://foiaxpresspal.doi.gov
The message is being sent from an unattended email box. For any future correspondence, please contact the bureau contact at https://www.doi.gov/foia/contacts.
Sincerely,
DOI FOIA Office
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