Indeed, the FBI personnel who work in the EASU perform a valuable service in providing reports and memoranda to the White House and other executive agencies necessary to make informed judgments regarding, for example, a person's suitability and trustworthiness for employment in sensitive positions, access to classified information or to secure areas or admission to the United States. In doing so, they accomplish the Herculean feat of responding to roughly two million requests for such information each year. Although much of the process has been automated, several hundred thousand requests are handled by the research analysts and other personnel each year. These requests typically require not only the identification of the relevant files, but a careful analysis of the file contents and, quite frequently, the preparation of memoranda summarizing the information contained within the files.
With minor modifications, the process of providing FBI information to the rest of the government has functioned in the same manner for more than three decades. Certainly this is true of the relationship between the FBI and the White House. The forms used to request FBI information have evolved but little since the prototype dating from 1965. Likewise, the manner in which the information is transmitted back to the White House has remained essentially unchanged. Research analysts today follow the same, largely unwritten, rules and policies as did their predecessors during the Johnson and Nixon Administrations. Indeed, the last detailed set of instructions was issued in 1973.{Note 33}
But if, as I would maintain, these employees have in no way failed the FBI, the FBI has surely failed them, and has failed in a larger sense to institute sufficient protections to effectively safeguard the very real privacy interests that we, as custodians of so many people's files, are responsible for protecting. While Ms. Larson and her subordinates have worked tirelessly and with admirable success in managing the constant dam-burst of incoming requests, this inquiry has revealed a complete abdication of management responsibility at the level of her immediate superior, the Unit Chief and the executive level management above him.
A policy of benign neglect cannot be tolerated in an area as sensitive as the dissemination of information from FBI files. Although the natural instinct to defer to the great experience of the employees of EASU is understandable, it is ultimately unfair to them and inappropriate to make the analysts responsible for simultaneously handling the massive flow of requests and policing the process. The active involvement of the Unit Chief, as well as the conscious engagement, support, and oversight by the Section Chief -- which has also been lacking in recent years -- is necessary for the process to be not merely efficient, but properly balanced as well between the needs of the consumer agencies and the interests of those whose privacy we are charged with safeguarding.
We have been on notice for some time now that the exchange of information between the FBI and the White House is both necessary and fraught with peril. In the Summer of 1993, after questions arose concerning the involvement of the FBI in matters relating to the discharge of several employees from the White House Travel Office, Attorney General Janet Reno and then- White House Counsel Bernard W. Nussbaum enunciated a new policy regarding contacts with investigative agencies, in particular, the FBI. {Note 34} The new policy placed both the Counsel to the President and senior DOJ officials between the White House and the FBI in matters relating to pending criminal investigations. While that policy had no direct bearing on the type of requests we have examined here -- an exception was made, and properly so I believe, for communications regarding "background investigations and clearances of governmental officials," in which cases direct contact between the White House Counsel and "appropriate FBI officials" is permitted -- we should have matched our scrupulous adherence to that policy in matters relating to pending investigations, with greater attention to this area of direct engagement. Our failure until now to have done so needs to be promptly remedied.
In conclusion, our examination of the process of providing background and other file information to the White House and other executive agencies revealed a channel which flows, if anything, too smoothly. It is incumbent upon us to recapture, or perhaps more accurately, acquire for the first time, the proper balance between the very real and significant needs of the government for the information contained in our files and our profound obligation to ensure that the information only be disseminated in appropriate circumstances.
As noted above, specific recommendations are being separately forwarded for your consideration and, upon approval, for transmittal to the Attorney General for her concurrence.
32. One of the analysts believes that the request for the files of James Baker may have caught her eye at the time, because of his prominence in a former administration, but she did not conclude that there was anything untoward about the request, as presidents were often appointing members of former administrations to various positions or granting them access to the White House.
33. Handwritten updates were added in April 1974. A summary version of procedures was last issued in 1979.
34. Memorandum for White House Staff from Bernard W. Nussbaum, Counsel to the President, and Clifford M. Sloan, Associate Counsel to the President, dated July 2, 1993, entitled "Policy Regarding Investigations and Investigatory Agencies."