I called the U. S. Treasury's Freedom of Information Act offices at (202) 622-4264 on 20/March/2002 to inquire about the status of my FOIA request filed on 24/August/2001.

I informed the office that I had filed back in August of 2001 and had not received anything yet, having last received a notice from the U. S.

Treasury dated 10/January/2002 that they had the FOIA in their possession and was evaluating it. I offered the reference number indicated on that January 10'Th correspondence and gave my name. The office said, "Oh, you're the Scientology FOIA" or something close to that.

We talked a bit about the document I had requested and I mentioned that a number of other people have requested it over the years and had never been able to obtain it, stating that a number of people had apparently been "stonewalled" on it ever since the document was created since it's "controversial." The office indicated that that wasn't the problem, that it's not controversial and causing the document not to be released but that there were "procedural problems" with getting the document out of the IRS.

My FOIA request was filed with the IRS who first indicated that they were having difficulty locating the document -- which I described using its title, it's number, and the name of the authors. Then the IRS indicated to me that they found it, had evaluated it, and culled half of it on the fraudulent notion that it contained "return information,"

and then my FOIA was sent to the U. S. Treasury for further evaluation and culling. The U. S. Treasury forwarded my FOIA request back to the IRS to its "Exempt Organizations" offices. The U. S. Treasury office informed me on the telephone that Scientology is considered an exempt organization.

The U. S. Treasury FOIA office was very helpful and did look into some reasons why my FOIA was taking so long -- 7 months so far. She looked at her records and checked to see what the dates were on my correspondence telling me that they had some delays in their mail room. When she noted that my FOIA request came in "too soon" I said, "Yes, it's probably before 911" and she confirmed that they had delays due to the need to start irradiating their inbound mail. But that was determined not to be a reason for the delays in getting my FOIA request filled.

I mentioned again that the document might be embarrassing and controversial enough to be the reason why nobody has yet been able to acquire a copy of the document since it first came out and I was again assured that the document wasn't controversial and that that wasn't the problem. I asked the office whether I should call the Exempt Organizations office of the IRS directly and we then both agreed that that probably wouldn't help. She asked if maybe I'd like to speak with her supervisor and I said that that wouldn't help because her office had done everything it could do and it was out of their hands. She apologized on behalf of the IRS and the U.

S. Treasury for not being able to get the information to me and I told her I understood that it's not her fault.

She noted that the IRS is a fairly large bureaucracy and some times it takes a long time to get things through just like with any large business and I agreed. She suggested that I call from time to time and I asked whether that would help. She said that one never knows what might turn up.

My whole take on this is that the IRS and the U. S. Treasury management simply don't want to release the document to the public domain and they'll stonewall until everyone who requests the document just goes away but that their management offices don't inform their office staff about the unwritten policy to keep this information from the public.

-- Listen to Scientology's insane "International President" nutter ranting insanely at http://www.linkline.com/personal/frice When scientologists are involved it raises the chances of business fraud by about 100 fold. -- Human Rights activist Mr. Keith Henson "Commodore Rimjob" available http://crimjob.tripod.com

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