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----- Forwarded message from "Aftergood, Steven" <saftergood@fas.org> -----

Subject: Secrecy News -- 10/31/02
From: "Aftergood, Steven" <saftergood@fas.org>
To: <secrecy_news@lists.fas.org>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 10:30:20 -0500

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2002, Issue No. 109
October 31, 2002

**	FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND "IMAGINARY CONSPIRACIES"
[other articles removed for brevity]

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND "IMAGINARY CONSPIRACIES"

In the climax to one of the most bizarre chapters in the history of
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, a federal judge issued a
ruling last month not only on what the law requires but on what is
real, and rebuked a requester for "seeking information about an
imaginary conspiracy."

The requester, Barbara Schwarz, a resident of Salt Lake City, has
become a figure of almost mythical proportions among government
freedom of information officers because of her relentless pursuit of
nonexistent information and her astonishing litigiousness.

In one lawsuit last year, she named 3,087 defendants in a complaint
that was 2,370 pages long.  The judge observed that she had sued "what
appears to be every federal department, independent federal agency and
office or component thereof and each agency's FOIA officers."

That case was dismissed as frivolous and malicious and, in a most
unusual step, the court enjoined Ms. Schwarz from further filings.
But at least two related cases of hers remained pending, until last
month's dismissal of one of them.

"The premise of plaintiff's FOIA requests," as summarized by the Court,
"is that a German Nazi conspiracy has infiltrated the United States
Government, that [her husband] is being held secretly having been
falsely convicted, that one purpose of the conspiracy is to prevent
plaintiff from locating [her husband] or his parents or attorneys so
that she can testify on his behalf, and that an independent or special
counsel may be trying unsuccessfully to reach plaintiff to obtain her
testimony."

"The Court concludes that this premise is fanciful and has no basis in
fact," wrote D.C. District Judge John D. Bates in his September 24
ruling.

"The Freedom of Information Act is designed to provide requesters with
real information about how the government works," Judge Bates
continued.  "Its admirable purpose is abused when misguided
individuals are allowed (in this case, repeatedly) to submit requests
to every agency and subdivision of the government, seeking information
about an imaginary conspiracy."

It is a source of frustration for other FOIA requesters to have to wait
in line while Ms. Schwarz demands, for example, documents proving that
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, is the unacknowledged son
of President Dwight Eisenhower (Ms. Schwarz asserts that she herself
is the unacknowledged daughter of Hubbard.); or CIA records "relating
to a village in Utah named Chattanooga"; or any records referring to
her "under code name 'Cindy'."