Office of the Inspector General - Passing the Buck

The e-mail to the right from the Freedom of Information Act office of the Department of Homeland Security’s Offiice of the Inspector General (OIG), and another response below highlight the complete disinterest and / or incompetence of the DHS OIG; specifically the FOIA Office, the Whistleblower Protection (WPU) Office and the Office of Investigations (OI). Further, comparable to the DHS Office of the General Counsel (OGC) and the Coast Guard’s Human Resources Directorate (CG-1), it details another example of DHS office’s paying lip service to taxpayer reports or concerns but never actually taking any action that would require effort on their part.

Rather, they hide their inaction by citing unwritten regulations that supposedly restrict the disclosure of information contained in investigative and law enforcement records.

By way of analogy…

Imagine if a family member was murdered by an off-duty police officer from the Baltimore Police Department in front of you, and after reporting the murder to the Washington, DC Police, their response was to state:  “Our office will NOT provide anyone, to include the eye witness to the murder who reported it, with the status of action(s) taken on any allegation.  The information you provided will be handled according to our internal policies and guidelines, and appropriate action will be taken, as determined.”  And several months later, in the absence of any communication at all from the DC Police, you request a “status update” to see if anything was done. They initially respond that they are not aware of your complaint; and subsequently reveal that nothing at all has been done to date. 

Subsequently, over 15 months after the murder that you witnessed, you are still trying to get the DC Police Department to provide you a “status update” as to their investigation when you are surprisingly contacted by the Baltimore Police Department, to whom the DC Police apparently long ago passed off responsibility for the murder investigation.  And the Baltimore Police Department - for which the perpetrators still work - tells you they have yet to investigate the crime as they have chosen not to as they don’t believe they are subject to the laws prohibiting murder.  Subsequently, the DC  Police Department tells you that they completed their legal obligation when they passed off responsibility for investigating the murder to the Baltimore Police.

Analogy actors: DC Police = DHS OIG; Baltimore Police = CGIS; Murder = Illegal retention and dissemination of juvenile records, whistleblower retaliation, improper and inequitable discharge, extrajudicial punishment, etc.

Within DHS OIG, bureaucratic malaise, incompetence, obfuscation, and inaction facilitate a host of improper, irregular or illegal activity by DHS subordinate agencies, to include the United States Coast Guard.

From: FOIA OIG [mailto:FOIA.OIG@oig.dhs.gov]
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2022 2:17 PM
To:  REDACTED
Subject: RE: FOIA Request and Appeals Status Request... attempt # 8

 Greetings Mr. REDACTED:

 Thank you for your email regarding the following Freedom of Information Act requests and appeal:

 2021-IGFO-00206

2021-IGAP-00014

2021-IGFO- 00081

 Per our FOIA case tracking system and the attached responses, all cases have been responded to and closed.  Our office does not have any outstanding FOIA requests or appeals that are pending from you.  Any status requests for non-FOIA related matters fall outside of our office’s purview.

 Thank you.

 DHS OIG FOIA Team

From: REDACTED
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2022 3:10 PM
To: 'FOIA OIG' <FOIA.OIG@oig.dhs.gov>
Cc: 'OGIS' <OGIS@nara.gov>
Subject: RE: FOIA Request and Appeals Status Request... attempt # 8

 DHS FOIA OIG FOIA

 To whomever bothers to read and then ignore this:

 Your disingenuous and deceptive response states that your… “office does not have any outstanding FOIA requests or appeals that are pending from”… me. Well, of course you don’t because you closed all of the remaining and long-overdue FOIA requests/appeals within the space of  14 minutes a few days ago (on 18 March) and just 4 minutes before you sent your e-mail. What your office and DHS OIG-OI failed to do was to actually respond to my FOIA Requests or investigate my Hotline complaints of ongoing USCG illegal activity.  The actual details of my three FOIA Requests and related FOIA Appeals to DHS OIG-FOIA follow:

FOIA 2020-IGFO-00206 Submitted 09/01/2020.  Response dated 03/12/2021 - No substantive response; Rather, you enclosed 2 pages of my original 60+ page complaint and confirmation that OIG-OI never accessed the remaining 60+ pages before passing-off the tasker to CGIS a week later, who was/is complicit in the ongoing illegal activity. Former CGIS Director Berkow confirmed that he received the “hot potato” from DHS OIG-OI but refused to investigate. A subsequent DHS OIG WPU investigation determined that the complaint was worthy of further investigation and passed the “hot potato” back to OIG-OI on 07/02/2021, with no further action taken.

FOIA 2021-IGFO-00081 Submitted 02/13/2021. Response dated 05/11/2021 - No substantive response as they couldn’t find any evidence that DHS OIG-OI received my complaint or of any investigation resulting from it.

FOIA 2021-IGFO 00206 Submitted 07/29/2021. Response dated 09/02/2021 - No substantive response but included my original OIG-OI Hotline complaint and my identity release attestation.

FOIA Appeal 2021-IGAP-00014 Submitted 04/27/2021. Response dated 05/14/2021 - No substantive response but a letter with the same non-response from FOIA 2021-IGFO-00081 was enclosed.

FOIA Appeal 2022-IGAP-00009 Submitted 11/27/2021. No response received

FOIA Appeal 2022-IGAP-00010 Submitted 11/27/2021. No response received

DHS OIG Hotline Complaints:

HLCN1588110637365 Submitted 05/17/2020 - Passed off to CGIS; no further action taken.

 HLCN1603990929019 Submitted 10/29/2020 - No action taken.

 HLCN1610644584119 Submitted 01/14/2021 - No action taken.

Frankly, sometime last year I gave up on your office and DHS OIG altogether (as well as the ineffectual OGIS).  In the two instances where a complaint or an FOIA Request to DHS OIG was “looked at”, DHS OIG OI and DHS OIG WPU respectively, passed the buck to another office/agency who then did nothing. That’s a pretty easy job when all you have to do is ignore the ongoing illegal activity and pass the criminal complaint off to someone else to do nothing with; and then mark it as “completed”.   FYI, the criminal activity detailed in my three OIG-OI Hotline complaints continues to date.  Most sincerely, REDACTED