DRCNet Files FOIA Request for Justice Department List of 52 Internet Drug Menace Web Sites: Drugwar.com

(Originally Published Here)

Executive Director David Borden

Editor/Writer Phillip S Smith

March 29, 2002

DRCNet Files FOIA Request for Justice Department List of 52 Internet Drug Menace Web Sites

As DRCNet reported two weeks ago, the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) in December released a study of the "drug menace" to American youth on the Internet (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/228.html#ominouslook). Although the study, "Drugs and the Internet: An Overview of the Threat to America's Youth" purported to target web sites involved in facilitating the use, manufacture or distribution of non-prescription drugs, NDIC's sample of 52 web sites, however, included "32 sites [that were] probably associated with drug legalization groups." NDIC did not list the names of the 52 web sites in the study. It rebuffed three weeks of efforts by writers from Wired Online, which broke the story, to obtain those names. NDIC also rebuffed DRCNet in our effort to determine whether DRCNet was one of the web sites listed. An NDIC spokesman contacted by DRCNet did say that monitoring of the web sites was not ongoing, but refused to confirm whether DRCNet was among those sites or release the names of the offending web sites.

Drug reform organizations are concerned that an overanxious federal government will monitor constitutionally protected free speech in its effort to banish drug sales from the Internet. The Justice Department, via the NDIC study, has already made abundantly clear that it cannot or will not differentiate between web sites that facilitate drug sales and web sites that present a political viewpoint on drug policy.

"This is an attempt at intimidation, an attempt to chill First Amendment rights," said Richard Glen Boire of the Center for Cognitive Liberties and Ethics (http://www.alchemind.org/CCLE/), an organization devoted to defending the mental freedom of individuals, including the right to alter their consciousness. "It encroaches upon cherished First Amendment rights in an area that is currently of great public importance and public debate," he told DRCNet two weeks ago. "This is an unsurprising, but very, very disturbing expansion of the war on drugs. It's as if they want to go after not just mind-altering substances, but the very words themselves," he said. "The government seems to think that even discussing drug policy with any point of view other than theirs is somehow unpatriotic or encouraging illegal drug activity. That's a chilling prospect."

DRCNet this Monday filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with NDIC demanding that it release the names and Internet addresses of the 52 web sites. Under the act, the agency from which information is demanded must respond within ten working days by notifying the requester that it will or will not comply with the request. The act provides exemptions for certain categories of information, such as national security or oil wells, which should not impact the DRCNet FOIA request, but one category -- ongoing law enforcement investigations -- may provide cover for NDIC to refuse to release the information. If NDIC refuses to release the names, DRCNet can and will begin an administrative appeal, to which NDIC must respond within 20 working days. If the administrative appeal is rejected, DRCNet can pursue the matter in federal court. DRCNet will cross that bridge when we come to it.

As far as responses, the law is one thing and reality is quite another. According to the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) "Using the Freedom of Information Act: A Step-By-Step Guide (http://www.aclu.org/library/foia.html#basics), federal courts accept delays in government responses as long as requests are being handled on a first-come first-serve basis. "Many agencies meet their deadlines, but others are notoriously slow," the ACLU noted. "When dealing with a backlogged agency, you could wait up to three months before you hear anything, and they may occasionally take years before a final response is made."

The NDIC is an obscure Justice Department fiefdom and is probably not inundated with FOIA requests. The clock is ticking.