The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization associated with Syracuse University.
The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people -- and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers -- with comprehensive information about federal staffing, spending, and the enforcement activities of the federal government. On a day-to-day basis, what are the agencies and prosecutors actually doing? Who are their employees and what are they paid? What do agency actions indicate about the priorities and practices of government? How do the activities of an agency or prosecutor in one community compare with those in a neighboring one or the nation as a whole? How have these activities changed over time? How does the record of one administration compare with the next? When the head of an agency or a district administrator changed, were there observable differences in actual enforcement priorities? When a new law was enacted or amended, what impact did it have on agency activities?
TRAC was established in 1989 as a research center at
Syracuse University. It has offices there, and in
Washington, D.C. It has been supported by Syracuse
University, foundations such as the Rockefeller Family
Fund, the New York Times Company Foundation, the John S.
and James L. Knight Foundation, the Beldon Fund and the
Open Society Institute, research grants and contracts,
and fees which help offset the costs of providing
services to academics, reporters, attorneys and others
subscribing to TRACFED or FEDPROBE, or those requesting
specialized research and data set preparation.
TRAC's core purpose is to make information about the federal
government's enforcement and regulatory effort more
accessible to the public. An essential step in this process
is TRAC's systematic and informed use of the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA). The basic principle of FOIA is very
simple: The records of the federal government should be
generally public. All you need to do is ask. But because of
the sheer number of records, the vast complexity in how
information is recorded and stored, and the uneasiness many
agencies feel about the public examining their day-to-day
performance, the actual process of obtaining federal records
is far from simple. In fact, the systematic collection of
such information usually is a difficult and time-consuming
task. So difficult, in fact, that many news organizations,
public interest groups, scholars and others do not bother to
exercise their rights under FOIA.
Because
comprehensive and relevant records about what an agency
is doing -- and not doing -- are essential to meaningful
oversight, TRAC continuously uses the law to obtain new
data about government enforcement and regulatory
activities. Some agencies are remarkably open. Other
agencies are not. In some circumstances TRAC has to file
suit in federal court to force the release of vital
data. An example of these efforts is TRAC's current
suit against the Justice Department.
Once TRAC obtains the data through its FOIA efforts, the
information is analyzed. With the use of a variety of
sophisticated statistical techniques, the raw
information obtained from the agencies is checked and
verified. Where possible, data from one agency is
compared with another for general consistency. Through
the addition of relevant population figures and staffing
counts, the enforcement data is placed in an
understandable context -- such as the per capita number
of prosecutions. County-level data obtained by TRAC on
significant local community features can provide useful
background about specific federal enforcement
activities. For example, in connection with FBI robbery
investigations in a particular district, the number of
branch banks operating in it would be relevant. In the
same way, information on the relative number of persons
65 and over living in an area could add perspective to a
report on the prosecution of fraudulent medical
providers who often prey on the elderly. The focus of these efforts is to develop as comprehensive and detailed as possible picture about what federal enforcement and regulatory agencies actually do, to describe what resources (staffing and funds) they have to work with to accomplish these tasks, and to organize all of this information to make it readily accessible to the public.
The
co-directors of TRAC are Susan Long, a statistician and
professor in Syracuse University's School of Management
who as a FOIA pioneer has specialized in federal
enforcement issues for more than 25 years, and
David Burnham, an investigative writer and former
New York Times reporter, who has covered local, state
and federal enforcement issues since 1966. TRAC has
offices in
Syracuse, NY and Washington, D.C..
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University Copyright 2002
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TRAC's Purpose
TRAC Public Web Site.
