Feds respond with circus safety records - six years later | HamptonRoads.com

By Meghan Hoyer
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 26, 2008

NORFOLK

If anyone is still wondering about the safety of a circus that came through Norfolk more than six years ago, we now have the answer.

A computer file of nearly decade-old federal inspections of a business that no longer exists, addressed to a reporter who no longer works at The Virginian-Pilot, arrived this week.

The records show that Sterling & Reid Brothers Circus, which was investigated after a worker beat an elephant at the Scope, had problems ranging from poor care to inexperienced staff to animals getting loose.

If only we had known that, oh, six years ago, when then-Pilot reporter Lou Misselhorn requested the documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

"It shows you why delays completely undermine the usefulness of FOIA," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the National Security Archive, a Washington research institute that uses the Freedom of Information Act to collect and publish government documents. "It's sort of ridiculous at that point."

Misselhorn filed the request with the US Department of Agriculture, which had begun investigating the circus.

The 50 pages of reports received Thursday date back to 1999. A USDA employee carefully blacked out the names of inspectors and employees of the circus, which folded several years ago.

The USDA's Freedom of Information contact acknow-ledged the office had a backlog and in a letter to The Pilot, the agency apologized for the delay.

Compared to some cases, the USDA's response was downright speedy.

A study released last year by the Knight Center on Open Government found that 12 of 57 federal agencies had FOIA backlogs of at least a decade, and that five agencies had requests dating back at least 15 years.

According to its latest annual report filed at the end of 2007, the Department of Agriculture's two oldest FOIA requests date back to 2000.

At that point, you would need the memory of an elephant just to remember what you asked for.

Meghan Hoyer, (757) 446-2293, meghan.hoyer@pilotonline.com

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You have a right to

Submitted by stevew51377 on Sat, 07/26/2008 at 9:39 am.

You have a right to government information apparently whenever they get around to it. They sure spend a lot of money collecting info. They should spend a little more effort on getting it to people who can make use of it. To think some people want the government to have more control over fuel and medicine.