|
our fifty-fourth what happens when a car salesman fires the FOIA workers newsletter
NOW ONLINE: 1.5 million NEW names in the BIRLS database of deceased US veterans!
SUDDENLY NOT IN YOUR MAILBOX: their files!
COMING SOON: probably another lawsuit!
Hello again from your excited and very annoyed records reclaimers at Reclaim The Records. Today we're simultaneously announcing a big new free database update, about 1.5 million new names and more basic biographical information about deceased American veterans from the 2020-2023 period! It's the first public update to our big BIRLS database, a dataset that we originally released late last year, bringing the new grand total to over nineteen and a half million names of US veterans, the largest dataset of its kind that we know of.
And we're also discussing how the very same government agency we won these records from in a multi-year FOIA lawsuit, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA), is now, as of just a few weeks ago, suddenly refusing to process thousands of FOIA requests from the public for these exact kind of amazing files -- including, very likely, many of your own FOIA requests!
A quick recap about BIRLS
If you've been using our new BIRLS.org website over the past year to make free FOIA requests for copies of the C-Files (benefits claims files) for your relatives or research interests, you may have gotten to see some incredible never-before-available records, scanned for the very first time, and sent right to your house. People have gotten C-Files for everyone from barely-known relatives to Hollywood movie stars to Hall of Fame baseball players to WWII POWs in the Pacific and everyone in between.
Many of these benefits claims files really should have been moved out of the VA warehouses and over to the National Archives (NARA) years ago, but they were not. And for years it was also almost impossible to get the VA to properly respond to a FOIA request for the materials -- unless, as we discovered, you sent in your FOIA request by fax. So we at Reclaim the Records built the BIRLS.org website so you could file a FOIA request and fax it to the VA right from your web browser, all for free.
And boy oh boy, did people like that! In the past nine months, since the website went live, we're proud to say that we've enabled more than 8,000 researchers to submit more than 20,000 FOIA requests to the VA for these amazing but barely-known and previously-unavailable files!
Dude, where's my (grandpa's) file?
Well, the government giveth and the government taketh away -- or is trying to. In late July, suddenly the envelopes of amazing DVDs stopped showing up at people's houses. Instead, researchers have suddenly been getting different response letters, ones now saying that only bare bones textual genealogical information will be released, not actual scanned files! These new genealogy forms, as paltry as they are, are usually mostly blank in the first place, or filled with errors. Basically, the VA has decided it doesn't want to fulfill our FOIA requests at all! We suspect that the limited information they are deciding to give us is not even being properly transcribed from the underlying file, and we even wonder if it’s being created by artificial intelligence scanning the file.
We've created a new page at BIRLS.org/updates where we are sharing everything we know (so far) about this new FOIA-denying policy change by the VA, including samples of the new "genealogical" form letters they have started sending out to researchers. We're actively working with our attorneys to explore our options for fighting back against this sudden change to a policy of providing these files for genealogy research that started in 1948. 
And we have to say it: there is probably another pressing reason for the VA to suddenly want to find a way to stop responding to FOIA requests now, in mid-2025. We know that thousands of employees of the VA have been fired, laid off, or pressured into early retirement in just the past few months, through the work of a certain car salesman and his friends. And that reduction in workforce has been hitting the agency at the exact same time that they have been receiving over 20,000 FOIA requests (so far!) from our new website. It would certainly be easier for the agency to simply avoid the tedious process of finding and scanning and sending all these records if it did not want to, or if it could no longer provide the manpower to do so...
So what are we doing about it?
Well, we want our records back. We're working with our legal team on other ways to reinstate our right, and your right, to access these amazing files without new and unnecessary "genealogical" redactions that strip all the good stuff out. We’re scoping our next steps, but this is going to likely be a long, complicated, and expensive venture. In the meantime, we’ll keep publishing guidance at BIRLS.org/updates and tracking any further VA policy shifts. Stay tuned for updates...
And what can YOU do about it?
While we're making our game plans, and even though the VA is still being ridiculous about all this, you should definitely keep searching and keep making FOIA requests for new C-Files, especially from the newest batch of 1.5 million more names that we just posted online this week. Because all of these veterans are deceased, you will likely find recent information in there that simply isn't available anywhere else, including in state death indices, death certificates, or the somewhat-outdated public version of the Social Security Death Master File.
And also in the meantime, if you did happen to get a disappointing "genealogy letter" from the VA instead of an awesome DVD with a PDF, YOU SHOULD APPEAL IT.
The VA seems to have classified all recent requests submitted through BIRLS.org as "genealogy" requests. However, we suspect that a large share of these requests were submitted for immediate relatives’ files. If this is you, you may have even more options! If you are the widow(er), child, or legal next-of-kin of the veteran, appeal the response! 38 C.F.R. § 1.504, a different section of the regulation, provides for disclosure to next-of-kin. You have ninety days to appeal the VA’s denial letter to ogcfoiaappeals@va.gov . Cite 38 C.F.R. § 1.504, include your denial letter, proof of death, and proof of your relationship.
And if you’re not a next-of-kin of the person whose file you sought, you should still appeal, too -- but you may want to hold off a little longer for our "model arguments", which we are still working out with our lawyers. You have ninety days from your letter date to appeal (or not), and we’ll share recommended language on our website as soon as it’s ready, hopefully by mid-September.
We hope that the VA will at least provide full files to close relatives, but frankly, we suspect they are making up new policies in response to our every move, so we have no idea what will happen. However, even if your appeal is denied, you’ll preserve a six-year window to litigate the issue. And whatever happens,we will keep fighting.
Help Us Keep Fighting – Donate Today!
The VA is trying to close the door on public copies of millions of cubic feet of unique historical material; we’re going to pry it back open. If you can, please help us pay for the crowbar. Turning this around will, at best, take a lot of work from our lawyers. None of this is going to be cheap. If you can, please make a tax deductible gift today to underwrite our efforts. Otherwise, these records may languish in warehouses for decades, and the stories they hold will remain unknown.
Reclaim The Records is a small but mighty organization that fights for public access to historical records. We don’t take government funding — we rely on grassroots support from people like you.
- If you believe in open records, transparency, and genealogical rights, please make a donation today.
- Every dollar goes directly toward legal efforts, public awareness campaigns, and the fight against record closures — and the fight forawesome new records acquisitions, like this one!
Here’s how you can support us, and our work. Thank you!
Because history should never be padlocked,
your annoyed but determined friends at Reclaim The Records
|