The National Science Foundation has released its sixth installment of records about government use of indigenous knowledge from Native Americans, in response to the Freedom of Information Act request of Liberty Unyielding and the Bader Family Foundation. It’s available at this link.
It reveals that federal policies are shaped by people whose identity is kept secret from the public. That raises serious transparency issues.
Most of the 212 pages in this release have people’s names redacted — such as on pages 1-7, 9-13, 28-103, and 126-212.
A lot of these names are of people involved in shaping federal policy about indigenous knowledge — such as a Tribal Treaty Rights Memorandum of Understanding.
Not just important policy discussions, but even the names of the people involved in them, are redacted. This is disturbing.
Agencies often redact sensitive internal policy discussions when releasing records in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. They cite something called the deliberative process privilege to withhold those internal discussions. But when they do that, they are supposed to release the names of the people involved in those discussions, and subsequently list the “names and affiliations of all senders and recipients for each communication” in what is known as a Vaughn Index, if they seek to withhold those discussions.
Agencies can often redact the names of private citizens from records released under FOIA, for privacy reasons — but not if the names are of people who are helping shape public policy, such as lobbyists or people petitioning the government. It is even more inappropriate to withhold the names of government officials involved in setting government policy, since government officials have less privacy interests in their identity than a private citizen would, so their names are usually not redacted, even when they are powerless people not involved in setting government policy, like paralegals.
But NSF has redacted the names of policymakers, citing 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(6), the privacy exception of FOIA, even though that provision only allows the redaction of “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
A person whose name was redacted with the legend “(b)(6)” shaped federal policy about indigenous knowledge. That’s reflected in the fact that the National Science Foundation’s Erica Hill wrote to that person, “Hey [(b)(6)] , just FYI I got all your changes entered. Let me know when you want a new version.” (See page 205 of the released records, discussing “ITEK edits” — ITEK stands for “indigenous traditional ecological knowledge”).
A person’s name was redacted, despite the fact that that he or she revised the federal government’s “Proposed Tribal Treaty Rights MOU.” That unnamed person shaped that important policy document, writing “I incorporated your changes” in an email enclosing a revision of that document. (See page 205 of the released records, email on June 16, 2022 11:46 AM).
Similarly, a person whose name has been redacted with the legend “(b)(6)” edited a draft agency “report w/appendices,”
Erica –
Given the time crunch, I took a very quick look at the drafts and they look fantastic.
Attached are a few minor edits.
In addition to redacting her name, the NSF redacted the substance of her email to NSF”s Erica Hill, probably under deliberative process privilege. It stamps the redacted paragraphs (“(b)(5)”), a reference to the privilege that government officials can invoke for sensitive internal policy discussions that are “intra-agency” or “inter-agency” in nature. (See page 203 of the released records).
The “report w/appendices” she and Erica Hill were drafting may have been the guidance that the Biden administration issued in 2022, to promote the use of indigenous knowledge and beliefs in federal agencies’ decisions, and give tribes more control over the dissemination of their indigenous knowledge.
Indigenous knowledge can be useful, or it can be superstition or harmful quackery. Despite the uneven quality of indigenous knowledge, the Biden administration’s Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Indigenous Knowledge says that “Agencies should also include Indigenous Knowledge as an aspect of best available science,” and that “Indigenous Knowledge … may be used in HISA [Highly Influential Scientific Assessment] documents.”
When the sender of an email’s name is redacted with the legend “(b)(6)”, their email often includes the words “This email originated from outside of the National Science Foundation”, added by the National Science Foundation’s email system to denote that the sender was from outside the agency. That is true of emails discussed above, involving the Tribal Treaty Rights MOU and the draft report about indigenous knowledge. (See pages 203, 205 & 211 of the released records).
But if these people whose names were redacted were from outside the federal government, then the government had no business redacting the substance of their emails under “deliberative process privilege” — even though it did — because that privilege does not apply to communications with people outside the federal government, only “intra-agency” or “inter-agency” communications. For example, the federal Office of Science & Technology Policy was ordered to release, without redactions, drafts of an agency policy document it shared with an outside expert, which the agency had redacted because it involved the expert’s participation in internal agency policy deliberations.
In the records released in November in response to our FOIA request, a National Science Foundation grant reviewer urged the National Science Foundation to restrict “helicopter science” in which non-Native researchers collect data or knowledge in an area inhabited by natives without native consent, arguing that “The taking of Indigenous knowledge by settler scientists is unethical, antithetical to the mission of the NSF, and cannot and should not happen any longer.” That NSF reviewer, Michelle LaRue of the University of Canterbury, wrote on pp. 3-4 of that release,
I am writing to you as both an NSF grantee (awards #1744989 and #1543311) and also as a reviewer of NSF proposals to request greater oversight of proposal activities and award activities that ultimately result in “helicopter science” – the idea of western scientists traveling to a region, taking information, data, and analysing back in their home countries without including or acknowledging local communities or cultures….
As you are likely aware, there are substantial efforts worldwide to decolonize science….
The taking of Indigenous knowledge by settler scientists is unethical, antithetical to the mission of the NSF, and cannot and should not happen any longer. To this end, I am requesting that NSF take action by providing scrutiny to proposals and research activities that involve research on Indigenous lands, involving Indigenous communities, or about Indigenous cultures – in the same way other ethical considerations are made in the proposal process.
If the NSF were to adopt this proposal, it could restrict the free flow of information and leave scientists less knowledgeable about indigenous communities.
Some tribal governments have asked the Biden administration to provide federal subsidies for tribal review of federal projects and for access to indigenous knowledge. They have also asked the administration to curb access to information under the Freedom of Information Act. (See this record, for example).
