Opinion ID: 614361
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Access to Seized Documents

Text: Taxpayers argue that McCarthy lied in describing the extent of American officials' access to the seized documents. In his 1967 affidavit in the district court, McCarthy stated that this Government has never been able to examine all of the records in the possession of the Philippine Government and select those it wished to copy; rather this Government copied those records which the Philippine Government selected and chose to allow to be copied. McCarthy later represented to the court, I believe there is some limitation on[Government access to seized documents]. Our people had to ask for specific documents. They did not just have free access to every room. They would say, `We believe there are such and such records on such and such a company from what we have seen. Can you find that.' McCarthy's statements were not inconsistent with the evidence. As we previously discussed, the FOIA memoranda that discuss the extent of U.S. access to documents are somewhat inconsistent. On the one hand, Hawley reported to Hoover that Lukban was providing copies of all documents found, Powers reported splendid cooperation from the NBI in accessing documents, and Chandler later reported that, after he had helped the NBI acquire space for the documents, the documents were fully available. On the other hand, Ragland's memorandum from October 1962 stated that the U.S. agents had never actually had unlimited access to the records.