Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is a nonprofit and nonpartisan data gathering, data research, and data distribution organization in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

. TRAC collects big data from the federal agencies and maintains a databases of federal enforcement, staffing and financial data. TRAC also focuses on using the Freedom of Information Act to request such data. Th
FOIA Project
is an initiative of TRAC that monitors federal agency FOIA decisions and practices. Over the years, TRAC has been cited in hundreds of news articles.

History

TRAC was established in 1989 as a research center and was jointly sponsored by the

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, commonly known as Newhouse School, is the communications and journalism school of Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY. It has programs in print and broadcast journalism; music business; graphic d ...

and the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University. Susan Long, a statistics associate professor in Whitman School, and veteran New York Times reporter

David Burnham David Burnham (born 1933) is an American investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He rose to prominence in 1970 while writing a series of articles for ''The'' ''New York Times'' on police corruption, which inspired the 1973 f ...

served as the founding directors. Barlett and Steele, who won the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

s for their story on the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

in 1975 and 1989, couldn’t get the data from IRS and received the data from Long & Burnham instead. This and other inquiries led Long to consider starting an organization dedicated to data collection and analysis. The website was launched in 1996.

Research and Publications

TRAC makes data available to the public through a variety of interactive data tools, user-generated reports, and original research reports. TRAC uses a variety of statistical techniques to verify data received from government agencies. Where possible, TRAC compares new data with prior data, other publicly available data, and data from other agencies to ensure consistency and accuracy. TRAC works with academic researchers to facilitate more sophisticated research projects. The data warehouse and the specialized data mining tools designed, created and maintained by TRAC are run on SAS software backend. From its FOIA requests, TRAC adds more than 3 billion new records to its database annually (>250 million records per month). Furthermore more than 300,000 monthly records on civil and criminal proceedings are also obtained. The TRAC website consists of various subsections that list data from specific government agencies and special projects. These sections include: * '
TRACFED
'' offers compiled federal data concerning enforcement (Criminal, Civil, Administrative), staffing, and funding. * '
TRAC-FBI
'' provides compiled data information about the FBI, including its staffing and criminal prosecution, enforcement activities and map and tables. * '
TRAC-IRS
'': Data collection from the IRS predates founding of TRAC. * '
TRAC-DEA
'', '
TRAC-DHS
'', '
TRAC-ATF
'' track data related to the specified agencies. * '
TRAC-Immigration
'': TRAC Immigration website was launched in 2006 and contains immigration related written reports, one-click tool access to the latest monthly data on immigration enforcement, library of immigration reports by the

Government Accountability Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal govern ...

, Congressional Research Service and

inspectors general An inspector general is an investigative official in a civil or military organization. The plural of the term is "inspectors general". Australia The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (Australia) (IGIS) is an independent statutory off ...

, and plain English glossary of frequently used words and acronyms. TRAC's immigration court data was featured on an episode of

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver ''Last Week Tonight with John Oliver'' (often abridged as ''Last Week Tonight'') is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by comedian John Oliver. The half-hour-long show premiered in April 2014 on HBO. ''Last Wee ...

. In 2019, TRAC found that immigration data was missing and accused Trump’s Justice Department of systematically deleting immigration court records. *'
Judges
'': TRAC is one of the oldest independent organizations covering federal enforcement and federal judges. In 2014, TRAC launched a ''Judge Information Tool'' to provide information on and track Performance of federal district court judges on topics such as disparities in judge asylum decisions. In September 2007,

U.S. District Judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

Norman A. Mordue Norman A. Mordue (born June 26, 1942) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. Military service, education and career Mordue earned the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, an ...

ruled against TRAC saying that federal employee information can be withheld by the government from the public. In 2009, a New York Times report cited TRAC data to describe backlogged immigration courts and a 2020 CNN report reported the same issue.

FOIA Project

The FOIA Project was created by TRAC to track government agencies' responsiveness to public records requests and to document the growing number of FOIA cases litigated in federal court. The Project maintains a public website with information on federal FOIA cases, agency FOIA processing times, a list of the most active FOIA litigators, and research reports written by TRAC researchers. The Project's research on FOIA litigation has been cited by the New York Times and the Washington Free Beacon.

Evaluation and criticism

Kevin Blackwell, a senior research associate at the United States Sentencing Commission criticized TRAC in a 2003 paper in the Federal Sentencing Reporter journal, claiming there were inadequacies and discrepancies in its data. A 201
issue
of '' Federal Sentencing Reporter'' was committed to a debate of TRAC's report and criticisms by federal public defenders. TRAC has been praised by fellows at the Center for Immigration Studies for the quality of the data it provides on immigration as well as the Federal Courts and federal law enforcement organizations.

Leadership and staff

and Susan Long are the founding directors of TRAC. Burham is former New York Times reporter who works from Washington D.C. while Susan Long is the associate professor of managerial statistics in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at SU. TRAC frequently collaborates with faculties from the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications,

Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Maxwell School) is the professional public policy school of Syracuse University, a private research university in Syracuse, New York. The school is organized in 11 academic departments and 13 ...

, The Knight Chair in Political Reporting, and others. TRAC employs multiple Resident Faculty Fellows. Annually, many student fellowships are awarded for research purposes. TRAC also provides educational opportunities for Syracuse students in the areas of data analysis, software development, systems administration, research, graphics and instructional design.

Funding

In addition to critical support from Syracuse University, TRAC has been funded by foundations including Carnegie, Ford, Knight, MacArthur, Rockefeller, New York Times, Haas,

Open Society Open society (french: société ouverte) is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in 1932, and describes a dynamic system inclined to moral universalism.Thomas Mautner (2005), 2nd ed. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy'' Open so ...

, Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, and the CS Fund. TRAC also charges membership fees from their users to help offset the costs of providing services to academics, reporters, attorneys and others.

References

External links

*
A summary of TRAC's immigration research tools
{{Authority control 1989 establishments in New York (state) TRAC American journalism organizations Organizations based in Syracuse, New York