Soon... I hope.

Got a letter from the CDC - brief update.

According to the letter I've received from the CDC's FOIA office, their delay in responding to my request is due to filling requests made prior to mine. As soon as requests which are in line ahead of me have been taken care of, I'll receive an answer.

Just to see where they are in filling requests, I've checked the numbers closest to mine. I didn't have to go very far back to find one that's closed, and there are requests made after mine which are at "pending program search" status. I hope this means I'll get an answer soon.

 

A minor update on my FOIA request

It's been nearly 3 weeks since I sent a request for an update on the decision making process for my Freedom of Information Act request to the CDC for some of the raw numbers from the NISVS. To be sure my letter was received, I sent it delivery confirmation.

I haven't received either confirmation of delivery, or my letter returned as undeliverable. In my experience, this is an unusually slow pace for delivery confirmation mail, but I have never had a delivery failure with that system. I suspect that my letter probably had to sit in the Atlanta, Georgia post office for the duration of the time the addressee is given to pick it up following a failed attempt at delivery, and this will be my first "undeliverable" notice.

Checking on the CDC's FOIA status request page, however, does show that there's been a change. I've been upgraded from "Pending Program Search."

I'm still not holding my breath. This doesn't tell me how much the information is going to cost, or whether the request has even been approved - though there isn't a legal basis for disapproving it - so it's a change, not a promise. Still, it means that there's some kind of forward motion on the case, and when trying to get anything from an agency of the American federal government, that in and of itself is remarkable.

So that's it - not a huge update, just a quick note, and a little hope.

Update post: The Liars, the Snitch, and the magic red tape

Today, on checking the CDC's Freedom of Information Act Request Service Center, I discovered that the site (previously out of order) is working again. I eagerly typed in my numbers, hoping for an update. Remember, the request is for information that had to be compiled in order to do the calculations needed to arrive at the conclusions stated in their NISVS reports, including the overall report, and the more targeted reports.

The reply I received when I clicked on the submit button: "Pending program search."

The site explains "Pending program search" as meaning that "program staff are still conducting the search" for the requested information.

Meaning...

In 2010 the CDC commissioned that survey. The organization that did the survey interviewed thousands of people and recorded the results, calculated percentages from those results in order to report on both the experience and perpetration of partner and sexual violence by gender and sexuality... but apparently, in 2013, neither the organization nor the CDC has readily available statistics on respondent's answers by gender and sexuality, as my request, received on February 4, has now been in their hands for 4 months, and they're still searching for those stats.

Interesting.

So, I'm sending the following letter via registered mail, addressed to both of the individuals listed on the FOIA request service center's sidebar:

Attn:
Katherine Norris or Bruno Viana

I've been trying to get information on the status of my FOIA request, reference number #13-00308-FOIA,  for numbers from the CDC's 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Unfortunately, the site to which the letter I received from the CDC's office for handling FOIA requests referred me did not function at all for several weeks, and I was unable to obtain any update through that page until recently. On entering my numbers, I get a reply that the information is being searched, but that doesn't tell me much. I've tried contacting your agency by phone, but nobody ever answers, and when I leave messages, they don't get returned. I assume that there are folks requesting a lot of other information from the CDC, probably for more conventional health related reasons, and I suspect that, due to the different nature of my request, my messages may be getting lost among more urgent requests. This is why I am contacting you in this manner.

I'm requesting  just a quick note on the status of my FOIA request, with information as to whether the information is available, if there is a time frame yet on delivering it, and at what cost to me, or whether I have qualified for a reduction or waver of fees. Even if that information has not yet been determined, I would appreciate a quick note to let me know that, as well. I can be reached via postal service to my home address;

(my address)

or I can be reached via email at (my email address), or by phone at (my phone number.)

Again, even if the information I have requested has not been gathered, it would still be helpful to me to have an answer on the cost, if that has been decided.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

(my name)

My hope is that I will shortly receive a reply with an update to at least let me know if receiving the requested numbers will be expensive, and if so, how expensive. Better would be if I could get some kind of estimate as to when I can expect the information, but I'll take what I can get.

The liars, the snitch, and the magic red tape

I haven't written about this publicly until now, because I was hoping to get the information and report on that, instead, but I've run into some odd hurdles, and because of that I think the process has become interesting in and of itself. I began this over dissatisfaction with the CDC's handling of the data from the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Among other things, I'm appalled at the sexism inherent in the deliberate mislabeling of data so that a double standard is created for the treatment of a single action (sexual abuse specifically involving a victim's genitals) depending on the gender of the victim. The CDC acknowledges that raping a woman is rape, regardless of the manner of violation. The CDC denies that raping a man is rape if the manner of violation involves an intimate assault on his genitals.

The ridiculousness of that denial becomes evident if one simply reverses the sexes. Imagine telling a woman that her assailant didn't rape her because the attack "only" involved abusing her genitals in exactly the manner in which they are used for sexual intimacy. Only an idiot, an ignoramus, or an ideologist with an agenda would come up with such convoluted logic. The decision to exclude being forced to penetrate from the CDC's definition of rape is not an honest attempt to categorize behavior, but an attempt to obfuscate in discussion of a very sensitive issue. Further, looking at the data they presented on those two specific types of assault - forced to penetrate, and forced penetration - it is evident that perpetration of the crime is much less gender-divided than advocates have been claiming. This information is eclipsed by the CDC's creative labeling, making it appear that common belief on the subject is correct when, based on the data, it is quite obviously not. By excluding the intimate sexual abuse of male genitalia from their definition of rape, the CDC has perpetuated three lies: First, that male victims of rape are rare, second, that female perpetrators of rape are rare, and third, that preventative and law enforcement approaches to the crime of rape should focus on a prevalence of male perpetration and female victim experience.

The presentation of the survey results was equally unsatisfactory in its description of specific categories of victim and perpetrator. The report, biased in its wording as the survey was in its methods, often states what percentage of victims in each specific category of violence reported one gender of perpetrator, but not what percentage reported the other gender. Female perpetration is particularly under-discussed. As explained in the graphic linked in the previous paragraph, that makes it difficult to accurately calculate female perpetration beyond an estimate of the minimum that can be confirmed. It became evident to me that an accurate picture of partner and sexual violence in the U.S. cannot be had without more information than the CDC made available to the public in its report.

On February 4, 2013, I sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the CDC, asking for information from the raw numbers from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. I did not request private information, but asked for the total number of individuals who answered specific questions, by gender, by sexuality, and by type of violence. The request was carefully worded (and therefore long winded) because I did not want it misinterpreted, and insufficient information sent, but the information requested was information that the researchers would have had to compile in order to do the calculations necessary to file the report that was shared with the public. Since the report could not have been done without that information, it must exist in some accessible form.

A few weeks later, I received back the following letter (personal information blurred, including request ID, for my protection):

Note - I'm not removing the CDC's contact information, because that information is public information,
readily available on the site to which I was directed, and easily obtained otherwise.
Please, at this time, do not call, message, fax, or write to this agency about my request. I do not think
increased contact to the office will speed the process, as I will explain further along in this post.

I gave the agency a couple of months from my initial request. On April 12, 2013, I tried checking my assigned request ID at the CDC's FOIA web page. This is what I found:



As I said in my update to friends with whom I'd discussed the matter,

Out of order? Seriously? WTH is this, an arcade game?
I wonder how long it's been that way, and how long it's going to continue.

The other two addresses listed on the page don't give any information that would help me to determine the response to my request. The second link, http://www.hhs.gov/foia/45cfr5.html, goes to the text of the act which describes the rules and process, but doesn't help me find out if a decision has been made in my case, or not. From that link, I was able to ascertain that there is no legitimate reason why the CDC should deny my request for information. The agency might deny my request for a fee reduction or waver, but that should not affect the release of the information.

I called the 770 number listed, and received no answer. I left a message, and received no return call. On April 17th, I called and left another message, and sent an email.

I've been trying to get information on the status of my FOIA request for numbers from the CDC's 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Unfortunately, the site to which the letter I received from the CDC's office for handling FOIA requests referred me has not been functioning for several days, instead referring users to a phone number. I've made calls to the number, but have received no return call.

I'm writing to request just a quick note on the status of my FOIA request, with information as to whether the information is available, if there is a time frame yet on delivering it, and at what cost to me, or whether I have qualified for a reduction or waver of fees. Even if that information has not yet been determined, I would appreciate a quick note to let me know that, as well.

The reference number given in the letter I received is #13-XXXXX-FOIA

Again, I updated friends, sharing the text of the message, and the following thought:

Here's hoping I get back a response... though I'm not holding my breath. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if there's something off about the survey that we haven't already highlighted. Like... perhaps the numbers aren't as they've been represented... or perhaps the vagueness of the report was due to the numbers showing things the CDC didn't want to admit (like a prevalence of female violence.)  

Today is March 10th, 2013. Repeated calls have confirmed for me that the liaisons at the office simply never answer their phones. Failure to return my calls and emails has confirmed for me that they also ignore messages. I've left another voice message for them regarding my request, pointing out the amount of time that has passed, and stating that all I want is an update on their decision process, but based on past experience I do not expect a response to that, either. Still, just in case, I will give them another few days to get back to me and at least tell me whether or not they have any update to my request. 

I realize that my request may seem a bit complex. The survey was done not by the CDC, but by an organization hired for that purpose, and while the request was for information which should be readily available due to its having been used in calculations for the NISVS report, I did request a fee reduction or waiver based on the need for the information. While there is no excuse for having difficulty providing the requested information, it may be that the agency is having some difficulty determining my eligibility for waver. In my waver request, I made the following statement:

Disclosure of the information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the subject matter and can be used for the benefit of crime victims within the victim's advocacy system and to improve other victim's services.

My intent is to evaluate the data for purposes of discussing violence risk among populations which are underserved by the current Domestic Violence Advocacy system and the legal system due to social misconceptions regarding partner and sexual violence. I will publish my conclusions in a non-commercial publication, from which I make no profit, which will be publicly available for anyone's use as a reference source in discussion and advocacy on this topic.

Aside from that publication, my use of the information will include advocacy directed to alert victim's advocates and legislators to the omission, with the goal of improving the outlook of underrepresented victims who seek assistance in escaping violent environments and pursuing charges against their assailants and/or abusers. It will also include discussion among activists interested in improving the environment faced by currently underrepresented victims.

I have reason to believe this data has been compiled, because the report lists percentages which would require this data in order to be calculated: Percentage of reported victims of each gender in specific categories of violence, who reported "only male" or "only female" perpetrators, and so on. The report provides this information unevenly - if it lists the percentage reporting one gender as perpetrator, it omits the other, but since some victims reported more than one perpetrator, it is impossible to determine the distribution of gender within the undisclosed population of perpetrators.

My intent is to use the information, should I ever receive it, in the following ways:

• To advocate for support for currently underserved populations of Intimate Partner and Sexual violence victims. This would include every group not currently given the same level of assistance which is currently provided to women who have been victimized by men. 
• To provide support for the efforts of local individuals wishing to initiate an assistance program specifically dedicated to currently underserved populations of Intimate Partner and Sexual violence victims. This would include efforts to create a shelter for individuals who, either due to gender or gender conflict, cannot be housed at existing domestic abuse shelters. 
• To provide existing advocacy groups with balanced information on the prevalence and distribution of partner violence among genders and types of relationships, for the purpose of better understanding the problem and more effectively addressing the needs of those involved.
• To facilitate the provision of the general public, and more specifically, of legislators, with accurate, comprehensive, and easily understandable information on the topic so that future legislative efforts to address the issues of partner and sexual violence will be more beneficial to society at large, and to victims; especially, to provide information which will assist legislators in better understanding the nature of the issue, so that they can address it with an interest in prevention rather than simply damage control. 
• To supplement educational discussion on the U.S. federal government's approach to addressing the issues of intimate partner and sexual violence.
• Publication in this blog, as the information is something which should be made publicly accessible, free of charge.
  

  (note, I do not receive a profit for writing this blog. I have placed an adsense widget on the side so that I'm not freeloading from Google for this publication, but I do not have an active adsense account, and if I did, the ad at the top right would violate the adsense terms, because it's not an adsense ad. It's simply a cause I support. That violation would get my account put on probation. It is my understanding from their TOS that I cannot simultaneously have that ad on my blog, and make a profit from adsense.)

Currently, the issue of partner and sexual violence is treated as a gendered issue with a prevalence of straight-male on female violence. The information released to the public following the execution of the NISVS paints a different picture - violence is shown to be more evenly distributed among the sexes and sexualities than advocates portray, demonstrating that the problem isn't just with straight men, and the solution does not lie in addressing only straight male violence. In fact, failure to address female violence may contribute to perpetuating the problem. However, as I stated in my letter to the CDC, the survey is vague on several points, and I find it necessary and vital that the information insinuated by the report be confirmed before attempting effective, informative, and beneficial advocacy on this topic.

I do intend to continue the effort to obtain this information. My next step will be sending a request for an update on my case using the US postal service's delivery confirmation system. Following that, I will begin contacting my representatives regarding the issue, as at this point, I believe my request is simply being ignored. If I receive no satisfaction from my representatives on the issue, I will make the issue fodder for national shock jocks, who I am sure will be interested in discussing why the CDC might see fit to hide from the public the intimate partner and sexual violence statistics used to support recent related legislation which has been controversial in part due to its gendered wording. I will continue to periodically update on this process, whether or not I receive replies.

The Feminist Advocacy "Research" Scam

Feminist legislative advocacy is a self-defined, self-perpetuating cycle.

Step 1, Assume Victimization of Women, begins with a general supposition, such as "There exists an epidemic of sexual violence against women in the United States, perpetrated mainly by men." The less detailed base-assumption for this supposition would be the general concept of female victims and male violence.

Step 2, Use Bias Tailored "Research" to Support Victimization Premise, involves designing a method of research specifically to return "data" which appears to support the initial supposition. Feminist organizations have pressured government agencies to adopt their biased methods, and with some success such as with the feminist-influenced CDC's 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, in which researchers used questions with broad or poorly defined applications, interpreting the respondent's recall of having felt harassed in a public place as an incident of sexual violence, and placing drunk sex and sex under false pretenses in the same category as being subjected to physical force or threats of physical force by counting sexual activity taking place under those circumstances as an act of forced penetration (rape.) The survey combines discussion of ambiguously distasteful acts (the subject being exposed to someone else's nudity, without including in the survey the stipulation that the act was deliberate) with discussion of imposition (made you show your sexual body parts to them) to justify attributing personal violation to answers not necessarily indicative of it. This treats accidentally walking in on an individual's nudity the same as being forced to strip, pose nude, or perform for pornographic video.

This pattern is continued throughout the survey: Questions on stalking including questions which could count telemarketing and collections calls as stalking behavior, as well as awareness of an unwanted person's presence in public places as stalking behavior (regardless of the person's reason for being there)... and the giving of unwanted gifts. Questions on coercive control treat concern for a partner's whereabouts as coercion if ever expressed, not just if pursued excessively. Under that definition, most teens in nurturing families are subjected to stalking by their parents. Partners in families with tight schedules may also be guilty of stalking each other. Under Control of reproductive health, the survey asks if a partner "refused to use a condom when you wanted them to use one" but doesn't ask whether that was followed by nonconsensual sex, leaving the implication that if one chooses to have sex with a partner who refuses to wear a condom, the refusing partner is guilty of sexual violence (control of reproductive health) even when the decision to continue the act is a choice made by the "victim."      

The researchers didn't ask the respondents to define their experiences, but instead made the definitions themselves, greatly padding their numbers in a way which would demonstrate an epidemic of sexual violence in the United States. Upon completion of the survey, which produced "evidence" of violence perpetrated by both sexes, and of victims of both sexes, the CDC published a report. In it, the authors directly mentioned lifetime rape findings for both sexes, as this showed a gap between male and female experiences, but only mentioned the figure for women during the last 12 months... with no numbers for men. The inconsistency of this omission becomes even more glaring considering that in every instance where men's numbers were lower, the report mentions both.

Reading the description for the researchers' definition of rape explains the gap in numbers between men and women, as they used a definition of rape which omitted victims who were forced to penetrate the perpetrator, limiting the male experience to being penetrated, the same as a female. This effectively excludes the victim's sex organ from the definition of rape, where the victim is a man. Consequently, in the report, the authors make the claim that the majority of male rape victims reported male perpetrators. According to the report, excluding (report-defined) rape, non-contact sexual violence, and stalking, perpetrators of every (other) type of sexual violence (which would include being forced to penetrate) were mostly female. Were the researchers to include the category "forced to penetrate," in their definition of rape, the 2010 rape numbers would even out between the genders of victim, and the percentage of female perpetrators of rape would greatly increase.

The report also emphasizes male perpetration where it is not merited, with statements like "Nearly half of male stalking victims also reported perpetration by a male," the correction of which would be "More than half of all male stalking victims reported perpetration by a female." Instead of pointing out the prevalence of female perpetrators in that finding, they emphasized the presence of male perpetrators, masking the majority by mentioning the minority.

The "Discussion" section of the report focuses primarily on female victims, citing violence as a health risk to both sexes but specifying that women are heavily effected, and repeating the emphasis on male perpetrators of stalking.

Then there is this:

Other features of NISVS also are designed to reduce underreporting, such as use of only female interviewers...

Question: If victims of sexual violence perpetrated by males would be too intimidated to give honest answers to a male interviewer, wouldn't victims of sexual violence perpetrated by females be too intimidated to give honest answers to a female interviewer?

Step 3, Create Panic and Call for Action, involves disseminating the findings to the general public, beginning with publication of the initial results, release of them to news organizations with dramatic claims which support the original supposition. Continuing on with the same example, the Implications for Prevention section of NISVS, while much of the assertions made are gender-neutral, the authors specifically cite "beliefs and social norms" that "reinforce negative stereotypes about masculinity, or that objectify and degrade women" as contributing factors to partner and sexual violence within society, but make no mention of the reverse; negative stereotypes about femininity, or objectification and degradation of men. Apparently, Playboy contributes to "rape culture," but Playgirl does not?

Less than 2 hours after the initial data was released, the National Resource Center on Violence Against Women went into action, engaging its online network in a Tweet Up to promote the study's claims, and releasing talking points on the study, emphasizing female victims, that same day. Interestingly, one response to the Tweet campaign involved participants asking "How might the measured impacts studied in NISVS be useful in supporting positive outcomes in child custody cases?" For the significance of this question, read Restraining Order Abuse and Vexatious Litigation, part two.

The release of the study and report was followed by articles from various outlets. The New York Times introduced the report with the headline, "Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey Say They Have Been Sexually Assaulted," followed by a story which emphasized the survey's findings on female victimization, the stated experiences of women, and the consequences to women... with only a brief mention of violence against men. CNN did just about the same, with the headline "Survey: 1 in 3 women affected by partner's violent behavior," and another story focused on female victims, though there is more mention of males than in the Times. Consultant360.com, which describes itself in its "about" page as "the No. 1 independent clinical journal among office-based primary care physicians," published a February 2012 article Intimate Partner Violence: The Silent Epidemic which was largely a reiteration of the CDC's NISVS claims and conclusions... for only female victims.

The report was similarly shared on college campuses, as with the presentation at Slippery Rock University using graphics which combined images suggestive of male-on-female violence with statistics from the report, and with the campus website's article, which focuses entirely on victimization of females, ending with the claim that men are the perpetrators of 95 percent of cases of sexual violence, which is not actually supported by the study's results.


Step 4, Lobby for Legislative and Policy "Fix," involves activist campaigns as well as continued writing and advocacy calling for lawmakers and organization administrators to respond to the "research" claims with changes to law and policy.

In January 2012, the official website of the National Organization of Women posted an activism initiative asking members to urge their legislators to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, citing the NISVS claims about female victims as evidence that "violence is prevalent."
    
Further encouragement from lobbying came from media sources. Debora Tucker, executive director of the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence cited NISVS in her post Violence Against Women Act is Working, published in US News's Debate Club forum under the question "Should the Violence Against Women Act Be Reauthorized?"

Bloomberg News article U.S. Senate Passes Aid to Victims of Domestic Violence quoted the white house citing NISVS in support of reauthorizing VAWA.

Citation of NISVS in support of reauthorization of VAWA shows up in a variety of sources - publishing a full list of them would take hours, and fill pages - but here are a few examples:

Senators Patrick Leahy (D) and Mike Crapo (R)

Terry Poore of The Hill's Congress blog

Ms. Magazine
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States
The Daily Nebraskan
Jewish Women International 
The National Alliance to End Sexual Violence
Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence
http://feministcampus.org/ (republish of the Ms. Mag article, sans links)
United Methodist Women

Step 5, Use False Labels and Personal Slander to Silence Those Presenting Evidence Against Claim, is an ongoing effort which began well before the current controversy. One only has to read about the experiences of Warren Farrel as his feminist colleagues learned that he was more interested in facts, rather than propaganda, and reality than ideology. Erin Pizzey, founder of the Chiswick Women's Aid, one of the first women's shelters in the modern world, could tell you much about feminist harassment of advocates who contradict feminist ideology and stand in the way of feminist goals... as could Richard J. Gelles, along with, Murray A. Straus, and Suzanne K. Steinmetz. In addition to harassing researchers with whom they disagree, feminists use six other methods to suppress information that does not support their claims.   
   
Step 6, Use Existing Claims and Existing Law as Evidence for Further Research and Legislation. This is often done during the research phase. The text of the official report on NISVS calls for further research more than once:

Ongoing data collection and monitoring of these problems through NISVS and other data sources at the local, state, and national level must lead to further research to develop and evaluate strategies to effectively prevent first-time perpetration of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence.

The report calls for "(research) to provide information on which to base the development and evaluation of prevention and intervention programs," "research that addresses the social and economic conditions," and "Research examining risk and protective factors, including inequities in the distribution of and access to resources and opportunities"

The World health Organization's publication, Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women cites "pressing need for evidence and further research" in multiple areas of the subject.   
   
...which leads us back to step one, beginning with assumptions about violence based on the findings of  NISVS.