[ih] misc questions about 1970s/1980s contracts and funding

[Timothy J. Salo]

> For questions #7-10: Proposals are not publicly available,
> nor are contracts; they are typically considered “proprietary”.
> Research results and some reports may be publicly available,
> e.g., via DTIC or the funding agency’s site, or may be published
> in journals, conference proceedings, etc. that are open to the
> public (but may involve access fees).

Generally, proposals to a federal agency are subject Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) requests, once a contract has been signed
between the proposer and the agency.  See:

"FOIA Update, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, 1997" U.S. Department of Justice
<https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-new-statute-protects-contractor-proposals>

I believe that most of the narrative part of a proposal can be
obtained with a FOIA request (after the contract has been signed).
A proposer can usually mark most or all of the narrative part of
a proposal as proprietary, but I don't believe that these marking
will prevent the disclosure of the material, beyond the exceptions
for trade secrets and proprietary information contained in the FOIA.
I believe that financial information is pretty much always considered
proprietary without much debate (although I have never been
involved in these discussions).

The Department of Justice later wrote ("FOIA Update, Vol. II,
No. 2, 1981"):

   The prices in government contracts should not be secret. Government
   contracts are "public contracts," and the taxpayers have a right to
   know--with very few exceptions--what the government has agreed to buy
   and at what prices. Most knowledgeable students of American history,
   law, and government would agree. Public access to public contracts was
   well established before FOIA, and FOIA was hardly intended to promote
   secrecy in such matters.

   <https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-disclosure-prices>

I'm pretty sure that "prices" does not include detailed financial
information about how the proposer calculated those prices (e.g.,
internal cost information).  But the cost to the Government should
be available.

So, if one is interested, I think that one should be able to obtain
most of the interesting parts of a proposal submitted to a Federal
agency that resulted in a contract with a FOIA request.

I think that one may also be able to obtain the interesting parts
of a Federal contract with a FOIA request.  This should certainly
include the total cost of the contract.  It think that the
statement of work should also be available.  (I have seen proposal
instructions that permitted a proposer to mark all of the proposal
as proprietary, except for the proposed statement of work, which
for that agency, was the basis of the statement of work in the
contract.  But again, marking material as proprietary does not,
in and of itself, prevent FOIA disclosure.)

Many agencies have information about making FOIA requests on their
websites.

I have heard that there are firms in D.C. that specialize in making
these sorts of FOIA requests, which permits the requester to
remain anonymous, but I have never had any contact these sorts
of firms.

-tjs