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 Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian 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 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 ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

reporter David Burnham served as the founding directors. Barlett and Steele, who won the Pulitzer Prizes for their story on the Internal Revenue Service 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,

Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on ...

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 o ...

, 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. 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

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

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

and the

Washington Free Beacon ''The Washington Free Beacon'' is an American conservative political journalism website launched in 2012. The website is financially backed by Paul Singer, an American billionaire hedge fund manager and conservative activist. History The ' ...

Evaluation and criticism

Kevin Blackwell, a senior research associate at the

United States Sentencing Commission The United States Sentencing Commission is an independent agency of the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for articulating the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for the federal courts. The Commission promulgat ...

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 The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an anti-immigration think tank and a SPLC designated hate group. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham ...

for the quality of the data it provides on immigration as well as the Federal Courts and federal law enforcement organizations.

Leadership and staff

David Burnham 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 1 ...

, 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 Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

Knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the G ...

, MacArthur, Rockefeller,

, 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 s ...

Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation (EEJF) is a grant-making foundation based in Oklahoma that provides grants to journalism institutions throughout the United States. In 2011, the foundation's assets were $91.1 million and $4 million ...

, 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 Trac is an open-source, web-based project management and bug tracking system. It has been adopted by a variety of organizations for use as a bug tracking system for both free and open-source software and proprietary projects and products. Trac ...

American journalism organizations Organizations based in Syracuse, New York