By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

After the Mormon spy “Stan Fields” was exposed, we learned that he formerly had connections with the FBI. Because of this, we requested under the Freedom of Information Act that the FBI furnish all information that it had concerning us. FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. provided us with some documents. A great deal of material, however, had been blacked out and eighteen pages were “withheld entirely.”

About a year ago (October 1980) we also requested the CIA to send any information in their files. After a great deal of stalling, on December 8, 1980 we were informed that “your request for information on the Modern Microfilm Company was inadvertently overlooked due to an administrative error and was only recently surfaced . . .”

Since the CIA had failed to comply with the Freedom of Information Act in the time allotted, we appealed to the CIA Information Review Committee. Finally, on February 5, 1981, we were told that no “information or record” pertaining to Jerald Tanner could be located, but they would not tell us whether anything about Modern Microfilm Company had been found: “You will be advised of the outcome as soon as our processing has been completed.”

After waiting for the information for almost a year, we felt that it was time to take action. Therefore, on September 8, 1981 we filed a suit in the United States District Court for the District of Utah (Civil Action No. C81-0670J). We have named both the CIA and the FBI as defendants in this case. This is not a suit to obtain damages, but rather an attempt to try to force the FBI into releasing the suppressed documents and to make the CIA come into compliance with the law.

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