How do I get info?

[u/Sharona01]

So I don’t know where to start, but I guess my biological dad was an interesting human
He died of a drug overdose about eight years ago.
When I was a kid, he did apparently undercover work for the ATF agency in California.

I can’t give too much away, but I do have his fake IDs, all stories. My brother’s godfather was the either captain or some high-level person and I have the name of that person and his son is still alive and also in the agency.
And I have a news article from one of the undercover drug bus, but essentially I will give a very quick little piece

My dad told me when he was younger he got in trouble. He was really really really good at kinda I guess infiltrating certain groups and so they took him out to like the forest of Sacramento and said hey if you go undercover to universities and help us monitor these communist groups in the 70s I guess maybe it was the 60s I was born in 77 but if you go into these groups and report back to us we won’t get you for these weapon dealings you did and so that let him into a lot of undercover stuff so yes, he was a narc, but we were around bikers are beginning of our life and some pretty dangerous people and I remember many many stories that are crazy

But I want to find out the truth. I want to find out who these people are that really hired him and what kind of documentation they have on him or reports or his file I have fake but they’re real company IDs in the 80s with my dad‘s picture and fake names that he would go undercover to these businesses that are actually like aerospace and military type businesses so someone got him these IDs.

I know this is very vague, but obviously I need to protect some information but no, I cannot just do a random freedom information act my brother already tried that but I guess I could try again but if there’s any information anyone has to the best approach so they actually don’t deny us that would be great. Like, why would they give me the information or why would they hold the information from us and how can I actually like force them to give it to us?

[u/LR_DAC]

There are nine FOIA exemptions. Exemption 7 would be the most relevant:

Information compiled for law enforcement purposes that:
7(A). Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings
7(B). Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication
7(C). Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy
7(D). Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source
7(E). Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law
7(F). Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual.

If you have exhausted FOIA, your options are to write your congressional representative or sue the ATF.

[u/Sharona01 → u/LR_DAC]

This is really helpful! Thank you so much

[u/SeasonPositive6771]

I wouldn't trust what your brother told you unless you saw official responses yourself. Have you?

[u/Sharona01 → u/SeasonPositive6771]

I do know he put the request and I do believe that, but I don’t know how he got the request back. I haven’t seen the paperwork, but he wants me to try to so I can ask him what it looks like what the paperwork looks like. It’s irrelevant cause I just need to see if it has one of those items listed above and the other persons list.
But I am gonna go after it again

[u/JunkMale975]

Sounds more like he was a CI (confidential informant) than an ATF agent. Not sure you can get info on a CI.

[u/Katreeve → u/JunkMale975]

I immediately thought the same. I don't think you can get information about a CI via FOIA .

[u/Sharona01 → u/JunkMale975]

He was a CI and definitely not ATF but there is this man Charles McGlouphlin who ran some dept in Sacramento who managed my dad. He was my older brothers god father. I remember meeting them him and his wife were kids. They were fancy suit and tie type people and his wife was so pretty (this was the 70s and 80s and my dad was a jeans leather jacket but fancy cars and Harley guy.
My mom was 10 years younger than him. He met her when she was no joke 15 so disgusting but
Curious why CI is so tough to get info on?

[u/Overall_Signal_2196]

I have similar questions about my father – many family stories so I have a rough outline of the tame stuff but when I get past a certain surface level of information, everyone alive just shuts the door on telling me more – I'm especially curious why no one will tell why I found an airplane registered to his name in the 1980s (to my knowledge, he was not a pilot, and he has a one-in-ten-billion name, so it's definitely not a case of mistaken identity). I also distinctly remember the Wackenhut security logo on mail sent to my mother's home when I was very young (Wackenhut Security is its entire own rabbit hole).

[u/Sharona01 → u/Overall_Signal_2196]

Yeah, I had actually fight because there was a safety deposit box that was locked in Sacramento and I had to fight to get it back and I got it from the government. I don’t know why they had it. But when my dad died, I got the letter about it and so I got it and it had traveler checks in it that can’t be used anymore, but it was so funny because I was hoping it would be something I would tell me more, but nope.
I mean, I’ve been held up as my brothers by men with guns when we were little children and we had to go into a Wendy’s kitchen. Well whatever was happening outside and I was sitting on my mom‘s lap in the car when the man pulled up to our car and held the gun up to our car and I’m sure it was an enemy of my Dad’s or something related to the stuff he did.
We had a group of bikers that came and did circles in our yard and just tore up our whole front yard and then my dad was missing for weeks after that but I’m sure he and his guys went and did something so these were not good people.
The rabbit holes go deep so keep on exploring yours. I have a lot of tangible information on the surface level which obviously it’s just the fake IDs and the newspaper clippings and things he’s told me and specific people‘s business cards from the 70s and things like that but I want to put the whole story together

[u/LR_DAC → u/Sharona01]

Yeah, I had actually fight because there was a safety deposit box that was locked in Sacramento and I had to fight to get it back and I got it from the government. I don’t know why they had it.

When the owner stops paying, the bank can drill the box or the contents escheat to the state. There might be more abandoned property out there belonging to your dad. Search for "[name of state] unclaimed property search," that should turn up your state's web site for these things.

[u/Sharona01 → u/LR_DAC]

Great insight’ I did this but there’s just like a few dollars at different things.
This was the only one that I could find that was actually with a bank, and I had to do exactly that I had to fill out forms and wait six months for it