Public.Resource.org v. United States Internal Revenue Service

Filing 50

Declaration of Scott Klein in Support of 47 MOTION for Summary Judgment Plaintiff Public.Resource.Org's Consolidated Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment and Opposition to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment filed byPublic.Resource.org. (Related document(s) 47 ) (Burke, Thomas) (Filed on 9/29/2014)

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DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP

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THOMAS R. BURKE (CA State Bar No. 141930)
DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP
505 Montgomery Street, Suite 800
San Francisco, California 94111
Telephone:
[phone]
Facsimile:
[phone]
Email:
[e-mail]
RONALD G. LONDON (Pro Hac Vice)
DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP
1919 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 800
Washington, DC 20006
Telephone:
[phone]
Email:
[e-mail]
DAVID HALPERIN (Pro Hac Vice)
1530 P Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
Telephone:
[phone]
Email:
[e-mail]
DAN LAIDMAN (State Bar No. 274482)
DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP
865 South Figueroa Street, Suite 2400
Los Angeles, CA 90017-2566
Telephone:
[phone]
Facsimile:
[phone]
Email:
[e-mail]
Attorneys for Plaintiff Public.Resource.Org

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION

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PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG., a California non- ) Case No. 3:13-CV-02789-WHO
profit organization,
)
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Plaintiff,
) DECLARATION OF SCOTT KLEIN
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v.
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UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE
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SERVICE,
)
)
Defendant.
)

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Declaration of Scott Klein
DWT 24875494v1 0200593-000001

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I, Scott Klein, declare as follows:

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Since 2008, I have worked for ProPublica, where I am an Assistant Managing

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Editor. From 1998 to 2008, I worked in several capacities at The Nation. I have personal

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knowledge of the matters stated in this declaration and could competently testify to them if called

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as a witness.

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2.

ProPublica is a nonprofit news organization that produces investigative journalism

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in the public interest. ProPublica was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, a

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2010 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and a Peabody Award (the highest honor in

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broadcast journalism) in 2013. ProPublica can be found at http://www.propublica.org/.

DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP

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From 2009 through 2011, I also served as President and Co-founder of

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DocumentCloud. DocumentCloud is an online service that helps journalists work with primary

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source documents. DocumentCloud is now used by more than 900 newsrooms around the world

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and contains 17 million pages of documents, including many instances of the Form 990.

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DocumentCloud may be found at http://www.documentcloud.org/home.

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4.

We were able to create DocumentCloud after being awarded a grant from the John

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S. and James L. Knight Foundation, as a winner of a competition called the Knight News

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Challenge, which is designed to accelerate media innovation by funding breakthrough ideas. The

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Knight News Challenge can be found at https://www.newschallenge.org/.

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5.

At ProPublica, we make extensive use of the Form 990 in researching stories. We

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have also created an interactive database called “Nonprofit Explorer,” which allows individuals to

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quickly search over 1.1 million Form 990s. The Nonprofit Explorer can be found at

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http://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/.

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6.

Lack of availability of the Form 990 in machine-processable formats, that is in

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Modernized e-File (MeF) format instead of a scanned document or other bitmap format, is a

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substantial impediment in our work. With scanned and bitmap images, reporters must leaf

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through the Form 990s by hand and then re-enter data into analysis tools such as a database

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management system or a spreadsheet program.

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Declaration of Scott Klein
DWT 24875494v1 0200593-000001

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7.

While Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used in systems such as

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DocumentCloud to recognize text in documents, OCR is a slow and cumbersome process and is

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subject to errors. This is particularly true with low-resolution bitmap images, such as those

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released for the Form 990.

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8.

Availability of returns in MeF format would permit our programmers and

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journalists to easily, accurately, and systematically put information from the Form 990 into

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analysis tools. Availability of returns in MeF format would make it much easier for ProPublica

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and all journalists to report on a single nonprofit as well as to write stories that systematically

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examine a large number of returns.

DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP

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I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States that the foregoing is
true and correct and that this declaration was executed this 23rd day of September, 2014 at New
York, N.Y.
/s/ Scott Klein
SCOTT KLEIN

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Declaration of Scott Klein
DWT 24875494v1 0200593-000001