David Burnham
David Burnham -- a writer, investigative reporter and
researcher -- is the co-founder and co-director of the
Transactional
Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). For the
last three decades he has specialized in the critical examination of
numerous government enforcement bureacracies including the New York
Police Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the Environmental Enforcement Agency, the
Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug Administration and the
Justice
Department.
A reporter with The New York
Times from 1968 to 1986, Burnham has written
several books and numerous magazine articles. In 1989, he became the
Washington-based co-director of TRAC, a data-gathering, research and
data-distribution organization associated with Syracuse University,
as well as an associate research professor at the S.I. Newhouse
School of Public Communications. The goal of TRAC is provide the
public and members of the oversight community -- reporters, public
interest groups, Congressional committees, scholars and others --
with the comprehensive performance data they need to hold federal
investigative and regulatory agencies accountable. TRAC has been
supported by Syracuse University, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the
Knight Foundation, the New York Times Company Foundation, the Open
Society Institute and numerous news organizations, advocacy groups,
scholars and lawyers.
Among the stories Burnham developed while with the Times in New York City was a police corruption series in the early 1970s that ultimately resulted in major governmental reforms and the movie Serpico. As a reporter in the paper's Washington bureau, he focused on privacy issues and the shortcomings of federal regulation, including those of the Atomic Energy/Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Karen Silkwood was on her way to give Burnham information about the manufacture of faulty fuel rods by the Kerr Mcgee Corporation when she died in a car crash.
In August of 1997,
The Nation
devoted an issue to an article by Burnham
that challenged the basic management skills and investigative
competence of the FBI. The article was based on comprehensive data
obtained from the Justice Department by TRAC under the FOIA. ABC's
Nightline broadcast a
program on the article and TRAC's findings. His latest book,
Above
the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, and Other Misadventures of
the U.S. Department of Justice, was
published in 
January 1996 by Scribner. His investigative book
on the Internal Revenue Service -- A Law Unto
Itself: Power, Politics and the IRS -- was
published in 1990. A third book -- The Rise of
the Computer State -- was published in 1984.
Over the years, Burnham has received a number of professional honors
including the George Polk Award for Community Service, Long Island
University, 1968; the Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, 1987;
the Best Investigative Book of 1990, Investigative Reporters and
Editors, 1990; and the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, Bellagio,
Italy, 1992.