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Faleomavaega: Case Work protected by fed privacy law

Congressman Faleomavaega Eni’s office said all case work handled by his office for constituents is protected by federal privacy laws and therefore transfer of cases to any person outside of their office, is a violation of those strict federal laws.

 

According to a brief announcement published in Dec. 18 edition of Samoa News, the Delegate-elect's office - referring to Aumua Amata - has been unsuccessful in efforts to have open constituent case files transferred over.

 

It asked constituents to contact Faleomavaega Eni’s office to “get any files related to your unresolved issue or issues with the Federal Government and bring or forward them to the new Delegate's office at Fagatogo Square after January 3, 2015.”

 

However, some local residents are now accusing the out-going Congressman and his staff of not being cooperative with newly elected representative for American Samoa to the U.S. House. The residents also questioned the motive behind such action.

 

Responding to Samoa News request for comments, Faleomavaega’s office in Washington D.C. said that “our case work is protected by [federal] privacy release Acts and we told a member of Amata’s transition team to put out a news release and request for constituents to come to her office and open new files.  Legally we cannot break the privacy release act.”

 

“We have less than 20 cases pending for constituents,” his office said yesterday via email from D.C