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About Tobacco Industry Documents
About the Executive Memorandum
On
July
17,
1998,
the
President
of
the
United
States
issued
an
Executive
Memorandum
highlighting
the
importance
of
tobacco
industry
documents
released
as
a
result
of
recent
tobacco
litigation
and
congressional
subpoenas.
This
initiative
was
designed
to
lift
the
tobacco
industry’s
veil
of
secrecy
so
that
all
can
know
the
origins
of
the
epidemic
of
teen
smoking
and
the
history
of
our
national
addiction
to
tobacco.
It
will
ensure
greater
access
to
these
important
documents
and
significantly
increase
understanding
of
the
health
consequences
of
tobacco
use
and
the
extent
to
which
this
information
has
been
systematically
concealed
from
the
public.
The
Executive
Memorandum
formalized
the
President’s
commitment
to
increase
the
public’s
access
to
the
vast
number
of
tobacco
industry
documents
released
as
part
of
Minnesota's
tobacco
litigation
and
settlement
with
the
tobacco
industry,
and
additional
documents
released
in
other
tobacco
litigation
including
the
Master
Settlement
Agreement
reached
by
46
states
and
the
tobacco
companies
on
November
23,
1998.
The
memorandum
was
the
catalyst
for
the
development
of
this
Web
site.
Components
of Tobacco Industry Documents Web Site
The
Tobacco
Industry
Documents
Web
site
has
been
designed
to
implement
the
President’s
Executive
Memorandum
by
increasing
access
to
these
tobacco
industry
documents
and
by
making
the
documents
more
easily
available
via
the
Internet.
The
Web
site
contains
several
components.
By
using
the
components
of
this
Web
site,
users
can
have
direct
access
to
the
Minnesota
Tobacco
Document
Depository,
which
houses
the
largest
public
cache
of
tobacco
industry
documents
found
worldwide.
- The
first
component
of
this
Web
site
contains
links
to
other
Internet
sites
that
have
captured
tobacco
industry
documents.
Most
of
these
sites
are
maintained
by
the
various
tobacco
companies
and
are
supposed
to
mirror
the
documents
in
the
Minnesota
Tobacco
Document
Depository
according
to
the
Master
Settlement
Agreement.
Background
on
each
site
and
search
tips
are
provided
to
help
users
understand
the
content
and
differing
search
tools
and
components
when
navigating
through
these
company
sites.
Users
unable
to
view
particular
documents
when
accessing
a
company’s
Web
site
may
request
copies
of
documents
directly
from
the
Minnesota
Tobacco
Document
Depository
for
a
fee.
This
Web
site
contains
both
a
Public Photocopy Request
(PDF - 11K) and a Public Scanning Request
(PDF - 12K).
Please
complete
either
of
these
forms
(depending
on
whether
the
user
wants
photocopies
or
scanned
images)
and
provide
company
name,
box
number,
inclusive
Bates
Numbers,
and
requester’s
name
and
payment
information.
Fax
these
forms
to
(612)
378-2796
or
send
them
to
the
Minnesota
Depository
at
Minnesota
Tobacco
Document
Depository,
1021
10th
Avenue
SE,
Minneapolis,
MN
55414,
telephone
(800) 526-8886,
or
e-mail
MNDepo@aol.com.
- This
Web
site
also
contains
a
merged
searchable
version
of
the
4B
Index.
The
4B
Index
was
provided
by
the
tobacco
company
defendants
as
a
systematic
way
to
access
the
documents
that
were
released
in
the
Minnesota
litigation.
It
is
the
same
index
that
is
available
for
searching
at
the
Minnesota
Depository.
Generally,
the
documents
are
indexed
and
searchable
by
the
following
information:
Document
ID,
Author,
Recipient,
Persons
Copied,
Date,
Type
of
Document,
Title,
Production
Date,
Company
Name,
Box
Number,
Bates
Numbers.
But
because
the
4B
Index
was
developed
independently
by
each
of
the
companies,
there
are
some
differences
in
formats
and
field
names
used.
- Another
component
is
the
Minnesota
Select
Set,
a
subset
of
approximately
380,000
pages
of
the
total
27
million
pages
that
were
made
available
during
the
Minnesota
litigation.
These
documents,
"selected"
by
Minnesota
attorneys
as
key
to
the
trial,
have
been
loaded
into
a
database
along
with
objective
coding
and
OCR
text.
The
addition
of
the
Minnesota
Select
Set
to
this
Web
site
will
provide
text-searchable
access
to
a
valuable
portion
of
tobacco
industry
documents.
- The
final
component,
for
the
present
time,
is
the
Guildford
–
British
American
Tobacco
Documents,
which
are
a
subset
of
the
Minnesota
Select
Set.
It
contains
approximately
7,000
documents
that
were
obtained
during
Minnesota
litigation.
Out
of
a
universe
of
several
million
documents
at
the
Guildford,
England,
depository,
attorneys
chose
the
nearly
7,000
documents
that
they
felt
related
best
to
the
Minnesota
trial
and
to
the
population
of
that
state.
While
this
is
a
particularly
interesting
and
informative
cache
of
documents
with
global
relevance,
the
selection
process
means
that,
potentially,
whole
areas
of
document
types
are
not
represented.
For
instance,
according
to
attorneys
for
the
trial,
because
Minnesota
does
not
have
a
large
Hispanic
or
African
American
population,
few
documents
relating
to
marketing
to
and
targeting
of
these
groups
were
chosen.
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