The largest issue with FOIA requests is that we don't know what to request, and literally anyone can just make up a reason to deny them.
Hell, even after stuff is released publicly, sometimes the government decides to label it secret.
[1] http://austingwalters.com/foia-requesting-100-universities/
Given that, it sounds like there is also a fundamental problem in how information is stored and classified. The FOIA requests were for emails, so I would think that the retrieval would be simple. They must be vetting each email for sensitive (secret) information, otherwise I can't imagine how it would take 2.25 years to fulfill that request.
I can't tell if this is a stonewalling effort or a technology shortfall in the FOIA process.
It's incredibly time consuming and very very expensive. I'm working one person's emails from a 4 month span and we have ~dozen people working on it for a week.
The more specific request the easier it is. The ones asking for "everything" are just hard as hell.
Is there malfeasance and corruption? Certainly. Is the solution to go to 100% open records in a hyper-politicized environment? I'm less sure.
I know I wouldn't want Fox News / MSNBC combing over every email I've ever sent in the course of doing my job.
My point is that I believe the public interest is best served by a balance between "the public knows how this business was conducted" vs "any rival who wants my job can dig through everything I've done to find some dirt of me."
Politicians, functionaries, and executive staff are people too. And I think HN can be a bit schizophrenic decrying "people in government are so ineffectual and unwilling to take risks" while simultaneously designing a purity litmus test where only the most boring, unadventurous apparatchiks are able to keep their jobs.
Was that ever a standard for exemption from FOIA? Much less the intent of anyone writing any part of FOIA? Stupidity should hurt.
If stupidity were cause for dismissal, we'd have a hard time staffing most of the jobs in the world.
Everything the Government does affects somebody in a way that few businesses can. A bad process can literally result in death in some cases (although the third sector attempts to help when Government fails).
People already get into Kafkaesque situations on a regular basis due to either the department's employees not understanding its own policies, or not knowing the magic words to use. The only way to protect against that is to allow people to force the Government to give them information. Personally, I've used FOIA responses in the UK to great effect in forcing the NHS to follow their own procedures (not medical ones, admin ones).
And I absolutely agree with your comment, but per my comment below, I think 100% transparency carries its own risks in making government less effective.
If the UN and large bureaucratic organizations have taught us anything it's that position jockeying gets ruthless when promotions are a zero sum game because of no organizational growth.
You may recall something called the Three-Fifths compromise, which pandered to the states' short-sighted interests.
"The Government" is also a workplace, and deals with all sorts of personal information on a daily basis. Their privacy is hardly "worthless," their emails deserve at least a quick sanity check before being released potentially to the entire world.
See this for some food for thought on some of the ways digital alteration can fail you: http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/126932/how-secur...
NSA published guidelines in 2005 for how to safely redact PDF (as well as word) documents. The corresponding physical redaction guidance begins by suggesting that the inspector physically remove the information to be redacted with an xacto knife. They redact and release thousands of documents, if nobody has reversed their redaction process yet then it's good enough.
Also note the answer that points out underhanded ways to leak data.
You then go ahead to recommend just the thing that gp was making fun of: printing and physically altering the document instead of using a software tool.
Basically violent agreement: )
May is a pretty clear clue that the security "advice" which follows is fud. Your house may flood even if it's on top of a high hill, buy my insurance product.
Yes, that's the gist of it. From the filing in question:
"Furthermore, in this case in particular, the substantive review process is challenging given the wide-ranging subject matters covered by the documents at issue in this case. Id. ¶ 25. The documents implicate subject areas governed by multiple different bureaus within the State Department, all of which must be consulted before materials may be released. Id. State must also consult with other agencies within the U.S. Government. Id. Moreover, because Plaintiffs’ requests cover communications with outside organizations, State must consult with such outside organizations if the organizations’ confidential business information is at issue."
Though there is certainly tech incompetence involved as well:
"Specifically, it found that one office had not conducted the search by keyword, but rather had only searched the ‘To’ and ‘From’ line of the latest e-mail in an e-mail communication, a method that would not capture responsive e-mails found only in older communications that were part of an e-mail chain."
"In order to do so, as explained in Mr. Stein’s Declaration, IPS must manually open and review every e-mail with an attachment amongst the 34,116 potentially responsive emails in order to determine whether any responsive attachments had inadvertently been omitted."
("Responsive" in this case means "sent or received by four current or former State employees – Michael Fuchs, Melanne Verveer, Cheryl Mills, and Huma Abedin – to or from individuals associated with the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings".)
Uh-huh...
No, it's about how I, and a vast majority of people, actually can't just make up a reason to deny FOIA requests.
Try to be more careful next time, OK?
Furthermore, if it is denied, you can appeal that decision. It's not going to go back to the same person either, it'll go a lot higher on the foodchain. Do you think a commander/director is going to put up with a FOIA officer who is constantly creating work for them by improperly denying requests? Here's what a response to a FOIA appeal looks like[1]. It's comprehensive and needs to give its reasoning.
1: http://www.lsc.gov/sites/default/files/LSC/pdfs/FOIA%202014-...