I can't tell whether this is a testament to the incompetence of public IT operations or an indictment of public records keeping practice. Maybe both?
The agency processing the FOIA request would get the export control status from the third party I contacted. The third party's software highlights export controlled documents with a red and highly noticeable statement. It would be difficult to believe they thought this was present when it was not.
The request also had actually been transferred several times because no one believes they have the authority to release the document I requested. The other agencies had ample opportunity to reject the request for being export controlled, but none did.
There are some other reasons that I will omit for brevity.
This makes me think that the export controlled claim was a lie meant to kill the request. Most people would stop at what they told me, but I thought it was worth verifying.
I can't remember how many times I'd point the person I was attempting to request the information from directly to their sample version or official space where they said they were the holders of said datas I was looking for which also provided the instructions to specifically call them to request the data. I know from my POV (as a tech worker) it may seem silly to expect anything like that from them but what I was asking for was akin to an excel spreadsheet full of information they absolutely do have and it required no legwork, no generation of new materials, no gathering of data from multiple ancient sources.
It was all material / datas each individual municipality was making money, hand over fist, every month of every year -- the sample datas most municipalities had was evidence of that. I was basically asking them for the collection of the entire data, publicly traded info, and most were convinced they didn't have it. A product of laziness is what I'd chalk it up to because the individuals and municipalities that were awesome to work with and more than helpful seemed to take pride in their work and getting said data was easier than the majority of things involving interfacing with the government at any level usually winds up being like.
Note: I am a Seattle resident and I expect nothing less.