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Comment by tjbiddle | Hacker News Reader

Watching the videos on the article, and this journalist is coming off pretty arrogant.

Okay, I understand that you have a right to request those documents - but it's the day before Thanksgiving, and the right people aren't available. Yes, I get it - the law says "Immediately" if at the headquarters, but give some slack - it's a holiday. Come back on Monday.

The guy got shoved because he was repeatedly told not to be on the private property, and instead he decided to walk in - and then start claiming he's on the sidewalk (Which she, now they were). He was told he was trespassing, he refused, and they have a right to use reasonable force to remove him. Considering they did that directly in front of a police officer, I think highlights the OpenAI guy is fine.

This reeks of like "I'm right in one thing - so I'm right in everything". People are human man, again - come back Monday. Go enjoy time with your family and stop trying to pick a fight right now.

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It's also worth mentioning that failure to immediately disclose said documents are... a $20/day fine [1]. A company being out of compliance does not give a civilian the right to trespass. The correct solution here is to raise a complaint with the appropriate authorities (the IRS), not to continue to remain on private property and have to be forcibly removed by the building's security.

[1]: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/public-disclosure-...

This isn't quite right. Federal law requires that citizens be allowed to make requests in person. Trespassing is a state statute in each state. In general, federal law supersedes state law. Asking to see a non-profit's public records in person is not trespassing because it's expressly authorized by law.

That is unfortunately not how the law works. I am not a lawyer, but I have studied this a bit in passing. It's important to understand the interplay between the scope of the law, private property rights and also reasonableness. Although 26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(1)(B) mandates that the documents be available for inspection and copying upon request, it does not say anything about allowing civilians to remain on the property beyond the reasonable scope of inspecting these documents. Generally, laws are interpreted in the context of what's reasonable. It's unreasonable to interpret 26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(1)(B) as allowing someone to stay on private property indefinitely. If they don't have the documents available, and ask you to leave, private property rights apply here and you must leave. The penalty you can seek for non-compliance clearly defined as a $20/day fine, not that you can continue to stay on the property and repeatedly ask for something they do not have a day before a holiday. The Supremacy Clause does not apply here, because there's no inherent conflict. The federal law does not explicitly (or implicitly) state that you can stay on the property after asked to leave, and thus it cannot trump state law. The fact that the initial presence on the property was for a legal, civil purpose does not provide ongoing protection from criminal trespass charges if an individual overstays their welcome or refuses to leave when asked.

Happy to look at any legal citations to caselaw you have. But generally there's a difference between "stay[ing]" a prolonged period of time and being able to even get in the door to make the request in the first place, which is explicitly allowed by federal law. And the documents were available.

Right, but the penalty for non compliance here is a $20/day fine. No where does the law state that you're granted license to enter the building if they refuse you entry or deny your request. You made your request, they refused and asked you to leave. Your only valid recourse here is to file a complaint with the IRS and let them do their thing. Alternatively return after the holiday break when the office has the staff there that can fulfill your request.

Ironically, we don't know what the penalty for non-compliance is because we don't know the non-profit's gross receipts are for its most recent complete tax year. If they are over $1 million, which is plausible, the daily penalty is $100/day not to exceed $50,000. See 2022 Form 990 Instructions, page 81. Not that this really matters.

The crux of our disagreement is whether they have the right to refuse entry. They can [unlawfully] deny a request I suppose and just choose penalties over compliance, but when it comes to denying the ability to lodge a request in person with the associated "immediate" timeline, there are First Amendment interests at stake and I think the federal constitution, if not federal preemption, wins.

In this specific instance, it wasn't clear to me what, if anything, the security guard had done or intended to do with my name and ID information (which is not needed to file a request for tax forms). So I didn't feel as though a specific request had even been filed. He wouldn't provide his name, he wouldn't allow me to speak to anyone with any knowledge of the issue, and I had nothing in writing. From my perspective, OpenAI prevented a request from being filed after its accountants said that they had the documents but that the non-profit's offices were the proper place to lodge a request.

On top of all of that, the 2022 IRS Form 990 instructions (page 79) refer to "the room" and the requirement that the member of the public "must" be allowed to "take notes freely." Outside on the sidewalk is not a room where you can take notes.

https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/public-disclosure-...

"What should I do if an exempt organization will not let me see its Form 990 or 990-T returns or exemption application materials?"

"Write to IRS EO Classification, Mail Code 4910, 1100 Commerce Street, Dallas, TX 75242. Your letter should provide the name and address of the organization that refuses to allow public inspection or provide copies of its documents, and request that the documents be made available for public inspection.

"The Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division of the IRS will contact the organization and arrange a time during which the documents may be inspected. If the organization fails to provide the documents at the agreed upon time, statutory penalties may be assessed.

The IRS documentation also says to ask the "responsible person" so if someone approached the public office with the intention of interacting with the responsible person and they were unavailable, and the person spoken with essentially "took a message" how does that not basically conclude the submission of the request?

I also infer that the clock starts upon the scheduled viewing, not automatically once the request was made, but I could be missing a nuance.[1] Specifically, " Timely Response to Requests".

[1] https://www.stayexempt.irs.gov/se/files/downloads/Required_D...

You can start with Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid.

INAL but this really doesn't pass a sniff test, same with what the journalist is saying. If the people are gone they're gone. If you show up to a company at 1am on Christmas morning do you have a legal right to immediately get access to those records and enter the property? I would presume that there has to be a reasonable expectation. Now if this was Wednesday last week, the complaint sounds much more legitimate. Or if he's been trying several days and they told him "person will be back x date" and he comes back x date, yeah. But I'd actually be pretty upset if the legal system allowed unreasonable requests. Absolutely shady stuff is going down in OpenAI and I can absolutely understand fear that things will change as they get more time, but the consequences of unreasonable requests results in far more harm than any one company can do. Unless you're ultra Xrisk and think they're going to release paperclipping AI imminently. But then break in, get the proof, sort out the law later. You get that proof and you bet you'll have a lot of free money showing up for legal defense and a very sympathetic court who is going to learn about Jury Nullification. But if it's just about taxes? Chill. But again, not a lawyer and definitely don't know any law. This just does not sound right. It just sounds so much easier to get the video of them denying and take them to court and make them prove they had no one to give him the documents.

> the journalist

FYI you're replying to the journalist.

Smart, foolish, arrogant.

Officers handled it well.

I think trying to deal with big corporations requires being somewhat firm. This journalist looked like he was behaving well to me. He gave the guy his driver's license info after all. That's the opposite of shady.

Clearly these people at openai didn't know what to do. The company is in chaos, it's almost in dumpster fire territory at this time (is the ceo sam back, do they even have a CEO or other leadership still left, did the board quit, is there anyone on the board, are lawyers in charge there?). And it is the day before Thanksgiving. But many companies that don't want to give up required information would do similar things, like say I don't know, we don't have the right people here today to decide what to do. If you are a journalist you have to require fair treatment and politely demand what is legally possible. It's just what you do to succeed. Companies don't treat you like you are Ted Kopell and just hand it over.

It's the last thing anyone at openai wants to see, but it's what people have to do to get the facts. They don't usually post the videos where they get incorrectly refused maybe but this is an every day event for a journalist. Showing these kinds of videos shows what real journalists face every day. You think the person investigating say the public expense reports of a mayor just gets them without insisting? No, she does not, without being politely forceful.

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