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Comment by boomboomsubban | Hacker News Reader

Don't FOIA requests charge you for the manhours it took, or is it just the data transfer cost? It might vary by state now that I think of it. I wonder how much these cost.

Saying these requests constitutes a felony is ludicrous, hopefully the judge sees the case as a bad prank.

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FOIA is federal. States have their own public records programs.

https://www.eff.org/issues/transparency/foia-how-to

The act is federal, as that points out the fees are decided by the smaller groups.

Normally "small" requests get fee-waived out.

When I FOIA'd the Furby memos from the NSA, it was low enough I got it for a whole $free.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39106355

Some of the data should be a felony to access without a warrant. They cannot get data on just him without someone else who happens to be in the same frame as him. As such the data should be restricted and only accessible under warrants. (If someone in a store shoplifts near me I might be in the frame without knowing about the crime, and thus getting that frame would be legal even though it violates my privacy - but only because a crime as committed, if someone asks for the frame I'm in in the general case though they should not be allowed it because they might be trying to build a profile of me.

I had trouble searching this article for "felony" (it does mention "judge") so here's the link from the article where the police argue complying could be the felony of violating Virginia Code 18.2-152.5:1 — “using a computer to gather identifying information.”

https://cardinalnews.org/2025/03/13/city-of-roanoke-botetour...

What I find interesting is that they are claiming pictures of the vehicle are identifying information.

Additionally, it's bizarre because the journalist isn't using the computer to gather the information, the police are... and they are legally allowed to -- the code specifically says only law enforcement may do this while performing job duties.

So they are arguing that there's some sort of transitive property where law enforcement are no longer law enforcement performing job duties if they are acting on request from a journalist... or that the journalist is a mastermind in a felony because he is requesting to see his own records.

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