DoJ - Making Data Public Would 'Crash System'

orthogonal writes "The Justice Department today denied Freedom of Information Act requests to make public data on foreign lobbyists, claiming that '[i]mplementing such a request risks a crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating'. The requestor responded that '[t]his was a new one on us. We weren't aware there were databases that could be destroyed just by copying them,' Bob Williams of the Center for Public Integrity said Tuesday. Maybe we should tell John Ashcroft about open source database and copying solutions?"

Comments

Response Conflicts with the Law?

[Jtheletter]

I don't pretend to have a full understanding of the Freedom of Information Act, but isn't there a whole section detailing reasons that a request can be turned down? I know the obvious ones such as endangering national security (as if that weren't an excuse they could stretch a mile anyway), or the like, but I seriously doubt that a request could legally be denied on the basis of GROSS INCOMPETANCE and LACK OF JOB SKILLS on the part of the person fulfilling the request.

That's like a request being denied because the clerk was too tired to go down in the basement to find the files.

If fulfilling the request somehow breaks something, then the response should be to fix the damn thing and then fulfill the request.

Re:A New Low

[letxa2000]

Don't pay taxes - simply donate to a non-profit that you support and take the tax credit.

Tax credit? Correct me if I'm wrong, but donations to non-profits result in taxable income deductions, not tax credits, don't they? If they are tax credits then if you have a $1000 tax bill you can pay zero by donating $1000 to a non-profit. If it's a deduction then if you have a $1000 tax bill on $10,000 taxable income, a $1000 deduction makes your taxable income $9000 on which you still have to pay $900.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can get out of paying taxes by giving it to a non-profit instead. If you could I think most of us would opt out of paying taxes and just give it all to some local charity we approve of.

Re:Well, we could...

[Auckerman]

Oooooh, a flame war on a powder keg, I want some. I've been maxed Karma for years, I could use a -1 mod.

Ex 21:22-25
"When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other misfortune ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman's husband may exact from him, the payment to be based on reckoning, But if other misfortune ensues, the penalty shall be life for a life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foor, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

The fetus is the property of the husband is merely worth a fine if destroyed. If the woman is killed, the person who killed her is to be killed.

I'm pro-life, not a Christian, Muslim or Jew. The Christian Bible is silent on abortion and it can be inferred that at least one source writer of the Tanak saw a difference between the life of a fetus and the mother. Get your religion straight, it's embarassing.