DoJ Answers FOIA Request After Six Years With No Real Information

An anonymous reader writes "In response to a Freedom of Information Act request about Google's 2007 complaint against Windows Vista search interference, the Department of Justice has after six years released 114 partially redacted pages and 60 full pages of material. Yet these 'responsive documents' consist of public news articles and email boilerplate. All the substantive information has been blacked out."

Comments

Re:Give 'em a break.

[Sarten-X]

Pretty much. FOIA itself is a joke. The government is a big enough beurocracy that a six-year delay seems pretty quick to me, so I don't expect the purported transparency actually changed behavior at all. However, since some information might eventually come out, nobody with concerns can voice them to anybody else without risking a big scandal (and their career) later. That undermines any internal oversight, since nothing can be handled discreetly in an official capacity. Sure, we can ask for information now, but there won't be anything there to find, and the result is that nothing will improve. Mistakes, bad judgement, and outright evil will still happen, and now it's even less likely to stop.

Then, of course, there's the redaction. By allowing any redaction, FOIA releases are little more than publicity stunts. because the public will always question what's redacted - even if it's just all the adverbs. When the redactions are substantial, but justified, there's no real way to communicate to the public that they've stumbled on something important. In all courses, FOIA responses cast more doubt on the government, whether it's legitimate concern or not.