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FBI Will Revert To Using Fax Machines, Snail Mail For FOIA Requests (dailydot.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the read-the-fine-print dept.

blottsie writes: Starting next month, the FBI will no longer accept Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests via email. Instead, the U.S. agency will largely require requests be made via fax machine or the U.S. Postal Service. [The FBI will also accept a small number of requests via an online portal, "provided users agree to a terms-of-service agreement and are willing to provide the FBI with personal information, including a phone number and physical address."] The Daily Dot reports: "It's a huge step backwards for the FBI to switch from a proven, ubiquitous, user-friendly technology like email to a portal that has consistently shown problems, ranging from restricting how often citizens can access their right to government oversight to legitimate privacy concerns," says Michael Morisy, co-founder of MuckRock, a nonprofit that has helped people file over 28,271 public records requests at more than 6,690 state, federal, and local agencies. "Given that email has worked well for millions of requests over the years, this seems like a move designed to reduce participation and transparency, and we hope that the FBI will reverse course," Morisy added.

25 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. google should adopt this by someone1234 · · Score: 5, Funny

    for dmca takedown notices :D

    --
    Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
    1. Re:google should adopt this by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Funny

      How far can such stalling and obfuscating be stretched? What are the limits?
      An inspirational example is below. But one thing it makes clear. Our country is deeply divided. Not just two toxic political parties bitterly fighting (through the people who support each), but also how the government (which is made of people) are divided against the citizens. Also how the divide between rich and poor is increasing. Neither side in any of these divisions even makes a pretense of playing fair, clean or by the rules anymore. But now the example of obfuscating . . .


      “But the plans were on display”
      “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
      “That’s the display department.”
      “With a flashlight.”
      “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
      “So had the stairs.”
      “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
      “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

      Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    2. Re:google should adopt this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Honestly I tend to think the driving force of all the division is what I've come to call "the clicks". They've got to do everything to get the clicks. The media, none of it, even remotely pretends to present things in a fair and impartial light. They spin everything as much as they can and make headlines as inflammatory as possible to try to get the clicks. And whether you want to admit it or not, the media has a huge influence on everybody. They fundamentally set the mood of everything. And since they've decided that the clicks are more important than providing fair level headed articles, and riling people up is the best way to get the clicks, we end up with the atmosphere we have. Everybody is divided based on if they agree or disagree with the headlines.

      The part that annoys me the most is how the media seems to staunchly refuse to accept their responsibility in most of this. As far as I can tell, CNN elected Trump, but they'll refuse it staunchly. They spent years covering every little terrorist attack and making things that really weren't that big of a deal all you heard about because it got them the clicks. This created a sense of fear which Trump then played to and took advantage of. And now CNN is pissed that he took advantage of something they created and now rather than covering things fairly, they're playing up how awful everything he does is. Note how they don't cover any of the positives he's done, and only the stuff their reader base will be outraged by. Again. For the clicks.

    3. Re:google should adopt this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They've got to do everything to get the clicks. ~. The part that annoys me the most is how the media seems to staunchly refuse to accept their responsibility in most of this.

      It is the reality of the situation. Print media (the ones who used to do investigations and in-depth reporting) is dead. TV news is too short (30 minute programs) and on too long (multiple times a day to 24hrs) to present anything but irrelevant and entertaining one-liner stories.

      How did this happen? With print, it was the death of print advertising. Future historians, if they can piece together any records will note that Print died when Craigslist took off. The newspapers failed to see that the print classifieds model was dead and lost that war without a fight. Other print revenue soon followed.

      What we are left with is the stupid headline that links to a 30-page slideshow (29x the ads a normal 1-pager would have!). Adblock destroys that model. 30 pages of annoying clicking reduces traffic. Death Spiral continues

    4. Re:google should adopt this by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Honestly I tend to think the driving force of all the division is what I've come to call "the clicks". They've got to do everything to get the clicks. The media, none of it, even remotely pretends to present things in a fair and impartial light. They spin everything as much as they can and make headlines as inflammatory as possible to try to get the clicks. And whether you want to admit it or not, the media has a huge influence on everybody. They fundamentally set the mood of everything. And since they've decided that the clicks are more important than providing fair level headed articles, and riling people up is the best way to get the clicks, we end up with the atmosphere we have.

      If the "atmosphere" we have today is one of bullshit hype and information deemed corrosive at best, then perhaps we need to find a way to stop fucking feeding it. In other words, stop creating and funding revenue streams based on nothing more than "the clicks". Petition to make turning a human into the product illegal. Start to give a shit about privacy again.

      Sadly, that will never happen, so our atmosphere will continue to devolve. Capitalism often does not makes sense due to it being perverted by corruption and greed. I can start a tobacco company today and help contribute the the killing of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year (far worse a death toll than anything we're currently rioting in the streets over), but I'll be arrested if I sell marijuana, because it's "harmful".

      We we support, is what we ultimately get.

    5. Re:google should adopt this by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes. The media is largely responsible. I remember when CNN was respectable. It was about real news. I watched it deteriorate over decades. They got rid of Headline News. Replaced it with basically gossip and fluff. Stopped doing real analysis. The invasion of the Talking Heads. Sound Bites.

      I remember when CNN closed their foreign bureaus. Fired their investigative journalists. At the time, a friend and I wondered how CNN would continue to operate. Now it is clear. Pretend news. Infotainment. It's mostly editorial. Regurgitating government hand outs. The government figured out with 9/11 that it could seize control of the news media with "embedded journalists". They could simultaneously sanitize the war news coverage while also holding the news media hostage to the deliciously addictive handouts of news bits from the government as long as journalists play nice and don't get their access revoked. You can see this today in the white house press briefing room.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  2. deliberate attempt to stall the process by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Snowden is correct that the enemy is within.

  3. This is not surprising by HangingChad · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After their interference in the last election where the FBI was on the same side of a US election as the GRU, is this any real surprise? The perception it creates is an image of a law enforcement agency that's gone off the rails. Snooping without a warrant and the nearly unchecked expansion of surveillance powers makes me wonder where this country is headed and whether the FBI needs a reboot.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    1. Re: This is not surprising by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If Clinton had been a "proven criminal" she'd have been convicted of something. As it was even congressional investigations by a Republican Congress couldn't pin anything on her. The FBI investigations were because people kept making allegations about her, allegations that in many cases the FBI was obliged to investigate.

      I could probably ruin your life by having a group of us continually, for 25 years, make up allegations against you, accusing you of murdering anyone who you have a connection with who's died, pretending that anything that goes wrong that you have a vague relationship to was caused by deliberate actions on your part, looking for cases where standard practices in your industry change over eight years and highlighting cases where you didn't go along, and so on. Eventually you'd end up under multiple investigations.

      Clinton was never a great candidate. She believed too strongly she needed the blessing of those in power to gain power, and she was too much of a hawk on issues related to war. But she wasn't the criminal mastermind her critics pretended she was.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re: This is not surprising by kilfarsnar · · Score: 4, Informative

      And then, there's Benghazi. Clear case of treason, and no Democrat is interested.

      But the Republicans were interested! How many hearings and investigations did they carry out? No, seriously, I'm asking. I lost count. And what did they find? Nothing. So what are you talking about?

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    3. Re: This is not surprising by Dragonslicer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And then, there's Benghazi. Clear case of treason, and no Democrat is interested.

      If it was such a clear case of treason, wouldn't you expect that a Republican-controlled Congress would figure that out during their investigation?

    4. Re: This is not surprising by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And yet, now Trump is president, having promised to put her in jail and now followed through on other even more outrageous and legally dubious promises, she remains free. They aren't even investigating any more.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. Very common legal requirement by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Faxes are considered legal documents. Emails are a very gray area. Japan is one place where faxes are still serious business machines for this very issue. Physical signatures with point to point delivery and receipt verification are often required to close a legal business transaction. Emails don't provide that proof.

    1. Re:Very common legal requirement by ravenshrike · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bingo. Also, while it may reduce participation, it increases transparency as it forces those doing the requesting to be much more transparent about their location and who they are. Not to mention if you're too lazy to run down to Kinko's to send off a FOIA request you should fuck right off.

  5. FOIA joke by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Funny

    [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted] the [redacted][redacted][redacted]in [redacted][redacted][redacted] [redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted] a [redacted][redacted]

    What's the use of FOIA requests nowadays anyway. The above is what you're likely to get.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  6. Where do they go? by Merk42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The fax machine on the receiving end is at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard".

  7. Re:Actually, it will be an improvement by DickBreath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Consider this possibility. If the FBI didn't have so much internal festering decay and oozing slime that needed some disinfecting sunlight then the FBI might not get so many FOIA requests. Just sayin'

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  8. FBI to FOIA requesters: "Who wants to know?" by duckintheface · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The FBI is asking for irrelevant information. It does not matter who wants to know. What matters is that the operations of government are transparent to everyone. I want to ask the FBI the question they always ask when they are seeking information from people who are suspicious of their motives. "What is your problem with answering our questions... unless you have something to hide?" (This line should be delivered with an arrogant leer)

    --
    "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
  9. Re:Not a good look by kilfarsnar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An agency that no longer exists is an agency that can no longer abuse its power.

    Maybe we should address the abuse of power, rather than throwing up our hands. Or don't you like having clean water to drink?

    --
    "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
  10. Re:Not a good look by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You must not remember the 'good ole' days of acid rain, undrinkable water and air quality so bad that most of the year places like LA were in a constant fog of unbreathable air. Sure, the EPA has overstepped their bounds on occasion, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here. I prefer the environment NOT going to shit quite as quickly as it did in the last century when business were to dump whatever, whenever, wherever.

  11. It's a lot easier to "lose" a fax... by thomn8r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..and they won't be machine-searchable

  12. Re: FBI to FOIA requesters: "Who wants to know?" by Jaime2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Due to the nature of humanity, the rest of us also have things to hide. Some are bad but not illegal, like cheating on a partner, some are benign but still secret, like whether or not you are bluffing in a game of poker, and some and simply personal, like what the person looks like naked.

    Things the FBI legitimately needs to hide aren't subject to FOIA requests, so the question is still irrelevant. They're going to withhold the information no matter what the answer is.

  13. FBI won award for worst FOIA by raymorris · · Score: 4, Informative

    'The FBI's reports to Congress show that the Bureau is unable to find any records in response to two-thirds of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the past four years, when the other major government agencies averaged only a 13% "no records" response to public requests.'

    https://yro.slashdot.org/story...

  14. Re: FBI to FOIA requesters: "Who wants to know?" by flink · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone with a clearance and a need to know would not come in through a FOIA request. The claim that the GP made: "Except that due to the nature of classified information the FBI handles on a routine basis, they often actually DO have things to hide, and legitimately so.", is ludicrous on its face as a justification gathering identifying information on requesters. If it's fit to release as a FOIA response, it is fit to print on the front page of the New York Times, end of story.

  15. Re:FBI to FOIA requesters: "Who wants to know?" by flink · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And what if that email request is coming from China or Russia?

    Validating the source of the request is perfectly legitimate. It's a shame that they have to take a step backwards, technology-wise, but their reasoning is sound.

    Their reasoning is not sound. FOIA responses are public record. Meaning the person who receives the information can turn around and publish it online or print it in the paper.

    Do you think a foreign government would be incapable of recruiting an American citizen to make requests and deliver the responses to them? Of course not. But why would they bother? Anything the USG cares so little about that they don't redact from a FOIA response and has any strategic value whatsoever has already probably long been known by competent intel agencies the world over.