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Getting NASA To Comply With Simple FOIA Requests Is a Nightmare (vice.com)
From a report on Motherboard: Freedom of Information Act requests are used by journalists, private citizens, and government watchdogs to acquire public documents from government agencies. FOIAing NASA, however, can be an exercise in futility. In one recent case, Motherboard requested all emails from a specific NASA email address with a specific subject line. Other government agencies have completed similar requests with no problems. NASA, however, said it was "unclear what specific NASA records you are requesting." Possibly the only way to be more specific is to knock on NASA's door and show them a printout of what an email is. JPat Brown, executive editor of public records platform MuckRock, explained similarly frustrating experiences with NASA. "Even in cases where we've requested specific contracts by name and number, NASA has claimed that our request was too broad, and added insult to injury with a form letter rejection that includes the sentence 'we are not required to hunt for needles in bureaucratic haystacks,'" Brown told Motherboard in an email. Brown added that NASA has refused to process records unless presented with a requester's home address, something that is not included in the relevant code; and makes it more difficult for requests to obtain 'media' status.
NASA, like many federal agencies, is in violation of the law, Not just the intent of the law, but the law itself. As I posted in a previous "article" here today, where if the EFF?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
All government records should be in searchable and in easily accessed formats. Hiding behind 'it costs too much too look' needs to die, now. Things like traffic cams shouldnt even allowed to be installed until a pathway for the public to access its records at any time is made available. All government agencies should be required to submit ALL their records to an open repository, unless otherwise marked as sensitive or classified. FOIA should be the unfettered access to any record not marked classified. EVERY citizen should be able to access this data, en masse.
We are deep into an Information Age, its time to remind the government pervasive surveillance goes both ways.
Good-bye
All government agencies should be required to submit ALL their records to an open repository, unless otherwise marked as sensitive or classified.
As a taxpayer, I strongly object to this. I certainly don't want to pay the kind of money that would require.
Listen, they're not going to show you proof that the moon landings were "staged."
Private investigators have already found proof. The evidence, including film reels of deleted scenes and "extra takes", and affidavits from "astronauts" (really actors), was held in a storage room on the 57th floor of the World Trade Center. This is why GWB had the towers destroyed, using his ties to the Bin Laden family.
Also, if you look at the film of the landing, you can clearly see the flag flutter and cast a shadow. That is where they screwed up, because as any idiot can tell you, shadows don't form in a vacuum.
What other proof do you need?
"Simple FOIA Request?" There's no such thing.
I've worked with a few Federal agencies and watched how much time is spent on FOIA requests. It takes a lot of effort to get some of the data together and along with the approval process, i.e., "Will this compromise any ongoing operations? Does it need redaction based on PII and other rules? Where is the data?" Then there's the approval of the response which always has to be reviewed by Lawyers, discussed in triplicate and then dispatched to the requester. Some agencies have huge departments just dedicated to handling FOIA requests and even with that I've seen them impact day to day operations where front line management has to deal with data collection and validation as well.
To a point, FOIA is a great law and I think it's definitely opened up the inner workings of gov't. A lot of this would go away if the gov't was more transparent to begin with especially in matters not dealing in PII/4th amendment issues (Tax Returns for individuals) or national security. I do think some FOIA requests are fishing expeditions and in all cases the costs should be paid for by the requester. It's also not applied uniformly across all agencies and while the National Park Service may respond quickly, the DoD or DOJ may take years or in the case of the IRS or State Department might get derailed altogether.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I think NASA is just... ...spacing out.
The scary part is there a groups of people who actually believe shit like this, just as much as we believe that water is wet and that most lawyers and politicians should be drowned in a vat of urine.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
The thing is, this kind of thing is not just a government request. There is this thing called "Discovery" that law firms do all the time.
I used do this job also. But instead of working for the government, I worked for a law firm.
We routinely had to gather all emails from/to a specified email account. We would do it both for our own emails and for clients.
We routinely did it in WEEKS, not years. We had similar issues of privacy, and routinely restricted the searches to certain dates, as well as even doing very complex searches. For example, if it was a sexual harassment law suit, we would search the emails for a whole bunch of dirty words, all the while excluding any email that was sent to, cc'd, or bcc'd to us - as that counted as 'privilege communication with your attorney'.
Private industry does this kind of thing all the time, and we do it on time, for relatively small amounts of money.
The government however has decided that since there are no effective punishments, they can ignore the law.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
tldr; Motherboard made several poorly worded FOIA requests, did not actually request records, or was not requesting it from an IG
Record Definition:
"Records include all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine-readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value of the data in them (44 U.S.C. 3301)". from https://www.archives.gov/recor...
Asking for someone's email, the budget for a simple calendar or graphic, or trying to fish for information doesn't meet that criteria.