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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,
That means nothing if there are no penalties for violation. There are some sanctions for violating FOIA, but I am unaware of them every being applied, and I don't think any bureaucrat has ever been fired for denying or ignoring a FOIA request. So why should they care?
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?
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.
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