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From the article: "In some high-profile instances, usually after news organizations filed expensive federal lawsuits, the Obama administration found tens of tho

From the article: "In some high-profile instances, usually after news organizations filed expensive federal lawsuits, the Obama administration found tens of thousands of pages after it previously said it couldn't find any." One explanation is that the administration is being dishonest. Another is that the administration is just inefficient, sloppy and slow at handling these kinds of requests. Obama has taken a "civil rights action hero" approach to being president. A different president might have taken an "efficient administrator and process reformer emphasizing high quality service" approach to being president. But that sounds pretty boring.

sgift 11y ago
> Another is that the administration is just inefficient, sloppy and slow at handling these kinds of requests. Which hints at a profound lack of preparation on their part. Basically, they act like a company that when asked before a merger to provide their paperwork for due dilligance answers "Um, oh .. eh .. we didn't think that you need this. We will go and find all that we need and then get back to you, okay?" with the difference that the company in question has a real incentive to get all the papers, but still could have avoided this situation if their initial "paper creation" process included "archive papers so that they can be retrieved without hassle" I wonder if forcing/automating such an archiving at creation/update of documentation could solve this problem.
- mkhpalm 11y ago
  It certainly couldn't hurt... but I believe it would still be hard to find certain things. An example of that is taxes, accounting, or just general budgeting. Depends where the incentives are as to how easily findable anything will ever be.
ams6110 11y ago
A different president might have taken an "efficient administrator and process reformer emphasizing high quality service" approach to being president. But that sounds pretty boring. Also sounds a lot closer to what the job of an executive really is.
sehugg 11y ago
There were also a record number of FOIA lawsuits last year: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/06/record-number-of-foia-lawsuits-filed-against-obama/ http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/06/record-number-of-foia-laws...

sgift 11y ago

> Another is that the administration is just inefficient, sloppy and slow at handling these kinds of requests. Which hints at a profound lack of preparation on their part. Basically, they act like a company that when asked before a merger to provide their paperwork for due dilligance answers "Um, oh .. eh .. we didn't think that you need this. We will go and find all that we need and then get back to you, okay?" with the difference that the company in question has a real incentive to get all the papers, but still could have avoided this situation if their initial "paper creation" process included "archive papers so that they can be retrieved without hassle" I wonder if forcing/automating such an archiving at creation/update of documentation could solve this problem.

mkhpalm 11y ago
It certainly couldn't hurt... but I believe it would still be hard to find certain things. An example of that is taxes, accounting, or just general budgeting. Depends where the incentives are as to how easily findable anything will ever be.

ams6110 11y ago

A different president might have taken an "efficient administrator and process reformer emphasizing high quality service" approach to being president. But that sounds pretty boring. Also sounds a lot closer to what the job of an executive really is.

sehugg 11y ago

There were also a record number of FOIA lawsuits last year: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/06/record-number-of-foia-lawsuits-filed-against-obama/ http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/06/record-number-of-foia-laws...