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Are there any resources explaining the FOIA process? I'm not sure what types of information is available, what it can be used for, etc and am always amazed with
by jklein11 8y ago
Are there any resources explaining the FOIA process? I'm not sure what types of information is available, what it can be used for, etc and am always amazed with the type of information people are able to get the government to hand over.
- lucb1e 8y agoI had this question as well and asked someone who did a FOIA request. There is no listing. It's just that, if you notice or can logically conclude that a certain kind of data exists, you can request it. In this example, it is fairly logical that the city has a record of parking tickets that were written out, and so the author requested them. I'm surprised he asked after license plates, though. I don't know if that is different in the USA, but in Europe that certainly wouldn't fly because of privacy. I wouldn't even have asked because I shouldn't want to have such data. Perhaps one could get an anonymized version to be able to correlate how often a certain plate got a ticket, but not which plate that was. Anyway, the general concept of a FOIA request is the same. (Edit: Oh, someone else remarked this as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17754396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17754396)