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I'm not sure I could disagree with you more. At least in the US there is a very strong expectation that communications between governmental employees is non-pr

I'm not sure I could disagree with you more. At least in the US there is a very strong expectation that communications between governmental employees is non-private except in very special circumstances. You'll note Matt says that the Police and Human Services departments have not responded, I'd guess thats not an accident because police records and personnel/medical records are largely exempt from FOIA requests. Further, the idea that sleuths (amateur seems pejorative in this case) are working with city governments to battle corruption does not hold up to Matt's (or other journalists) experience. By and large the governments only provide the data because they are required to, and we have made sure they are required to by representative legislative action. Had the IT dept. in Seattle not made an obvious mistake this would likely have not been a story at all and the data would have been an interesting data set for informed democratic functions.

jacquesm 8y ago
> between governmental employees The request contains the names of private individuals through BCC and CC headers requested and exactly when they communicated with which government officials.
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  Yes. When I say “between governmental employees” I mean between them & anyone. This is a normal expectation to the point where there are lots of rules about what public servants can even use private email addresses for. This was a big deal of course in the 2016 campaign. This is likely a cultural difference, I view the data that Matt requested as mine because that governmental agent is acting in my name.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  Fine by me.
danso 8y ago
> Further, the idea that sleuths (amateur seems pejorative in this case) are working with city governments to battle corruption does not hold up to Matt's (or other journalists) experience. Yes, exactly this. History has shown that government employees and officials, being human, are reluctant to dig into, nevermind snitch about matters that may impugn their own colleagues. That a random citizen, or even a journalist, could convince law enforcement to go to a judge based on trends found via analysis of anonymized hashes is unrealistic. Nevermind that it effectively denies the benefits of transparency to anyone who isn't trained in data science.

jacquesm 8y ago

> between governmental employees The request contains the names of private individuals through BCC and CC headers requested and exactly when they communicated with which government officials.

kasey_junk 8y ago
Yes. When I say “between governmental employees” I mean between them & anyone. This is a normal expectation to the point where there are lots of rules about what public servants can even use private email addresses for. This was a big deal of course in the 2016 campaign. This is likely a cultural difference, I view the data that Matt requested as mine because that governmental agent is acting in my name.
anigbrowl 8y ago
Fine by me.

danso 8y ago

> Further, the idea that sleuths (amateur seems pejorative in this case) are working with city governments to battle corruption does not hold up to Matt's (or other journalists) experience. Yes, exactly this. History has shown that government employees and officials, being human, are reluctant to dig into, nevermind snitch about matters that may impugn their own colleagues. That a random citizen, or even a journalist, could convince law enforcement to go to a judge based on trends found via analysis of anonymized hashes is unrealistic. Nevermind that it effectively denies the benefits of transparency to anyone who isn't trained in data science.