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While I'm happy the NSA is being somewhat transparent about something, even if it happened in the 70s, this is alarming: FOIA request placed 25 November 2009 F

While I'm happy the NSA is being somewhat transparent about something, even if it happened in the 70s, this is alarming: FOIA request placed 25 November 2009 Final reply 30 April 2021 Did it really take them 11 years to go through and redact this one document?

Mizza 5y ago
As a FOIA hunter myself, I have to say the only uncommon here is that they returned _anything at all_. The CIA, the NSA and NYPD are all far outliers in terms of response rates to compared to every other organization. 12 years is a long time, but for context, my average is about 7 years.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  Wow. How does a process like that even work, I'd assume if you can get away with not doing anything for seven years then you can get away with not doing it ever. On the other hand, if there's somebody who pushes this through, how come they're content to wait so long?
  - EMM_386 5y ago
    Under the law, all federal agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 20 business days, unless there are "unusual circumstances". Under the FOIA, the 20-day response time can be extended when "unusual circumstances" exist. When an extension of time beyond 10 additional days is needed, you get notified in writing and assigned a "FOIA public liaison" to either modify the scope of your request or to modify the timeline. After that, I don't see any specific timelines, which means it could go cold.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    That's your average bureaucracy... and some hostile intent in the design of these laws, IMHO. There are many rights you as an individual have by law - not just FOIA, but also stuff like unemployment insurance, health insurance, disability assistance, veterans healthcare - but in reality, many of those are gatekept to the extreme in many countries: you have to jump through endless hoops, pass (arbitrary) assessments if you are worthy (especially stuff dealing with disability), and often enough only win after two or more rounds of appeals and lawsuits. Not everyone can sustain the appeals/lawsuits stage for a multitude of reasons (time, money for lawyers, mental health or simply dying before a final court verdict is reached and the respective agency follows it). The system is built that way, the executive branch doesn't care because there are no personal sanctions for those dragging reasonable requests out as far as possible, the legislative branch doesn't care because it's not them and their donors who are affected, and the judicial branch tries to care (mostly) but is overworked and backlogged to the brim. The fix would be to write proper laws that have actually binding timeframes - government has 30 days to approve or deny any request, and if there is no deny, the request is granted automatically.
nonameiguess 5y ago
They probably released other documents earlier. This was a Spring 1996 edition of Cryptographic Quarterly. Classification automatically expires after 25 years unless you can prove some of it still needs to be classified, so 30 April 2021 seems to just be the exact date this was declassified, and they couldn't have released it earlier.
- jsmith45 5y ago
  > They probably released other documents earlier The letter at the beginning strongly implies they did and this was just the last record responsive to the request. > they couldn't have released it earlier That is not at all clear. FOIA applies even to classified documents, to the extent that they contain responsive information not subject to classification (and which don't meet any of the other remaining FOIA exceptions). The standard appears to be "reasonable segregable material". Many classified documents (including this one) contain portions that are not classified. Large chunks of this document are paragraphs marked as unclassified, including much of the material pertinent to the FOIA request, so it is unclear to me why they would not have released the unclassified portions previously. (Unless they did, and this is a second release that includes more due to having been declassified.)

Mizza 5y ago

As a FOIA hunter myself, I have to say the only uncommon here is that they returned _anything at all_. The CIA, the NSA and NYPD are all far outliers in terms of response rates to compared to every other organization. 12 years is a long time, but for context, my average is about 7 years.

Y_Y 5y ago
Wow. How does a process like that even work, I'd assume if you can get away with not doing anything for seven years then you can get away with not doing it ever. On the other hand, if there's somebody who pushes this through, how come they're content to wait so long?
- EMM_386 5y ago
  Under the law, all federal agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 20 business days, unless there are "unusual circumstances". Under the FOIA, the 20-day response time can be extended when "unusual circumstances" exist. When an extension of time beyond 10 additional days is needed, you get notified in writing and assigned a "FOIA public liaison" to either modify the scope of your request or to modify the timeline. After that, I don't see any specific timelines, which means it could go cold.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  That's your average bureaucracy... and some hostile intent in the design of these laws, IMHO. There are many rights you as an individual have by law - not just FOIA, but also stuff like unemployment insurance, health insurance, disability assistance, veterans healthcare - but in reality, many of those are gatekept to the extreme in many countries: you have to jump through endless hoops, pass (arbitrary) assessments if you are worthy (especially stuff dealing with disability), and often enough only win after two or more rounds of appeals and lawsuits. Not everyone can sustain the appeals/lawsuits stage for a multitude of reasons (time, money for lawyers, mental health or simply dying before a final court verdict is reached and the respective agency follows it). The system is built that way, the executive branch doesn't care because there are no personal sanctions for those dragging reasonable requests out as far as possible, the legislative branch doesn't care because it's not them and their donors who are affected, and the judicial branch tries to care (mostly) but is overworked and backlogged to the brim. The fix would be to write proper laws that have actually binding timeframes - government has 30 days to approve or deny any request, and if there is no deny, the request is granted automatically.

nonameiguess 5y ago

They probably released other documents earlier. This was a Spring 1996 edition of Cryptographic Quarterly. Classification automatically expires after 25 years unless you can prove some of it still needs to be classified, so 30 April 2021 seems to just be the exact date this was declassified, and they couldn't have released it earlier.

jsmith45 5y ago
> They probably released other documents earlier The letter at the beginning strongly implies they did and this was just the last record responsive to the request. > they couldn't have released it earlier That is not at all clear. FOIA applies even to classified documents, to the extent that they contain responsive information not subject to classification (and which don't meet any of the other remaining FOIA exceptions). The standard appears to be "reasonable segregable material". Many classified documents (including this one) contain portions that are not classified. Large chunks of this document are paragraphs marked as unclassified, including much of the material pertinent to the FOIA request, so it is unclear to me why they would not have released the unclassified portions previously. (Unless they did, and this is a second release that includes more due to having been declassified.)