5 ms·

There is a huge amount of documented history of FOIA games a google search away. I have zero patience for public employees treating the public with contempt. I

by _jal 5y ago

There is a huge amount of documented history of FOIA games a google search away. I have zero patience for public employees treating the public with contempt. I know it is a hassle, but dealing with the nutters is part of the job. Public employees that treat the public with contempt need to find a different way to feed themselves.

pc86 5y ago
It's possible to treat "the nutters" with well-deserved contempt while treating reasonable people reasonably.
- _jal 5y ago
  Not as an FOI officer. Who decides who is nutty? Some well documented stories: https://www.propublica.org/article/delayed-denied-dismissed-failures-on-the-foia-front https://www.propublica.org/article/delayed-denied-dismissed-...
  - pc86 5y ago
    I'm not saying it's a clear cut thing, and reasonable people can disagree about the reasonableness of an individual FOIA request in the gray areas. A decent public servant will give folks the benefit of the doubt even when they clearly have political motives. But, I don't see any reason to give any benefit of the doubt to people submitting FOIA requests on vaccine microchips, or chemtrails, or conspiratorial nonsense like that.
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      > But, I don't see any reason to give any benefit of the doubt to people submitting FOIA requests on vaccine microchips, or chemtrails, or conspiratorial nonsense like that. Gov officials don't have to give the the benefit of the doubt. But gov officials do have to respond in a timely and accurate manner to the requests. In this case, that probable means running the equivalent of a ctrl+F over various explicitly enumerated databases for "vaccine microchips" or "chemtrails" and replying "sorry, zero results".
achandlerwhite 5y ago
In my experience we treated the nutty requests with full respect -- but they tied up the system. We had a full office dedicated to responding to requests but it still was a slow process. It was a poisoned well in the sense that it was the public with unreasonable requests that messed it up for others in the public. Most of the games I've seen were at local and state level where the sheriff or police chief would just say "nah" or ignore with no accountability.
handrous 5y ago
Ain't seen what dedicated Sovereign Citizens can come up with when they decide to go all mountain-of-paperwork on an agency, have you? Any amount of time spent on those is a waste of time, and they absolutely deserve contempt.

by _jal 5y ago

pc86 5y ago

It's possible to treat "the nutters" with well-deserved contempt while treating reasonable people reasonably.

_jal 5y ago
Not as an FOI officer. Who decides who is nutty? Some well documented stories: https://www.propublica.org/article/delayed-denied-dismissed-failures-on-the-foia-front https://www.propublica.org/article/delayed-denied-dismissed-...
- pc86 5y ago
  I'm not saying it's a clear cut thing, and reasonable people can disagree about the reasonableness of an individual FOIA request in the gray areas. A decent public servant will give folks the benefit of the doubt even when they clearly have political motives. But, I don't see any reason to give any benefit of the doubt to people submitting FOIA requests on vaccine microchips, or chemtrails, or conspiratorial nonsense like that.
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    > But, I don't see any reason to give any benefit of the doubt to people submitting FOIA requests on vaccine microchips, or chemtrails, or conspiratorial nonsense like that. Gov officials don't have to give the the benefit of the doubt. But gov officials do have to respond in a timely and accurate manner to the requests. In this case, that probable means running the equivalent of a ctrl+F over various explicitly enumerated databases for "vaccine microchips" or "chemtrails" and replying "sorry, zero results".

achandlerwhite 5y ago

In my experience we treated the nutty requests with full respect -- but they tied up the system. We had a full office dedicated to responding to requests but it still was a slow process. It was a poisoned well in the sense that it was the public with unreasonable requests that messed it up for others in the public. Most of the games I've seen were at local and state level where the sheriff or police chief would just say "nah" or ignore with no accountability.

handrous 5y ago

Ain't seen what dedicated Sovereign Citizens can come up with when they decide to go all mountain-of-paperwork on an agency, have you? Any amount of time spent on those is a waste of time, and they absolutely deserve contempt.