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Earnest question: If you suspect them of lying on the issue, why would you trust them to release the full schema in response to the FOIA request, and not just o

by 9dev 2y ago

Earnest question: If you suspect them of lying on the issue, why would you trust them to release the full schema in response to the FOIA request, and not just omit any possibly incriminating columns?

lmm 2y ago
By that logic there's no point investigating any crime or doing any kind of audit. You increase the costs of covering up, and put them in a dilemma - remember this is exactly what brought down Nixon.
cyanydeez 2y ago
Many times the people answering the requests aren't part of the conspiracy to commit random acts of malice. Sometimes they're roped into it under threat of termination. And often times, the denials eventually lead to significant reorg once judges and Congress can revise laws to fix the ambiguities.
jrockway 2y ago
It's always a possibility that some low level official not in on the scam sees the FOIA request before management tells them not to work on it. The more you ask for, the less filtering there is going to be, simply because of how people work. If you're running the scam, you don't want to tell low level employees about it, because they have no incentive not to blow the whistle.
Muromec 2y ago
Because this is not how government works. Most of the time it's not a heavily entranched conspiracy. Once the request is approved to go through by the legal department, some technician will happily give you everything you want and it won't be censored or tampered with in process.
tptacek 2y ago
How is this different from literally any other FOIA transaction, computer-y or otherwise?
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  What is the theory then for why they do not want to release this schema? Don’t misunderstand me I appreciate how important it is that people push the boundaries of FOIA.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    The statute says they're not required to. For a couple years, the statute did say that they had to, as we won multiple cases in lower courts, but Chicago appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, and the outcome was that now the statute exempts schemas.
- deleted 2y ago
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MBCook 2y ago
The other answers here are great, but let’s say you’re right. If you release a whole DB of data you’re going to have a hard time covering something you removed up in such a way that it’s not noticeable. Gaps in keys, suspiciously missing data for certain queries, etc. Even if you do that perfectly, there are other data sources to compare to. If the city said it issued 2500 parking tickets and made $7500 in January on some financial report and the DB disagrees you have proof something is going on. Or you could crowd source people’s parking tickets to compare to the DB to see if everything matches. What happens if one doesn’t? If one’s missing but the person had the proof they paid it? It could still prove useful.

by 9dev 2y ago

Earnest question: If you suspect them of lying on the issue, why would you trust them to release the full schema in response to the FOIA request, and not just omit any possibly incriminating columns?

lmm 2y ago

By that logic there's no point investigating any crime or doing any kind of audit. You increase the costs of covering up, and put them in a dilemma - remember this is exactly what brought down Nixon.

cyanydeez 2y ago

Many times the people answering the requests aren't part of the conspiracy to commit random acts of malice. Sometimes they're roped into it under threat of termination. And often times, the denials eventually lead to significant reorg once judges and Congress can revise laws to fix the ambiguities.

jrockway 2y ago

It's always a possibility that some low level official not in on the scam sees the FOIA request before management tells them not to work on it. The more you ask for, the less filtering there is going to be, simply because of how people work. If you're running the scam, you don't want to tell low level employees about it, because they have no incentive not to blow the whistle.

Muromec 2y ago

Because this is not how government works. Most of the time it's not a heavily entranched conspiracy. Once the request is approved to go through by the legal department, some technician will happily give you everything you want and it won't be censored or tampered with in process.

tptacek 2y ago

How is this different from literally any other FOIA transaction, computer-y or otherwise?

doctorpangloss 2y ago
What is the theory then for why they do not want to release this schema? Don’t misunderstand me I appreciate how important it is that people push the boundaries of FOIA.
- tptacek 2y ago
  The statute says they're not required to. For a couple years, the statute did say that they had to, as we won multiple cases in lower courts, but Chicago appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, and the outcome was that now the statute exempts schemas.
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MBCook 2y ago

The other answers here are great, but let’s say you’re right. If you release a whole DB of data you’re going to have a hard time covering something you removed up in such a way that it’s not noticeable. Gaps in keys, suspiciously missing data for certain queries, etc. Even if you do that perfectly, there are other data sources to compare to. If the city said it issued 2500 parking tickets and made $7500 in January on some financial report and the DB disagrees you have proof something is going on. Or you could crowd source people’s parking tickets to compare to the DB to see if everything matches. What happens if one doesn’t? If one’s missing but the person had the proof they paid it? It could still prove useful.