4 ms·

sigh and it should be the opposite. Divulging trade secrets into records that can be FOIA-ed should be tantamount to publicly releasing them.

by teeray 11mo ago

notahacker 11mo ago
I mean, without the trade secret exemption that's basically any written exchange with government.... I'm not seeing much to be gained by making it impossible for governments to do due diligence with many suppliers because they'd rather turn down the contract than broadcast such information to their competitors (not sure it'd jive particularly well with public company control over what is and isn't public information either)...
- cogman10 11mo ago
  The upside is it stops corruption. The fact is, spacex does not have any "trade secrets" that they should be dropping into communication with a government official when speaking about policy or a future contract. It's not like Musk would be dropping in things like vendors or material composition when talking to Abbott. The upside of working with the government for a contract is that usually means a lot of money. The price should be full transparency as that's our tax dollars. Secret government communications should pretty much always be seen as highly suspicious.
  - notahacker 11mo ago
    I mean, it doesn't 'stop corruption' because you can arrange to send money to secret bank accounts verbally, which is not subject to FOIA. Anyone considering emailing about something actually illegal needs to worry about subpoenas far more than freedom of information anyway. But it does mean that the answer to "can you disclose more about the functioning of technology X" or "can you tell us more about your expansion plans in Texas" will be "no". I don't think businesses being less transparent (or setting the price of the contract at greater than the value of open sourcing every part of their IP that isn't patentable or copyrightable) is a win.
    - cogman10 11mo ago
      I agree. I should have said "It makes corruption harder". Forcing communication about illegal things to be done verbally is highly inconvenient for both Musk and Abbott. They have to take the time to connect which limits the other work they can be doing. They need a private time and to find a location to avoid someone overhearing their communications. Not an impossibility, but definitely makes everything just a bit harder.
      - notahacker 11mo ago
        If Elon emails "call me", Abbott picks up the phone. Doing illegal things over email is already risky from the point of view of not being able to redact when supplying it to an investigator. The people actually inconvenienced by "public by default" are government departments trying to run a fair selection process involving detailed technical audits, or to provide support to companies that don't wish for their business plan to be public information. That's just a new hurdle that people proposing stuff which is completely legal have to cross when deciding whether to share any information with any public official ever.

sigh and it should be the opposite. Divulging trade secrets into records that can be FOIA-ed should be tantamount to publicly releasing them.

by teeray 11mo ago

sigh and it should be the opposite. Divulging trade secrets into records that can be FOIA-ed should be tantamount to publicly releasing them.

notahacker 11mo ago

I mean, without the trade secret exemption that's basically any written exchange with government.... I'm not seeing much to be gained by making it impossible for governments to do due diligence with many suppliers because they'd rather turn down the contract than broadcast such information to their competitors (not sure it'd jive particularly well with public company control over what is and isn't public information either)...

cogman10 11mo ago
The upside is it stops corruption. The fact is, spacex does not have any "trade secrets" that they should be dropping into communication with a government official when speaking about policy or a future contract. It's not like Musk would be dropping in things like vendors or material composition when talking to Abbott. The upside of working with the government for a contract is that usually means a lot of money. The price should be full transparency as that's our tax dollars. Secret government communications should pretty much always be seen as highly suspicious.
- notahacker 11mo ago
  I mean, it doesn't 'stop corruption' because you can arrange to send money to secret bank accounts verbally, which is not subject to FOIA. Anyone considering emailing about something actually illegal needs to worry about subpoenas far more than freedom of information anyway. But it does mean that the answer to "can you disclose more about the functioning of technology X" or "can you tell us more about your expansion plans in Texas" will be "no". I don't think businesses being less transparent (or setting the price of the contract at greater than the value of open sourcing every part of their IP that isn't patentable or copyrightable) is a win.
  - cogman10 11mo ago
    I agree. I should have said "It makes corruption harder". Forcing communication about illegal things to be done verbally is highly inconvenient for both Musk and Abbott. They have to take the time to connect which limits the other work they can be doing. They need a private time and to find a location to avoid someone overhearing their communications. Not an impossibility, but definitely makes everything just a bit harder.
    - notahacker 11mo ago
      If Elon emails "call me", Abbott picks up the phone. Doing illegal things over email is already risky from the point of view of not being able to redact when supplying it to an investigator. The people actually inconvenienced by "public by default" are government departments trying to run a fair selection process involving detailed technical audits, or to provide support to companies that don't wish for their business plan to be public information. That's just a new hurdle that people proposing stuff which is completely legal have to cross when deciding whether to share any information with any public official ever.