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NSA: Please Stop Mailing Us FOIA Requests
- cg410 13y agoThey found your e-mail without you giving it to them? Sounds like NSA.
- cschmidt 13y agoPretty spooky. Or maybe the woman just went to his website, and looked at the contact page.
- tsaoutourpants 13y agoYes but... I didn't give them my Web site, either. All they had was my name as the return address.
- moneta 13y agoWell at least someone at the NSA doesn't need http://lmgtfy.com/ http://lmgtfy.com/ lol
- pavs 13y agotook me 30 seconds... If I have your name, which is: Jonathan Corbett. I google searched "Jonathan Corbett NSA" The first link is your twitter account: https://twitter.com/tsaoutourpants https://twitter.com/tsaoutourpants Which mentions: http://www.mynsarecords.com/ http://www.mynsarecords.com/ I do a whois on the site: (public information) Corbett, Jonathan jcorbett@fourtentech.com FourTen Technologies, Inc. 407 Lincoln Road 11th Floor Miami Beach, Florida 33139 United States 8774100410 I am assuming he emailed you either there or got your email from your website which has it in the contact section... Not very difficult really.
- quackerhacker 13y agoWas your return address, the same as the one posted on your site? If so, just googling that, the first result is your site, which shows your email.
- MysticFear 13y agowho.godaddy.com
- surrealize 13y agoProtesting can be great. But if a protest only affects low-level paper handlers with no decision making power, then what are you really accomplishing?
- tsaoutourpants 13y agoI am quite sure that the fact that they are getting so many requests will travel up higher than the paper handlers. :)
- surrealize 13y agoI hope so. Thinking about it some more: I suppose they don't provide an efficient online form for motions to quash, do they?
- tsaoutourpants 13y agoNope ;)
- dfc 13y agoSo they can augment their budget estimates for next year's FOIA compliance program?
- dedward 13y agoSo.. they said please, didn't threaten you, and pointed out a few potential problems with the method you are using (like missing return addresses). That seems.. helpful?
- tsaoutourpants 13y agoThey were certainly polite. :) I did a quick check for people submitting things like "FUCK YOU" and "YOUR MOM" in every field and deleted those before sending. A couple I let through had things like missing city but valid ZIP code, which I assume would actually be enough to get the letter to them. 95% of what was sent had a full address.
- moneta 13y agoThe post will deliver with a wrong city & state if you have a valid zip code. :)
- dfc 13y agoA couple I let through had things like missing city but valid ZIP code, which I assume would actually be enough to get the letter to them Did you ever read their instructions for filing a FOIA request? "If you do not include a name and complete postal address, NSA will be unable to respond."[1] While you are here I dont understand what you mean by: "It seems that the NSA does not quite get that this is a protest, in addition to a request for information." How did you expect them to act? And/or what behavior would constitute recognition that this is a "protest"? NSA is required by law to respond to FOIA requests. The civil servant that emailed you was doing what her employer told her to do so that she could continue to bring a paycheck home. Are all the "protest" FOIA requests supposed to get tossed in a burn bag at the end of the day? [1] http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/foia/submit_foia_request/foia_request_form.shtml http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/foia/submit_foia_request/foia...
- intopieces 13y ago"The civil servant that emailed you was doing what her employer told her to do so that she could continue to bring a paycheck home." So she was just following orders, huh?
- diminoten 13y agoWhat's the actual protest? That the paper FOIA requests don't include the required information to honor said request, allowing the NSA to throw out the requests entirely without having to spend time fulfilling them? Sounds more like the ~~company~~ guy is trying to cover for ~~its~~ his fuckup filling out the forms. It's a much more effective protest to actually make the NSA follow through with the requests. Edit: Also, from http://www.mynsarecords.com/contact/ http://www.mynsarecords.com/contact/ To reach Jon, please e-mail: jcorbett [at] fourtentech.com Yes, how did they get your email, indeed. Probably some kind of spy technology. This man is an idiot, please don't fill up HN with this drivel.
- tsaoutourpants 13y ago- I am "the company guy" / "idiot" - Forms were generated via script, so no "fucking up filling out forms" (by me, anyway) - A few people entered incomplete addresses, but I sent them anyway because I thought the address was sufficient to reach them (for example, missing city but valid ZIP) - 95% of the forms I sent had full, valid addresses - The NSA wasn't provided with my Web site, so in order to get the e-mail, they had to stalk that down first
- tsaoutourpants 13y agoAlso, people who submitted obviously invalid addresses were contacted by e-mail and allowed to re-submit. Pretty stupid, right? ;)
- diminoten 13y agoIt just explains the part of the NSA's letter to you where you pretended like they lied or were being misleading. Turns out, you were being misleading, not them.
- tsaoutourpants 13y agoWhat are you smoking? Go back through my comments and point to one where I suggested that the NSA's e-mail to me was a lie. At most, I suggested it was an exaggeration since they said "many" of the requests had invalid addresses, while I contend that it was less than 5%.
- dfc 13y agoAs far as I am concerned that email is the work product of a dedicated civil servant. I wish more companies I interact with would do something like google my name in order to learn about my needs and then email me advice on how to better utilize their service.
- DanBC 13y ago> It seems that the NSA does not quite get that this is a protest I don't get it. What's it achieving? > Imagine the NSA ending up with a desk full of a million records requests, and what a statement that would make, even if they refuse to process every one of them. Well, they've got at least 500 so far. Only nine hundred and ninety nine thousand to go. I wonder how many of those 500 have any records with NSA?
- tsaoutourpants 13y ago> I wonder how many of those 500 have any records with NSA? Probably all of them, since the NSA collects phone records on every American.
- unreal37 13y ago500. The NSA is capturing all internet and telephone traffic for every individual on this planet with a phone or email account. But perhaps they don't index it by person name, and so 500 becomes 0 because of that.
- tsaoutourpants 13y agoWe include the phone number for them so they can look it up :)
- LaurelCrowned 13y agoStill don't see the point. You're not going to find anything like phone transcripts or what tags might be applied to your person. I'm guessing 99% of the requests will be sent back with "we don't have a folder specifically for you". Because there isn't one...specifically. We're probably all in their database as some random character string, only actually linked to our identity if needed. Unless they have an actual investigation on anyone requesting information, I doubt anyone's going to get anything more that a boilerplate response. Also, the site sending out mail that will just be thrown out because it's not correctly filled out is a complete waste. I just don't see what the goal of this is. Just to spam snail mail? If the goal is to just clog up their office and be a general nuisance as a protest of some sort...at least the forms would not be sent if they don't have all mailing information. Otherwise it looks like really childish trolling. To me that is. You providing a phone number does nothing.
- spacecadet 13y agoSo the NSA's secret spy tool is Google search?
- revelation 13y agoYou would think the NSA would sign outgoing communication. Guess not.
- ianhawes 13y agoRead receipt requested? That seems unnecessary given its the NSA.