8 ms·

FBI vexsome filer list

124 points by aw3c2 13y ago

ianstallings 13y ago
They have one name on the list that is noted as (Gawker Media). This should be interesting to watch. Grabs some popcorn Part of me thinks this is more about getting their fees than spying on anyone. Uncle Sam never misses a dime.
- kilroy123 13y ago
  Unless you're very wealthy and know how to exploit various loopholes...
- duskwuff 13y ago
  Keep in mind one of the categories on this list is "Needs to be Assigned to a Permanent Fee Coordinator". In other words, they're free to file FOIA requests, they're just filing enough of them (and consuming enough resources in the process) that they've got an account with the office to handle those fees. I strongly suspect this is the category Gawker has fallen into.
  - ianstallings 13y ago
    Yeah that was my thought as well. In government you need to be accountable at all times for the time and money you spend on any effort. They track anything and everything if they think it may help cover their asses when someone asks "why did you spend all 40 hours last week on FOIA requests"? Or "why aren't these people, who have made request after request, being charged for that time"? That's my hope at least. That it's not some list of ne'er-do-wells.
- code_duck 13y ago
  At least in part money related, it seems - Check out the key to the color codes on the bottom of the fourth page - 'Aggregating fees' and 'Need to be assigned a permanent fee coordinator'.
morisy 13y ago
In case anyone is interested, a user has an open request out for an updated copy of this list: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/vexsome-filer-list-fbi-6732/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/vex... Or register yourself and see what you can dig up ;) https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/register/ https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/register/
astrodust 13y ago
Do they keep a list of people who FOIA the FOIA list? I bet that makes you doubly suspicious.
- noonespecial 13y ago
  You could likely FOIA that list as well. It would be sweet to inception the FBI until it stack-overflowed. We've all cursed the FBI recently, but now we can recurse them.
  - AsymetricCom 13y ago
    no.
jack-r-abbit 13y ago
Kind of funny how a lot of people are all bent out of shape about surveillance, privacy and what not. But then this guy published a list that the FBI has of people who have requested a lot of docs... and he included their full names. I don't think it is unreasonable at all that the FBI keeps a list of people who are making a lot of FOIA requests. That is their data to track if they want to. But I do think it is irresponsible for the guy to publish all those names.
- arh68 13y ago
  If the information is public, what's the difference? Any citizen could issue the same request and get the same list. You say it's "their data" but the point of FOIA is to free the data. Would it be wrong to publish a page from the White Pages listing names and phone numbers?
  - yuliyp 13y ago
    If a very small number of people keep making large numbers of requests that bog down the team working on fulfilling them, it might make sense to prioritize requests from other people instead.
    - kkowalczyk 13y ago
      Alternatively, improve the process of fulfilling FOIA requests so that it cannot be "bogged down" by someone making requests (which is a manual process). One such improvement would be to publish all this information publicly in the first place. The whole idea of FOIA requests is broken - it only exists to compel the government to disclose the information that they are legally required to disclose but don't feel like it unless someone takes the time to specifically request it.
      - yuliyp 13y ago
        So every document, email, and memo should have a redacted version generated at the same time as it is generated? Every time omeone creates a spreadsheet or DB table, they have to review which parts of it are revealable under FOIA? That is... an insane burden.
Tzunamitom 13y ago
I guess that answers the age old question, "who will watch the watchers watching the watchers?". The FBI.
DannyBee 13y ago
One of the people on the list multiple times, Mark Zaid, is probably one of the few people you'd want defending you if one of these agencies came after you.
- nkurz 13y ago
  Recent interview with Zaid as "Snowden, Manning and the Modern Day Whistleblower": http://cherispeak.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/snowden-manning-and-the-modern-day-whistleblower/ http://cherispeak.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/snowden-manning-a...
BWStearns 13y ago
tl;dr -- While many frequent filers are legit book-writers/journalists/legit-folks-who-I-honestly-wish-well, sometimes they're essentially spammers, so I can see why some offices might keep a list of those who are to be bottom of piled because of their patterns (although nowhere I ever worked did, god I wish we did). As someone who once in the past had to handle (an ungodly amount of) FOIA requests, should there be a list? I don't know, primarily because I don't know what the utility is. That said, some opinions derived from experiences: 1) Some people are serial filers. They haven't bothered to do the research up front to ask relevant questions and after a bit when you see their names you know that when you read the next paragraph it's going to be asking about a) things you know you cannot disclose (not for some BS reason but because of things that actually should remain secret), b) aliens (no we don't have them), c) blatant evidence of government conspiracy, generally of the NWO sort (duh and or hello? Project BlueBeam doesn't keep paper records!). 2) There were also frequent filers where the requestor isn't a crackpot, a FOIA spammer, or asking for something they know in advance could not be provided. These were generally authors. We always got these people what we could and even though my shop didn't keep a list me and the other poor souls stuck on FOIA duty knew them by name. This meant that we basically knew what they wanted when they filed which helped us get them their stuff faster with less overhead. (N.B. this did not stop us from cursing them for their curiosity and the resultant carpal tunnel).
- rhizome 13y ago
  those who are to be bottom of piled You can call it humanity, but this is the government: it's not the FBI's job to exercise this kind of discrimination. In fact, anything other than FIFO should be illegal, or at least cause for firing for corruption. These agencies simply should not be able to do this, and if the employee doesn't like it, they can get another job. Petty tyranny is highly distasteful.
  - ErsatzVerkehr 13y ago
    ... in which case, these nuisance requestors will be executing a denial-of-service attack on legitimate requestors.
bengrunfeld 13y ago
The FBI's preference for total secrecy, in complete contrast to the law, is a very scary fact indeed. There are many things that I love about living in America - you get to be at the pinnacle of tech development, you can make a good wage, but all that is starting to pale in comparison to the Government's agenda for KGB-like activities. The USA used to be the champion of civil rights. Now it uses that image to perpetrate abuses of public freedoms that would impress the NKVD.
- bonemachine 13y ago
  Congratulations, Comrade. You've just made into the Vexsome HN Posters List.
  - bengrunfeld 13y ago
    Spasibah. I was vexing them a long time before this.
- BWStearns 13y ago
  As explained above: not a NKVDist plot. This is just the result of some poor analysts (I hear they mistreat their analysts at FBI) getting stuck with FOIA duty trying to get through their day. There is plenty that I myself am wary of about how the government conducts itself, but this is seeing corruption for the sake of seeing corruption. Save the panic rant for real problems.

124 points by aw3c2 13y ago

They have one name on the list that is noted as (Gawker Media). This should be interesting to watch. Grabs some popcorn Part of me thinks this is more about getting their fees than spying on anyone. Uncle Sam never misses a dime.

kilroy123 13y ago
Unless you're very wealthy and know how to exploit various loopholes...
duskwuff 13y ago
Keep in mind one of the categories on this list is "Needs to be Assigned to a Permanent Fee Coordinator". In other words, they're free to file FOIA requests, they're just filing enough of them (and consuming enough resources in the process) that they've got an account with the office to handle those fees. I strongly suspect this is the category Gawker has fallen into.
- ianstallings 13y ago
  Yeah that was my thought as well. In government you need to be accountable at all times for the time and money you spend on any effort. They track anything and everything if they think it may help cover their asses when someone asks "why did you spend all 40 hours last week on FOIA requests"? Or "why aren't these people, who have made request after request, being charged for that time"? That's my hope at least. That it's not some list of ne'er-do-wells.
code_duck 13y ago
At least in part money related, it seems - Check out the key to the color codes on the bottom of the fourth page - 'Aggregating fees' and 'Need to be assigned a permanent fee coordinator'.

morisy 13y ago

In case anyone is interested, a user has an open request out for an updated copy of this list: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/vexsome-filer-list-fbi-6732/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/vex... Or register yourself and see what you can dig up ;) https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/register/ https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/register/

astrodust 13y ago

Do they keep a list of people who FOIA the FOIA list? I bet that makes you doubly suspicious.

noonespecial 13y ago
You could likely FOIA that list as well. It would be sweet to inception the FBI until it stack-overflowed. We've all cursed the FBI recently, but now we can recurse them.
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  no.

jack-r-abbit 13y ago

Kind of funny how a lot of people are all bent out of shape about surveillance, privacy and what not. But then this guy published a list that the FBI has of people who have requested a lot of docs... and he included their full names. I don't think it is unreasonable at all that the FBI keeps a list of people who are making a lot of FOIA requests. That is their data to track if they want to. But I do think it is irresponsible for the guy to publish all those names.

arh68 13y ago
If the information is public, what's the difference? Any citizen could issue the same request and get the same list. You say it's "their data" but the point of FOIA is to free the data. Would it be wrong to publish a page from the White Pages listing names and phone numbers?
- yuliyp 13y ago
  If a very small number of people keep making large numbers of requests that bog down the team working on fulfilling them, it might make sense to prioritize requests from other people instead.
  - kkowalczyk 13y ago
    Alternatively, improve the process of fulfilling FOIA requests so that it cannot be "bogged down" by someone making requests (which is a manual process). One such improvement would be to publish all this information publicly in the first place. The whole idea of FOIA requests is broken - it only exists to compel the government to disclose the information that they are legally required to disclose but don't feel like it unless someone takes the time to specifically request it.
    - yuliyp 13y ago
      So every document, email, and memo should have a redacted version generated at the same time as it is generated? Every time omeone creates a spreadsheet or DB table, they have to review which parts of it are revealable under FOIA? That is... an insane burden.

Tzunamitom 13y ago

I guess that answers the age old question, "who will watch the watchers watching the watchers?". The FBI.

DannyBee 13y ago

One of the people on the list multiple times, Mark Zaid, is probably one of the few people you'd want defending you if one of these agencies came after you.

nkurz 13y ago
Recent interview with Zaid as "Snowden, Manning and the Modern Day Whistleblower": http://cherispeak.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/snowden-manning-and-the-modern-day-whistleblower/ http://cherispeak.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/snowden-manning-a...

BWStearns 13y ago

tl;dr -- While many frequent filers are legit book-writers/journalists/legit-folks-who-I-honestly-wish-well, sometimes they're essentially spammers, so I can see why some offices might keep a list of those who are to be bottom of piled because of their patterns (although nowhere I ever worked did, god I wish we did). As someone who once in the past had to handle (an ungodly amount of) FOIA requests, should there be a list? I don't know, primarily because I don't know what the utility is. That said, some opinions derived from experiences: 1) Some people are serial filers. They haven't bothered to do the research up front to ask relevant questions and after a bit when you see their names you know that when you read the next paragraph it's going to be asking about a) things you know you cannot disclose (not for some BS reason but because of things that actually should remain secret), b) aliens (no we don't have them), c) blatant evidence of government conspiracy, generally of the NWO sort (duh and or hello? Project BlueBeam doesn't keep paper records!). 2) There were also frequent filers where the requestor isn't a crackpot, a FOIA spammer, or asking for something they know in advance could not be provided. These were generally authors. We always got these people what we could and even though my shop didn't keep a list me and the other poor souls stuck on FOIA duty knew them by name. This meant that we basically knew what they wanted when they filed which helped us get them their stuff faster with less overhead. (N.B. this did not stop us from cursing them for their curiosity and the resultant carpal tunnel).

rhizome 13y ago
those who are to be bottom of piled You can call it humanity, but this is the government: it's not the FBI's job to exercise this kind of discrimination. In fact, anything other than FIFO should be illegal, or at least cause for firing for corruption. These agencies simply should not be able to do this, and if the employee doesn't like it, they can get another job. Petty tyranny is highly distasteful.
- ErsatzVerkehr 13y ago
  ... in which case, these nuisance requestors will be executing a denial-of-service attack on legitimate requestors.

bengrunfeld 13y ago

The FBI's preference for total secrecy, in complete contrast to the law, is a very scary fact indeed. There are many things that I love about living in America - you get to be at the pinnacle of tech development, you can make a good wage, but all that is starting to pale in comparison to the Government's agenda for KGB-like activities. The USA used to be the champion of civil rights. Now it uses that image to perpetrate abuses of public freedoms that would impress the NKVD.

bonemachine 13y ago
Congratulations, Comrade. You've just made into the Vexsome HN Posters List.
- bengrunfeld 13y ago
  Spasibah. I was vexing them a long time before this.
BWStearns 13y ago
As explained above: not a NKVDist plot. This is just the result of some poor analysts (I hear they mistreat their analysts at FBI) getting stuck with FOIA duty trying to get through their day. There is plenty that I myself am wary of about how the government conducts itself, but this is seeing corruption for the sake of seeing corruption. Save the panic rant for real problems.