>I'm sure there are political reasons, but it is very hard for me to understand why agencies purposefully keep the data obscure. It's simple, really. There is

>I'm sure there are political reasons, but it is very hard for me to understand why agencies purposefully keep the data obscure. It's simple, really. There is no value to that individual or agency in handing out nicely formatted data to someone who might (probably will, if they're using FOIA) try to use it against them. Very, very few people truly, through their actions, care about benefiting society. Most care only about benefiting themselves (which, I mean, is relatively understandable, in an evolutionary sense). And those individuals care so much about themselves that they often do things that they know are "wrong," or even blatantly illegal, and they obviously don't want to just open those records up to the analysts for the greater good.