Post A Picture That 'Causes Emotional Distress' And You Could Face Jailtime In Tennessee

Homeland Security Appears To Be Stalling On FOIA Requests Concerning Domain Seizures

from the violating-the-foia? dept

Tue, Jun 7th 2011 12:38pm — Mike Masnick

We're still waiting for the full response to our own Freedom of Information Act request concerning ICE's PSA (though, we have some more info on that which we'll be sharing soon). It's still well within the reasonable period of time to reply, and we've been told that progress is being made on the request, so that all sounds good. However, Michael Robertson passed along the news that back in January, he filed a FOIA request of his own, on behalf of his organization NakedGovernment.org, seeking any information and documents within ICE concerning the domain seizures found in "Operation in Our Sites."

Initially, as is fairly typical with FOIA requests, the ICE FOIA officials were responsive, friendly and helpful. Following a rather broad request, the FOIA official at ICE suggested that NakedGovernment narrow its request to documents concerning the domain seizures that are stored in the TECS (Treasury Enforcement Communications System) database. NakedGovernment also forked over the cash that ICE requested in order to conduct this search. At the end of March, ICE FOIA officials told NakedGovernment that they had received the check and "will begin processing your request and will respond..."

And that's all they wrote. Since the end of March, no additional response has been forthcoming, even though NakedGovernment has followed up with ICE requesting the status of the request. It's difficult to see how this request could possibly take more than two months to process. I'm hopeful that my (quite narrow) request won't take nearly as long. Update: Michael Robertson informs me that ICE has just indicated that it has obtained the documents in question, and they now need to "be processed" which will then be followed by a "supervisory review." So, keep waiting...

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Filed Under: domain seizures, foia, freedom of information, michael robertson

32 Comments

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Spaceboy (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 12:49pm

I hope you aren't holding your breath Mike.

I would like to start the unOfficial Techdirt FOIA pool.
Post your guesses as to when the government gets around to actually responding to the request. In case of a tie, please also guess what you think will be the percentage of redaction will be. Price is Right rules in effect, closest without going over wins.

My guess, July 28 2011 - 40% Redaction.
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- Gwiz (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:03pm
  
  Re:
  My guess - August 5 2011 - 45% Redaction (30% of it unnecessary and redacted just to piss Mike off)
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- DevConcepts (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:04pm
  
  Re:
  11:58:00 PM 12/21/2012, 0% redaction is my guess.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:07pm
    
    Re: Re:
    because the will of the universe is reflected in our calendar
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  - Hephaestus (profile), 8 Jun 2011 @ 7:01am
    
    Re: Re:
    Dear World,
    Please stop freaking out about 2012. Our calendar ends there because the Spanish invaded our country and we got a little busy ok?
    Sincerely,
    The Mayans
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- Atkray (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:20pm
  
  Re:
  October 7, 46%
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- Chris-Mouse (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:57pm
  
  Re:
  My guess is Sept 31st, 0% redaction.
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- DannyB (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 2:10pm
  
  Re:
  My guess is the heat death of the universe plus 180 days.
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- MrWilson, 7 Jun 2011 @ 4:00pm
  
  Re:
  The life of all the authors plus 70 years or infinity minus one day.
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The eejit (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 12:54pm

Dude, you made a request. IT will take the length of copyright before it gets done. You should know this by now.
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OC, 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:15pm

Limit?
Are there any laws, rules or polices for how long the request can take at most? Or can they say they are "working on it" for 10 years if they choose to?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:32pm

Maybe it's being proxied with Palin's Alaskan communications, so the government can save a few bucks on looking up that data.
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- Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:37pm
  
  Re:
  What is this obsession that some people seem to have with Sarah Palin? And I mean people on the left who are far more obsessed with her than anyone I know on the right.
  
  I just don't get it.
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  - Spaceboy (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:39pm
    
    Re: Re:
    She's hot! At least that's the message I sent to her on Twitter...keeping my fingers crossed!!!!!
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
E. Zachary Knight (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:32pm

They asked for money first?
I got one of those requests once. This prince in Nigeria asked me to send him a $5000 processing fee in order to get my $50 million inheritance. I'm still waiting for that inheritance to come.
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Beta (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:33pm

don't forget NY
On the 16th of May you wrote "the NY State law says that the city must respond to my request within five business days". Any word yet? My guess is that they will reply (if they haven't already) with "thank you for your interest, we cannot give you the information you request at the present time because [CITE EXCEPTION PERMITTED IN LAW], we will inform you when the situation changes".
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:41pm

I think they're just holding out for the rapture to occur in October - for real this time.
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Mr. Smarta**, 7 Jun 2011 @ 1:41pm

Denied
Your request has been denied. The letter stating that it was denied has been classified due to national security. Nobody within the appropriate organizations is authorized to tell you anything about it. And anyone associated with your request has been issued a permanent gag order.

So basically, everyone else knows but you.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 2:08pm

Updated
Updated the post, as DHS has finally gotten back to NakedGovernment, telling them that the documents have finally been retrieved, but now need to "be processed" and then get a "supervisory review." So, hurry up and wait.
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- Chris in Utah (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 2:17pm
  
  Re: Updated
  Can we say
  
  "Oops. they were misfiled"
  
  I'm all for human error but this has a hell of a smell to it.
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- Scote, 7 Jun 2011 @ 2:39pm
  
  Re: Updated
  I'm guessing they are trying to stall until a Federal law is passed making what they did de facto retroactively legal.
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  - LegitTroll (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 3:51pm
    
    Re: Re: Updated
    Did At&t have a hand in this?
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Michial Thompson, 7 Jun 2011 @ 2:11pm

Open Investigation
My bet is that your going to get nothing useful and all, and it will be accompanied with a letter stating that this is an open investigation, and the records cannot be made available at this time.

Remember the owners have not had charges filed against them yet, and the domains have not been returned to them. The only way of holding onto the domains is either by court order after the prosecution, or by maintaining the case as open for investigation.
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Overcast (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 2:19pm

They have to edit the docs first, of course.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2011 @ 2:28pm

The U.S. government is an embarrassment to its citizens.
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Bergman (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 4:41pm

Fifth of Never, 100%
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2011 @ 9:25pm

The time Duke Nukem Forever stayed in development squared.
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- The eejit (profile), 7 Jun 2011 @ 11:29pm
  
  Re:
  DNF was onyl in development for 6 months, so not long then. :D
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  - xenomancer (profile), 8 Jun 2011 @ 12:35am
    
    Re: Re:
    That depends on if its days squared or months squared.
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    - The eejit (profile), 8 Jun 2011 @ 6:14am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      still, only three years actual dev time - the rest was an epic long-game trolling of the Internet and the Gaming world.
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CarlWeathersForPres (profile), 8 Jun 2011 @ 6:10am

This just in, the government moves slowly.
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JustMe (profile), 8 Jun 2011 @ 6:11am

My guess
September 11, 2011 35% redaction w/ several additional pages marks as 'missing'
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