Homeland Security Ignores Own Guidelines To Make It Prohibitively Expensive For Media Companies To Obtain FOIA Docs

from the say-what-now? dept

I currently have a FOIA request in to the Department of Homeland Security, and the fee waiver request was initially denied because DHS told me that I was considered a "commercial requester" since I was using Muckrock's platform to make the request. We're currently appealing this designation (and DHS seems to be ignoring our appeal, as it's been months...), but in another such situation, DHS has once again, declared Muckrock a "commercial requester" in order to demand fees -- on the basis of the fact that people might actually read the documents, and that somehow advances Muckrock's "commercial" interests.

Now, some background is important here. The whole point of waiving fees for "commercial" requesters is to avoid companies doing things like building up private databases by use of FOIA requests and then selling them. It's not for the purpose of blocking commercial media properties from doing journalism with the documents. In fact, Homeland Security's own FOIA guidelines make it clear that for-profit media operations using FOIA for reporting purposes are not commercial requesters:
A request for records supporting the news-dissemination function of the requester shall not be considered to be for a commercial use.
Seems simple enough, but apparently the DHS wants to ignore its own guidelines when it comes to Muckrock. Here's what DHS told Muckrock:
Regarding the "commercial requester" classification, the Agency has also properly determined that the requested records would be used for commercial purposes. Although you assert that any responsive documents would be made available to the public for free on MuckRock's website, the Agency must balance the commercial interest against the public interest. Making documents available on MuckRock's website, even at no charge, drives traffic to the website and furthers its commercial purposes. Your request does not provide any information that would allow the Agency to determine that the public interest outweighs this commercial interest.
But, that kind of argument makes no sense, and would effectively mean that basically all news media organizations who post the relevant source documents from FOIA requests are no longer considered "news media" requesters, but rather "commercial requesters." Because, of course, part of the media function of posting any such document is to "drive traffic." As Muckrock points out in response to this news, there are over 300 media organizations who contribute such documents to DocumentCloud (and we're among them). Many of those organizations are for-profit and clearly media operations. The attempt to claim that Muckrock is a "commercial requester" is clearly ignoring both the clear intent of the commercial requester status and DHS's own guidelines in how to deal with media requests from for-profit media properties.

It's almost as if Homeland Security is looking for bogus excuses to make it prohibitively expensive for media sites, reporting in the public interest, to actually get the documents they request.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: commercial requester, dhs, foia, guidelines, homeland security, journalism, media
Companies: muckrock


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2014 @ 9:43pm

    "Almost"?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Ninja (profile), 12 Nov 2014 @ 1:17am

      Re:

      Yeah, euphemism overused here heh.

      That's precisely what they want. This Govt has shown it will obfuscate, slow and stop anything that leads to more transparency to the best of their capabilities. No surprises here.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mark Wing, 11 Nov 2014 @ 10:11pm

    Because terrorists.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Nov 2014 @ 1:52am

    FOIA requests are only granted if lawsuits are fought in court, and the plaintiff wins. The reason the US government does this, is to make FOIA requests prohibitively expensive and time consuming. As your last paragraph in the article states.

    America is ruled by a shadow government, in secret. Even if the plaintiff wins and the US Gov actually hands over all the documents requested, which is doubtful. All the words in the documents have black shadows over them anyways.

    I give credit to individuals who take the time to file FOIA request, pony up the money, fight it in court, wait a few years, and finally, maybe, get the redacted documents.

    I give more credit to individuals who bypass all that. Blow the whistle and release the ALL the hidden documents, unredacted.

    In the span of two years, Ed Snowden has accomplished what would have been impossible otherwise. He gave Americans a behind the curtains view into the shadow government's secret policies, actions, laws and abuses.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Bergman (profile), 13 Nov 2014 @ 10:18pm

      Re:

      If it's legal to redact every word in a document relevant to a FOIA request that does not step on any of the exempt types of data, then it would be equally legal to redact documents in response to a government subpoena.

      Somehow, I don't think the Department of Homeland Security would be amused if someone did it. And yet, it's just as legal when the Department does it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Nov 2014 @ 3:56am

    Well here comes another lawsuit.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Michael, 12 Nov 2014 @ 5:30am

    the Agency must balance the commercial interest against the public interest. Making documents available on MuckRock's website, even at no charge, drives traffic to the website and furthers its commercial purposes.

    So since you have some commercial interest in making these documents available to the public, for the sake of public interest we are not going to allow you to make the documents public.

    Good for Muckrock must be bad for the public - there is no way that it could simply be good for everyone.

    I have been convinced that HomeSec is corrupt and lying and doing their best to twist the law to protect their own interests. It turns out that they may just be stupid.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 12 Nov 2014 @ 6:00am

      Re:

      I used to believe in Hanlon's Razor, but these days I'm more inclined to go with malice.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        David, 12 Nov 2014 @ 7:45am

        Re: Re:

        "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

        You can still believe in Hanlon's Razor. It doesn't rule out malice over stupidity, just reminds you that often people mistake stupidity as malice.

        But you're right. Stupidity doesn't adequately explain this, therefore it is malice.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          John Fenderson (profile), 12 Nov 2014 @ 10:42am

          Re: Re: Re:

          Also, practically speaking, it doesn't matter if it's stupidity or malice. The effects of the actions are the same either way.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    tqk (profile), 12 Nov 2014 @ 8:48am

    "If you make peaceful change impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable." -J.F. Kennedy

    When they can't even be bothered to understand and follow their own posted guidelines, it becomes pretty obvious what's really going on. You should be glad they're even bothering to humor you instead of busting down your door and hauling you away.

    All this freedom and democracy crap you keep nattering about is distracting them from their real purpose. This will have to stop. You have been warned. Don't let it happen again.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Nov 2014 @ 11:25am

    This is the same thing you are seeing thoughout government in nearly all branches. The only reason you would redefine the english language would be to hide your dirty laundry.

    The government has enough dirty laundry that wouldn't stand the light of day to make all this necessary. The very fact that there is a limitation on how long before they have to respond and then waiting till a court forces them to reveal tells you this isn't about transparency. It's about anything but transparency in government.

    Which brings up the reasons why the government is steadily seeking more ways to trample your 4ᵀᴴ amendment rights without revealing how and what. We have a government quite willing to violate all Constitutional rights while they go about doing whatever it is they want.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      GEMont (profile), 12 Nov 2014 @ 3:22pm

      Re:

      "...while they go about doing whatever it is they want."

      I would think that this is exactly what most people should be concerned about - just what is it that they actually want?

      It is certainly not what Americans in general want, or they would not need any of this paid-for-by-tax-payer subterfuge, deception, and word re-meaning.

      Methinks it would advance the US public good to start determining just what it is that the USG actually wants and what it is they are working towards getting - at your expense.

      ----

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Nov 2014 @ 12:16pm

    Your story lead....

    is twelve words too long!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.