EFF Launches Awards Program For Most Outrageous Failures In FOIA Responses

from the send-in-your-nominations-now dept

We've written many stories about ridiculous responses to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests (as well as similar state and local law requests) over the years. I've personally filed a few FOIA requests over the years and have never seen one sufficiently answered in the time limit required by the law. These days, it's becoming all too common for people to have to go to court to actually get such public records requests answered. Of course, filing a lawsuit is not easy or cheap, and unless you're the ACLU, EFF or Jason Leopold (the so-called "FOIA terrorist"), not many people actually go that far. And that's what the various government agencies depend on. I currently have two outstanding FOIA requests -- one involving Homeland Security which has simply stopped responding to repeated requests for an update (after nearly a year) and a second one involving a state government agency that is demanding thousands of dollars for a very simple request. I imagine I'll have more to say on both of those eventually.

In the meantime, the EFF has decided to do something beyond just suing: naming and shaming the most egregious violators (and celebrating those who filed the requests). EFF has announced its "Foilies" awards for "the most outrageous responses to Freedom of Information Act and state open records act requests." Anyone is free to nominate examples, even if you weren't the one who made the request. You just need to be able to point to the details of the request (whether the specific responses and/or news stories about them):
You should feel free to name your own Foilies categories. For example, if the Department of Defense claimed a national security exemption in response to your FOIA request for lunch menus, you might suggest a category for “America’s Most Dangerous Cafeteria.” But we also have several categories already in mind, such as:

Absurdly Over-Redacted Documents

Egregious Copying Fees

Extraordinarily Long Wait for Records

Silly Legal Arguments in Public Records Lawsuits

Wrongest-Headed Anti-transparency Legislation

Gratuitous Glomars
The details for how to nominate are pretty simple:
How to Submit a Nomination: Send nominations to foilies@eff.org with “FOILIES 2015 NOMINATION” in the subject line. You can nominate multiple entries in a single email, just make sure to enumerate the nominations so we can easily separate them.

Format: Each nomination should look like this:

Category: One line category title

Description: No more than 200 words succinctly explaining the public records issue and why it deserves a Foilie. Please include this in the body of the email. (We’ll use this to winnow down the nominations and may cite the text during Sunshine Week.)

Links: Include any links to stories, records, or other information that will help us better understand the issue if we decide to read beyond the 200-word description.

Attachments: If you have the original FOIA/public records request and subsequent correspondence to support the nomination, please include it with the email (within reason: if it’s larger than 10mb, just include the most important parts). We may seek this information out separately later.

Attribution: Let us know if we can attribute the nomination (including the description text) to you and, if so, how you would like to be named (name, Twitter handle, etc.).

Contact details: Include a way for us to reach you with further questions. This information will remain confidential.

Help further the cause of transparent and accountable government by contributing to this effort and demonstrating the ridiculous contortions the government goes through in trying to block such efforts.
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: abuse, foia, foilies, freedom of information, public records
Companies: eff


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2015 @ 5:27pm

    Well Mike, it is obviously time to see if you can achieve an award from the EFF. Both in recognition of your patience as well as dispersing recognition of the government's attempts at ignoring laws it is supposed to be bound to uphold.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    TKnarr (profile), 5 Feb 2015 @ 6:19pm

    I wonder if there's ever been a document where not only has it been almost if not entirely redacted, but where even the extent of the redaction was considered too sensitive and redacted?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    djl47 (profile), 5 Feb 2015 @ 9:27pm

    Re:

    Redaction redacted.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Ninja (profile), 6 Feb 2015 @ 5:35am

    One category jumped to mind instanly:

    MOST BLACK INK SPENT

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Feb 2015 @ 9:36am

    Re:

    I replied to a comment above with two Techdirt articles that may also fit this category. Comment is https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150204/04154629902/eff-launches-awards-program-most-outrageous-f ailures-foia-responses.shtml#c80

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Feb 2015 @ 10:09am

    where as a tyrannical government would just pass a law revoking the right to FOIA requests

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    jlaprise (profile), 6 Feb 2015 @ 11:32am

    Heheh...I already submitted my entries, both for longest duration. Teaser, I was doing research on White House telecommunications security policy at the time...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 8 Feb 2015 @ 1:01am

    Re:

    Not so, the best tyrannies are hidden under the guise of democracy, the best dictatorships under the guise of 'Freedom for all'.

    It's much more effective to have an ultimately useless way for people to influence or contact 'their' government, than to bluntly let the public know that doing so is pointless, and that those they thought were elected to represent and serve them in fact have interest only in representing their own interests, and ruling those 'below' them.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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.