In general I agree with you, the answer to most FOIA problems is simply to publish the government records.
But FOIA has many unintended consequences that aren't solved so easily. A pretty significant FOIA problem that often goes unnoticed is how it can affect everyday public employees and become a real threat to their personal privacy. All it takes is someone with a minor personal grudge against someone else who happens to be a public employee, and FOIA can go from sunlight being the best disinfectant to something more like state-subsidized doxxing. The author of this article doesn't have much faith that this is a real problem, but the proposal here would actually generate some data that might help resolve this unknown.
In this context, perhaps we might also want to consider whether FOIA might be improved by acknowledging that bad faith requests actually exist, however rare or abundant they may be, instead of denigrating a legislator who's merely suggesting that government should ask people about how they might use the data that FOIA gives them.
The proposal is entirely toothless, and that's why I called it dumb. But the gist of this article and many of comments is that just by asking a question about intent, we would be undermining some integral part of FOIA. But intent has always been incredibly relevant to FOIA, it's just that the legal framework pretends that purpose is irrelevant while simultaneously authorizing all sorts of exemptions for sensitive information precisely because people would use it nefarious ways. I shouldn't have been so quick to call the proposal dumb, because the general reaction shows just how easy it is to marshal some sophistry about "transparency and accountability" instead of really considering the implications of a tiny change to the status quo.
The premise that it's "unreasonable" to ask questions about how FOIA is actually used also just consigns us to all of the problems that the existing process has caused. FOIA itself is what "thwarts transparency and accountability" and if we refuse to consider any proposal that challenges the legal fiction that why and how FOIA is used isn't important, well... I suppose we'll be left with more comments encouraging people to FOIA-doxx this legislator because they don't like her proposed legislation.
This is certainly dumb legislation, as the post and comments make abundantly clear.
But speaking from personal experience, FOIA harassment of public employees is actually real, and in most states there's no real way to deal with it. Putting aside "intended uses" like stalking and retaliation, these requests are a huge waste of public resources (i.e. your taxes) and they just lead to delays in FOIA responses for everyone else.
In some jurisdictions, "vexatious" requests can result in sanctions or a court can enjoin further abusive requests. FOIA agencies everywhere take "intended uses" into account all the time anyway, intentionally or not, so it's not the dumbest thing ever for a FOIA law to actually acknowledge that. This proposal is just a dumb way of doing it.
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(untitled comment)
But FOIA has many unintended consequences that aren't solved so easily. A pretty significant FOIA problem that often goes unnoticed is how it can affect everyday public employees and become a real threat to their personal privacy. All it takes is someone with a minor personal grudge against someone else who happens to be a public employee, and FOIA can go from sunlight being the best disinfectant to something more like state-subsidized doxxing. The author of this article doesn't have much faith that this is a real problem, but the proposal here would actually generate some data that might help resolve this unknown.
In this context, perhaps we might also want to consider whether FOIA might be improved by acknowledging that bad faith requests actually exist, however rare or abundant they may be, instead of denigrating a legislator who's merely suggesting that government should ask people about how they might use the data that FOIA gives them.
The proposal is entirely toothless, and that's why I called it dumb. But the gist of this article and many of comments is that just by asking a question about intent, we would be undermining some integral part of FOIA. But intent has always been incredibly relevant to FOIA, it's just that the legal framework pretends that purpose is irrelevant while simultaneously authorizing all sorts of exemptions for sensitive information precisely because people would use it nefarious ways. I shouldn't have been so quick to call the proposal dumb, because the general reaction shows just how easy it is to marshal some sophistry about "transparency and accountability" instead of really considering the implications of a tiny change to the status quo.
The premise that it's "unreasonable" to ask questions about how FOIA is actually used also just consigns us to all of the problems that the existing process has caused. FOIA itself is what "thwarts transparency and accountability" and if we refuse to consider any proposal that challenges the legal fiction that why and how FOIA is used isn't important, well... I suppose we'll be left with more comments encouraging people to FOIA-doxx this legislator because they don't like her proposed legislation.
Yes this is dumb, but "intended uses" aren't always irrelevant.
But speaking from personal experience, FOIA harassment of public employees is actually real, and in most states there's no real way to deal with it. Putting aside "intended uses" like stalking and retaliation, these requests are a huge waste of public resources (i.e. your taxes) and they just lead to delays in FOIA responses for everyone else.
In some jurisdictions, "vexatious" requests can result in sanctions or a court can enjoin further abusive requests. FOIA agencies everywhere take "intended uses" into account all the time anyway, intentionally or not, so it's not the dumbest thing ever for a FOIA law to actually acknowledge that. This proposal is just a dumb way of doing it.
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