Also has a good example of hostile FOIA officers. I have filed about two dozen FOIA requests, and the vast majority were fine, though usually slow. Earlier this year one longstanding request of mine was rejected because they claimed the document I wanted was export controlled. Two months later I sent in an appeal where I showed that the document in question was not export controlled (I filed another FOIA with a separate agency to check), and I suggested that they lied to me. Never got an apology, though they seem to be processing the request for real now.
I've requested thousands from all over the United States, big and small municipalities. The responses and individuals ranged from a small contingent of extremely professional, organized, helpful, and all around wonderful people to many and more abysmal, unorganized, uneducated, tech-illiterate, and downright incompetent folks.
I can't remember how many times I'd point the person I was attempting to request the information from directly to their sample version or official space where they said they were the holders of said datas I was looking for which also provided the instructions to specifically call them to request the data. I know from my POV (as a tech worker) it may seem silly to expect anything like that from them but what I was asking for was akin to an excel spreadsheet full of information they absolutely do have and it required no legwork, no generation of new materials, no gathering of data from multiple ancient sources.
It was all material / datas each individual municipality was making money, hand over fist, every month of every year -- the sample datas most municipalities had was evidence of that. I was basically asking them for the collection of the entire data, publicly traded info, and most were convinced they didn't have it. A product of laziness is what I'd chalk it up to because the individuals and municipalities that were awesome to work with and more than helpful seemed to take pride in their work and getting said data was easier than the majority of things involving interfacing with the government at any level usually winds up being like.
I used to abide by this until it dawned on me that malicious people often use stupid people as a cat's paw to conceal liability. A careless disregard for the truth is itself a form of dishonesty. This argument is laid out very effectively in philosopher Harry Frankfurt's delightful short book On Bullshit.
I agree, but in this case stupidity can not explain their actions.
The agency processing the FOIA request would get the export control status from the third party I contacted. The third party's software highlights export controlled documents with a red and highly noticeable statement. It would be difficult to believe they thought this was present when it was not.
The request also had actually been transferred several times because no one believes they have the authority to release the document I requested. The other agencies had ample opportunity to reject the request for being export controlled, but none did.
There are some other reasons that I will omit for brevity.
This makes me think that the export controlled claim was a lie meant to kill the request. Most people would stop at what they told me, but I thought it was worth verifying.
