Freedom Of Information Act.......tin foil hat time

[fz1boxer]

has anyone ever gotten documents on themselves using the FOIA?
Did you feel like you just invited the man into your life or noticed anything different in your daily routine?

 

[Spas-12 Owner]

Yes, one traffic stop. No I didn't. I used limited contact info. I.E. only email when ready, less then 3 days after request I got dash cam and audio.

I need to do another for an incident in Oct actually. Thanks for reminding me!

 

[Zeake]

Some prisoner sent me one to work. I LOL'd hard. Only for the government entities. Private business is private. I returned his self addressed envelope with a note stating that.

I have never thought to ask for one. I have never felt I needed to either.

 

[gh1950]

Just to clean up the nomeclature.

FOIA is the act which allows you to seek information from a FEDERAL AGENCY. It has many exceptions. The biggest problem is that the agency can sit on the request without much of anything happening to anyone. If the agency decides to rat hole it, you can spend 10's of thousands of dollars forcing a response.

GA Open Records Act applies to the State of Georgia and all local government divisions. It has strict guidelines on when and how the government has to respond and pretty significant penalties. Most local governments treat it as the cost of doing business, and have procedures to respond to the requests. Again there are many exceptions with which you need to be familiar if you are going to make a request.

I use Open Records Requests all the time. Usually the response is prompt and responsive, especially since the law was amended to provide for penalties for not responding in a timely manner. Sometimes you run into an official that wants to play games with the costs of responding, but the law is clear on that, and the citizen is entitled to attorney fees for a fees request that is excessive.

Also, sometimes you run into a government that claims that you didn't serve the request on the right person. The Georgia law is very explicit on who that can be, and it doesn't have to be the head knocker. I recently had a go round with a county employee who claimed she didn't have to accept an open records request, that little temper tantrum cost the county a few hundred dollars, and I'm sure she was re-educated.

 

[rockyfatcat]

meanwhile the state department is still slow rolling FOIA requests from Hillary being Secretary of State

 

[Cornholio]

i thought these were for to find out if aliens were real or not.

 

[Sigo]

has anyone ever gotten documents on themselves using the FOIA?
Did you feel like you just invited the man into your life or noticed anything different in your daily routine?

I used to work as a PI in the DC area. I got all kinds of info through the FOIA. The FOIA will not invite Big Brother into your life. He's already there.