After 43 Years, Activists Admit Theft At FBI Office That Exposed Domestic Spying - NBCNews

[MADem]

71. So....Obama and Holder AREN'T the bad guys? That's a switch, particularly here.

Perhaps Congress could call in some of the leadership of the agencies marked in red in your first link, and give them a talking-to? They sure love the pompous "call on the carpet" thing over nothing, it would be nice to see them demand an overhaul from those in non-compliance and require them to give regular updates, as they do for so much other stuff.

Your last (non DU) excerpt I believe came from here -- I note that a lot of the agencies that AP looked at were the problematic ones in red in the first link, which could skew their overall results.

The 33 agencies that AP examined were: Agency for International Development, CIA, Agriculture Department, Commerce Department, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Defense Department, Education Department, Energy Department, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Interior Department, Justice Department, Labor Department, State Department, Transportation Department, Treasury Department, Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Election Commission, Federal Trade Commission, NASA, National Science Foundation, National Transportation Safety Board, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Management and Budget, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Securities and Exchange Commission, Small Business Administration, the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Postal Service.

That said, there's no reason why, now, particularly, they can't get off their asses and be responsive. If they don't have a knowledgeable FOIA facilitator on their staffs, they need to gin up some training and make that happen. If it were me in charge, I'd do an interagency training program, and run it in modules in a distance-learning format--like "Khan Academy" for FOIA. That way anyone could access it without having to go on temporary assignment to some stupid sleepy slideshow training. Then, when they were done, they could take an online test and be certified in the process.

As someone who has been on the receiving end of FOIAs in the military sphere, I can tell you that at least half the time, the "denial" has more to do with shitty filing/recordkeeping or the fact that records are, as a matter of routine, purged every two to three years than nefariousness. Other times, the Privacy Act gets in the way. That said, I had to laugh at the email from the O-4. Talk about incompetent! Imagine the humiliation of having to go to work at OPNAV every day, and having everyone from the E-1 who just reported aboard to the four stars in the passageways giving ya the "You dumbass" stink-eye!