TheWorx

This is a phone call I recorded--and transcribed here--with a staffer from Senator Menendez' office who was responding to my request for "help with a Federal matter;" namely, an FOIA request that was met with exorbitant and unnecessary fees. I put it out so my fellow citizens know what their representatives mean when they offer to help you "with Federal matters." [note: as citizens, it is our right to tape conversations with government officials without their knowledge. Just like a corporation can document it's employees' actions surreptitiously, government officials are OUR employees and we can document them without their knowledge.] [ my remarks are in red ] Staff: You requested information from. . .under the Freedom of Information Act from the Dept. of Commerce? Me: Yes Staff: OK, so, unfortunately, I read over all the materials and , uh, unfortunately, because they address. . .unless you ...

I felt I had been the victim of discrimination by the Commerce Dept. In filing an FOIA [freedom of Information Act] request, I had asked for a waiver of fee because it was a ridiculous amount and unnecessary due to the fact that I had requested electronic records. The amount quoted was initially nearly $13,000 for 62,876 single-sided pages. The letter which follows is one that I received from their legal department. I feel it is important that people who intend to file for a waiver of FOIA fees know how this administration’s bureaucrats can engage in specious arguments to prevent the dissemination of useful data under the FOIA--data, for instance, that could provide evidence that a government agency engages in discrimination with abandon. However, it should be read so as to obtain instruction into the rules regarding fee waivers. For, let’s face it, data requested by the ordinary citizen can easily be made inaccessible via exorbitant copying fees. I thought I had initially answered th...