It is true that they could resurrect the tapes if they had a compelling reason to do so. Denying the request indicates that they don’t believe the reason to be sufficiently compelling to warrant the extra expenditure of resources. That is subtley different from “we don’t want to”, which implies a level of capriciousness.
Government departments get FOI requests all the time and they take resources to fulfill. FOI is not intended as a way to have taxpayers fund people’s pet projects. That’s why FOI law doesn’t require your government to spend (even more) money to acquire technology they don’t have or need for anything other than the FOI request itself. Rather, something that requires that kind of extra effort and expenditure should be submitted as a research request, normally with its own funding.
umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Which also gives them another idea on how to deny FOIA request?
Tja@programming.dev 2 months ago
The hard drive with the information is on a very high shelf and you cannot force us to buy a ladder.
umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Also, it is a proprietary ladder that match our shelving system, and they don’t make it anymore.
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
In that case cant we request the raw data in another format? I dont care about the end result if i can make em run trough hoops to comply
godfilma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
How, without the right kind of reader
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
“Your failure to plan does not constitute my emergency”.
Sounds to me like they’re just choosing not to comply with FOIA, a federal law.
This is a bullshit ruling and everyone involved with it knows it. They have my information, I require a copy of my information, end of story. Not providing it is noncompliance.
But of course nothing will happen because the American federal government is broken.
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I never specified correctly read data.
I don’t care weather an xray image of the tape end up actually useful. But its interesting to know wether or not such specific data is at all requestable.
In essence, everything and truly is information, it would be a mistake to discriminate on perceived value because we never know what future science can accomplish.
When it comes to things that are deemed public, all the information around it should be too, regardless of intend or use.
Practical Example: While its reasonable that most people assume The text of the Declaration of Independence is what is important. That is not the case if you happen to do a historical study of hemp genetics and want to learn what strain of the plant was used for the declaration.
An officia office should to my opinion put as much effort into being helpful against requests of both kind.
MonkderDritte@feddit.de 2 months ago
Ah no, they can’t give it out because they aren’t able to ensure that there’s no sensible data on it.
Btw, how about donating them a reader?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They haven’t forgotten about “The Thing”. Anyone donating hardware might have an ulterior motive for wanting hardware inside an NSA building.
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
If the information that is the tape cant come to us maybe we can visit the tape and measure it ourselves.
smb@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
you could donate one and at the same time claim (somewhere really anonymously in the internet) that you want to destroy that tape with that player for protection. They then might actually ‘want’ to investigate
after doing 1 and 2 they then actually have the technology AND the hardware to play that stupid tape.
if they do 3. and ask you who you want to protect, you can truthfully say “law fulfillment”
always think outside the box AND around the corner ;-)
hope that helps