Once, I was working a government contract and needed access to 3 documents that were linked but you needed special access. The documents weren’t classified or anything. It’s just a website that I had some access to but specifically not these 3 documents. We had to abide by these documents. So I tried going through the program manager and their office and reaching out to the contacts which all lead to “I don’t really know the process for this” from everyone. So you think they are the approvers because they click “Approve” but apparently not. That was the person before them…probably. They just said they never actually are supposed to click “Reject” and it was just how the system worked.
Anyway, I submitted a FOIA and requested just the 3 PDFs and linked them. They responded that they will send me paper copies for $0.50 a page and I think something like $18/hour for “research” to locate them. So I ask the government if they will pay the bill to the government and they tell me we’d have to amend the contract and negotiate. The billion dollar company I worked for at the time said the expense to do so didn’t justify the bill but also we didn’t budget to pay for it so and since we didn’t bid it we couldn’t charge the customer (it wasn’t a cost plus contract).
Anyway, I basically guessed all of the requirements and we were successful but it was just an aggravating situation were everyone including the custodians of the location on the website didn’t know how to do anything. Apparently they only know that they receive some electronic notification that someone was approved to access said location and they just had to click an Accept button but in actuality had no idea who could really approve such things or the process involved to get to the point of the notification itself.
THE MACHINE GOD HAS HEARD YOUR OFFERING AND DEMANDS YOU CLICK ACCEPT, PRAISE BE THE OMNISSIAH
I see you worked with the Circumlocution Office too. It was a miserable experience
“can you do this job for me?”
“Okay, we can do it for $1000”
“Awesome. So to do this job, you need this thing I have and you will only get it from me for an unknown amount of dollars. No backsies on that $1000”
I see you understand the common hurdle of a non-Cost Plus contract. There’s also the really common hurdle of “I know we said this <requirement> but we really mean these other <requirements> and believe that they were implied if we stretch the meaning outside the realm of reality. You bid the work for that amount, so get it done! Also, no we aren’t paying you more.”
50 cents a page? Are there platinum flakes in the ink?
worse, printer ink.
It’s 37,000 pages of documents.
$18k is for paper copies ($.50 a page)
$5,500 for digital, to cover the cost of scanning and redacting.
Or he can come to the office to review the files for free (though he’s claiming the travel costs are prohibitive).The likely perpetrators are in jail for theft from his son and have been ordered to pay $330k to his family. Prosecutors don’t think they can make murder stick.
I feel for the grieving father, but I’m afraid my outrage meter isn’t dinging on this one.
It should be a legal requirement for every document that is public record to be available via a standardized API, none of this shit with paying tens of thousands of dollars or only being able to look at it in person
Yes, but the only reason sealed documents are not getting leaked left and right is them not being part of API. No private company would trust courts to deal with trade secret disputes otherwise because we all know their security is nonexistent.
They would also need a complete structural overhaul to implement something like that, since most states use standalone systems, while the federal system uses PACER.
Maybe it could be a separate system and they just have to duplicate stuff into it when it becomes public
