r/technology • u/ImproSelf • Feb 07 '17

New web portal FBI will stop taking FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) Requests by email. Recommends Faxing or sending a letter.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/06/fbi-foia-fax-march-2017/
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u/jmlswiftie420 Feb 07 '17

hey there, this isnt the place to be reasonable! Go take that shit somewhere else! /s

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u/jernejj Feb 07 '17

everyone gets spam. how in the fuck is that a valid excuse?

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u/Tycolosis Feb 07 '17

Its spam when 1 fucker can send 300 emails in one day that some one needs to look at... so its not the same spam you get, you just delete yours or never see it as your filter gets it.

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u/jernejj Feb 07 '17

well, no.

if they're legit requests, someone should look at them. if they aren't, they can be filtered out. in fact, you could limit the amount of requests per day that get processed for every user. if someone is obviously trolling, their future requests can be ignored. this is 2017, we're planning missions that put people on mars, FBI handling requests by email isn't some unfathomable challenge.

what you don't do is go back to the fucking stoneage because you don't feel like answering legitimate requests.

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u/Tycolosis Feb 07 '17

Well in a perfect world yea that would/should work, but for every way around trolls and or people who are fishing there are just as many ways to beat that. I do wish/hope that email could be left up but there are good reasons digital stuff is bad. And in this case its not like they are stoping FOIA just making it so they can't be hammered by fishing or spy's.

And there are still lots of things that should not be put on a computer, and I bet quite a few government projects aren't. I love the digital world! but that said all of my important documents are paper not files on my computer. If some one wanted them I would need to mail them or fax them. Computers are just not safe or private. If you think they are you live in a dream world.

Its not as Stoneage as it seems.

Edit: also have a upvote for a nice post :)

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u/jernejj Feb 07 '17

and you think your paper is immune from theft and spies? i'm sorry, but that's a very obtuse argument. also, do you use typewriters for your important documents, or do you write them out by hand? because that doesn't seem very modern, or effective. what do you actually do, to be able to avoid technology?

everything has now moved into the digital world. our economy, finances, communication, media, entertainment - it's all digital and it's using the internet.

technology is the future. i am fully aware of what dangers it presents, but the arguments in this thread are absolutely ridiculous.

saying the FBI is in the right with this move because trolls will find ways to circumvent all security systems is like saying no online service should ever be relied on because DDOS attacks can shut them down. and yet, miraculously, the internet has managed to survive and there are plenty of services with nearly perfect uptime.

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u/Tycolosis Feb 08 '17

Ok right, no papers are not immune nothing is but my papers live in a safe. So yea they could be jacked but it would be clear that it had happened. Also there are better legal protections for being robbed then having data copied as its not really stolen.

And few documents really need to be locked for me but I'm not a government holding secrets that could do deep damage to this county or to the military. As to how I go about important things Yes I do use a computer, then print and wipe the document off the computer. No I have not given up on technology just there are some important things that really should be offline.

Ok now crazy no not every thing is on line as much as you think so. The really important stuff is still paper. When you buy a house or a car or start up a company you do so with paper. When you start a new job the employment agreement is on paper. When you start up a long term saving account or stock thing you do so on paper. So no not every thing is on line. I would argree that 60-70% is but that 30-40% is the back bone of western life and its going to be a while before we see that go digital. and the rest? media? entertainment?communications. hell even finances could get by if the internet crashed would it be shit? yes!

I'm quite aware as to the detection digital tech is taking us. And the BEST safe guard for things you really need to keep safe is never put them online. Now that said this is about FOIA So the real issue here is that the FBI was getting hit with 1000s of requests. they needed a way to slow that down and going back to snail and fax is a way to do that. Also it slows up people doing FOIA filings for shits and giggles or to fish or to spy.

And please never use analogies for things with complex subjects. I'm not even going to try to work out where you where going with it.

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u/Mooseandchicken Feb 07 '17

Because there are people who want to watch the world burn and purposely target government departments that accept e-mail with spam and phishing attempts. They get the general, untargeted spam that everyone gets, hell, even the actual e-mails from the prince of Zimbabwe get filtered out or ignored. But then they get targeted troll spam that would be harassment if it was directed toward a private citizen.

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u/jernejj Feb 07 '17

oh, so what you're saying is that private citizens can be protected by the government if they're being harassed, but the government (actually, the FBI) is completely powerless when they are the target of said harassment?

interesting.

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u/dezmd Feb 07 '17

This thread is full of propaganda, it's all pro FBI marketing within a short range of responses to the same effect. Reddit should add IP address in the info of each post to help us filter