
No, your FOIA request cannot wait ‘until this emergency is over’ - hhs
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/opinion/coronavirus-freedom-of-information.html
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gamblor956
Sure it can.

Journalists have a very bizarre understanding of how FOIA requests work. It's
not like some government worker can just pull files from a computer server
while they're at home. It frequently involves digging into boxes (actual,
physical boxes) of documents in the office, interacting with other employees
in other departments covered by the request, and a fair amount of review in
closed quarters on government facilities since many of the documents can't be
removed from the office until they're reviewed.

And the time spent responding to an FOIA request is time _not spent_ doing
their normal job (except for the rare agencies which have the budget to have a
dedicated FOIA responder).

~~~
Carpetsmoker
This is actually recognized in the article itself (but who has time to read
that when you can reply to just the headline and perhaps the first few
paragraphs, right?)

And FOIA about the COVID-19 response are unlikely to require digging in to
some archive, and are of limited use when fulfilled after it's actually over.
This is what the mentioned suit is about.

