
FBI vexsome filer list - aw3c2
https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi-vexsome-filer-list-175/
======
BWStearns
tl;dr -- While many frequent filers are legit book-writers/journalists/legit-
folks-who-I-honestly-wish-well, sometimes they're essentially spammers, so I
can see why some offices might keep a list of those who are to be bottom of
piled because of their patterns (although nowhere I ever worked did, god I
wish we did).

As someone who once in the past had to handle (an ungodly amount of) FOIA
requests, should there be a list? I don't know, primarily because I don't know
what the utility is. That said, some opinions derived from experiences:

1) Some people are serial filers. They haven't bothered to do the research up
front to ask relevant questions and after a bit when you see their names you
know that when you read the next paragraph it's going to be asking about a)
things you know you cannot disclose (not for some BS reason but because of
things that actually should remain secret), b) aliens (no we don't have them),
c) blatant evidence of government conspiracy, generally of the NWO sort (duh
and or hello? Project BlueBeam doesn't keep paper records!).

2) There were also frequent filers where the requestor isn't a crackpot, a
FOIA spammer, or asking for something they know in advance could not be
provided. These were generally authors. We always got these people what we
could and even though my shop didn't keep a list me and the other poor souls
stuck on FOIA duty knew them by name. This meant that we basically knew what
they wanted when they filed which helped us get them their stuff faster with
less overhead. (N.B. this did not stop us from cursing them for their
curiosity and the resultant carpal tunnel).

~~~
rhizome
_those who are to be bottom of piled_

You can call it humanity, but this is the government: it's not the FBI's job
to exercise this kind of discrimination. In fact, anything other than FIFO
should be illegal, or at least cause for firing for corruption. These agencies
simply should not be able to do this, and if the employee doesn't like it,
they can get another job. Petty tyranny is highly distasteful.

~~~
ErsatzVerkehr
... in which case, these nuisance requestors will be executing a denial-of-
service attack on legitimate requestors.

~~~
rhizome
Buy more capacity.

~~~
meddlepal
Congrats! I think you just solved the unemployment problem...

~~~
rhizome
Sarcasm aside, a FIFO is probably more efficient than what is occurring now.

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ianstallings
They have one name on the list that is noted as (Gawker Media). This should be
interesting to watch. _Grabs some popcorn_

Part of me thinks this is more about getting their fees than spying on anyone.
Uncle Sam never misses a dime.

~~~
duskwuff
Keep in mind one of the categories on this list is "Needs to be Assigned to a
Permanent Fee Coordinator". In other words, they're free to file FOIA
requests, they're just filing enough of them (and consuming enough resources
in the process) that they've got an account with the office to handle those
fees. I strongly suspect this is the category Gawker has fallen into.

~~~
ianstallings
Yeah that was my thought as well. In government you need to be accountable at
all times for the time and money you spend on any effort. They track anything
and everything if they think it may help cover their asses when someone asks
"why did you spend all 40 hours last week on FOIA requests"? Or "why aren't
these people, who have made request after request, being charged for that
time"?

That's my hope at least. That it's not some list of ne'er-do-wells.

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jack-r-abbit
Kind of funny how a lot of people are all bent out of shape about
surveillance, privacy and what not. But then this guy published a list that
the FBI has of people who have requested a lot of docs... and he included
their full names. I don't think it is unreasonable at all that the FBI keeps a
list of people who are making a lot of FOIA requests. That is their data to
track if they want to. But I do think it is irresponsible for the guy to
publish all those names.

~~~
arh68
If the information is public, what's the difference? Any citizen could issue
the same request and get the same list. You say it's "their data" but the
point of FOIA is to free the data. Would it be wrong to publish a page from
the White Pages listing names and phone numbers?

~~~
jack-r-abbit
My point about it being their data to track was in regard to the tone of this
whole topic... like "holy shit the FBI is tracking the people that make a lot
of FOIA requests!" not any sort of ownership of the data. Who cares that they
keep a list of people who make requests? I'm not even sure how they would go
about fulfilling the requests if they didn't keep some sort of lists. And sure
anyone can request the list. But a lot of arguments against mass surveillance
are rooted in the idea that technology has made it far easier today to track
someone than it was years ago. So the issue seems to be more along the lines
of "it is just too easy now so we need to stop it". So now... this published
doc makes it all too easy to get the info... compared to everyone who wanted
to know requesting it themselves. I see a bit of hypocrisy in this. But that
is just my opinion of the situation.

~~~
arh68
I think I understand where you're coming from. It comes down to _motive for
identification_. When 4chan/reddit decide to dox some poor stranger, it
usually has specific intent: _ruin their life_ , or _get revenge_. This is
bad. When gov't orgs keep docs on people, it becomes very important to be
clear on what their motives are. Are they doing it to avoid disasters? If so,
good. Are they doing it to criminalize, to build evidence against (strictly
against, and never _for_ ), to prosecute & convict? If so, it could be okay
(as long as the law is fair, etc). Or are they doing it to specifically
marginalize these people, to restrict their freedom (like their freedom to
file FOIAs)?

In this case, the author didn't present any call to action. This is good. I
hope nobody throws eggs at any houses, but I don't think this link promoted
anything like that. More to the point, the request specifically _how being on
such a list affects processing requests from listed requesters_. This would
very much clarify & resolve the questions above.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Yes, the link itself is just to the request/response info so it is presented
without comment. But in the last few months, how many submissions to HN about
the FBI, NSA, etc have been of the "cool... look at all the good _these_
people are doing" variety? Not (m)any. While I did make the assumption that
this submission was of the "holy shit look what they're up to now" type... I
don't think it was too presumptuous to think the submitter was expecting
people to be outraged about it (but not calling for people to throw eggs, per
se).

I am curious what they use the list for. If it was used to set their future
requests to a lower priority, I'm fine with that as long as the request gets
fulfilled according to the requirements. If they just dust binned their future
requests then I'd have issue with that. If they sent SWAT to their houses for
no other reason than "excessive" FOIA requests then we'd have a real big
problem. It kind of looks like it is for collecting fees... which is kind of
boring.

------
morisy
In case anyone is interested, a user has an open request out for an updated
copy of this list:

[https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-
america-10/vex...](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-
america-10/vexsome-filer-list-fbi-6732/)

Or register yourself and see what you can dig up ;)

[https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/register/](https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/register/)

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DannyBee
One of the people on the list multiple times, Mark Zaid, is probably one of
the few people you'd want defending you if one of these agencies came after
you.

~~~
nkurz
Recent interview with Zaid as "Snowden, Manning and the Modern Day
Whistleblower": [http://cherispeak.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/snowden-
manning-a...](http://cherispeak.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/snowden-manning-and-
the-modern-day-whistleblower/)

------
Tzunamitom
I guess that answers the age old question, "who will watch the watchers
watching the watchers?". The FBI.

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astrodust
Do they keep a list of people who FOIA the FOIA list?

I bet that makes you doubly suspicious.

~~~
noonespecial
You could likely FOIA that list as well. It would be sweet to inception the
FBI until it stack-overflowed.

We've all cursed the FBI recently, but now we can _re_ curse them.

~~~
AsymetricCom
no.

------
bengrunfeld
The FBI's preference for total secrecy, in complete contrast to the law, is a
very scary fact indeed. There are many things that I love about living in
America - you get to be at the pinnacle of tech development, you can make a
good wage, but all that is starting to pale in comparison to the Government's
agenda for KGB-like activities. The USA used to be the champion of civil
rights. Now it uses that image to perpetrate abuses of public freedoms that
would impress the NKVD.

~~~
bonemachine
Congratulations, Comrade. You've just made into the Vexsome HN Posters List.

~~~
bengrunfeld
Spasibah. I was vexing them a long time before this.

