Justice department 'uses aged computer system to frustrate Foia requests'

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Justice department 'uses aged computer system to frustrate Foia requests'

• Lawsuit accuses DoJ of ‘failure by design’ through use of decades-old system
• DoJ refuses to use new $425m software on freedom of information requests

Sam Thielman in New York
Saturday 16 July 2016 13.00 BST

A new lawsuit alleges that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) intentionally conducts inadequate searches of its records using a decades-old computer system when queried by citizens looking for records that should be available to the public.

Freedom of Information Act (Foia) researcher Ryan Shapiro alleges “failure by design” in the DoJ’s protocols for responding to public requests. The Foia law states that agencies must “make reasonable efforts to search for the records in electronic form or format”.

In an effort to demonstrate that the DoJ does not comply with this provision, Shapiro requested records of his own requests and ran up against the same roadblocks that stymied his progress in previous inquiries. A judge ruled in January that the FBI had acted in a manner “fundamentally at odds with the statute”.

Now, armed with that ruling, Shapiro hopes to change policy across the entire department. Shapiro filed his suit on the 50th anniversary of Foia’s passage this month.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/16/justice-department-freedom-of-information-computer-system

[SheilaT]

1. It seems as though the government has

always been years behind in IT. Sometimes even decades behind.

[Historic NY]

2. The entire government is way behind the curve on computers...

outdated programs and systems. The military and some still use floppies. We wondered why Hillary setup her own system....

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3075284/hardware/us-government-agencies-are-still-using-windows-31-floppy-disks-and-1970s-computers.html

http://allday.com/post/1962-the-outdated-tech-of-the-us-government/

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/outdated_government_computers_waste_billions_in_tech_funds.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fed-agencies-run-outdated-technology-including-floppy-disks-article-1.2650139

http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2016/05/10-oldest-it-systems-federal-government/128599/

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/26/479588478/report-u-s-nuclear-system-relies-on-outdated-technology-such-as-floppy-disks

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-696T

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/report-us-spending-75-billion-dollar-budget-aging/story?id=39382059

[mopinko]

4. i wonder what the faa is using.

my hometown has the faa control center for o'hare airport. this is the one where an employee started a fire several years ago.
they were always talking about when they would finally get into this century, and how many gigabucks it would cost. i suspect a top of the line mac could replace the system there.
the upgrade was gonna get done after the fire, but i dont know that it did.

ex is a computer architect whose system has an old legacy core. it is costly to maintain because you cant use kids fresh out of college. you need to hire, and keep, old gray hairs, who used to be cutting edge and expensive. if they are still hanging around after 30-40 years, they are still making good money.
i suppose you could probably find new old guys to replace them for less money if they havent kept up their skills. but even then, they take time to learn the buried secrets. you have to maintain institutional memory.

ex made a very good salary because he could write assembler, and tpf, which is what the airlines used.

[kimbutgar]

3. And you have a congress who refuses to fund upgrades

So when the system run slow they say we need to privatize to run more efficiently. Privatizing always ends up costing tax oayers more money.

Government run= no profit
Privately run = profitize

Until we can change the minds of the brain washed republican zombie supporters they are pasties our government programs will be destroyed.