Thread by @doctorow

Back in January, I got a very odd call from an FBI Special Agent, who wanted to discuss a blog post I'd written summarizing a Popular Mechanics article on the physics of monument toppling, having received a complaint about it.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoo…

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Thankfully, I have access to some of the very best civil liberties lawyers in the nation, namely my colleagues at @EFF. Andrew Mackey, an EFF lawyer who specializes in this kind of thing, had a talk with the agent, who agreed that I'd broken no laws and dropped the matter.

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Aaron did one better. He helped me draft a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI along with a demand that my record there be expunged, as is my right under settled precedent.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/20/dam…

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To their credit, the FBI responded very quickly to this written request! Within days, I had a letter back from them.

To their shame, the FBI responded by saying they had NO records at all of this incident, so there was nothing further I could do.

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Now, this is obviously a lie. FBI agents make records of complaints, of their assessment of complaints, of the calls they make to follow up on the complaint, and of their assessment of those calls, It is inconceivable that this incident generated no records.

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But this is par for the course for the Bureau, which routinely flouts transparency law with these kinds of responses. Now, Aaron helped me prepare an appeals letter, which points all of this out and strongly reminds them that responding to requests like mine isn't optional.

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As with my initial FOIA letter, I'm posting this appeal so that others can refer to it when making their own appeals in similar situations. I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but it's a good place to start.

craphound.com/images/foipa_f…

eof/