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Eric Worrall writes: It looks like NOAA have found a new way to stifle FOIA inquiries from the public. According to Steve Goddard, NOAA have just demanded a $262,000 administrative fee for zipping up a few raw data files.
© Stevengoddard.wordpress.com
Steve Goddard has published a scan of the outrageous fee demand he and fellow FOIA requestor Kent Clizbe received from NOAA administrator Maria S Williams. The letter, sent on March 17th, demands $262,000 by March 24th, or further communication - otherwise Maria says they will consider the matter closed.
Fee Notification LetterThe NOAA staff directory
lists Maria Williams as the Chief of Staff Support Services Branch.
For the full story read
Steve's post - Freedom Isn't Free.
As an IT expert with over 20 years of experience, my expert opinion on the claim by NOAA that it would require $262,000 to gather up a few computer files and send them to Steve is that it sounds like a complete crock. Even if some of the files are in printed form, they can just be run through a scanner - my automatic page feed scanner can process a page every few seconds, even cheap scanners can process thousands of pages per day. If the files are too big to put in an email (likely), for trivial cost NOAA could publish them on a password protected web page - it would take at most a day to set up such a web page, and add the files to it.
If NOAA's data files really are so poorly catalogued that several man years of effort would be required to find them, this is something NOAA should be fixing on their own time. If this is the case, NOAA should not be attempting to charge FOIA petitioners outrageous fees to cover NOAA's own incompetence.
Steve Goddard says in his short article: "There must be something very incriminating in that data."
But of course! Does a bear shit in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic? Just be glad, Steve, you don't work for the State of Florida, or you would be unemployed as of Monday. NOAA is perfectly aware of the melting of the ice caps and the rising sea level, which in 20 years is going to drown every coastal city from Boston to Galveston. But NOAA's funding comes from Congress, and the scientists watching this apocalypse unfold have been told in no uncertain terms (I have this from someone who works there) that if they breathe a word about this they will be out of funding and out of a job.
The nightmare of every politician is failing to get re-elected, before he has had time to build a nest egg of bribes and kickbacks sufficient to tide him over until he gets a fat job on K Street lobbying his former colleagues to pass laws detrimental to the welfare of the public and the country.
Letting Bob and Susie Public know that their house is about to flood with seawater, and their bank which is holding 1 million mortgages on houses which are soon going to be inhabited by mackerel, (which do not pay mortgages,) is going to go bust, and the FDIC cannot bail them all out, and 100 million Americans are going to lose their life savings, is not something which would endear the politicians to the electorate. Especially those politicians who have been telling us it is all a hoax.
So... DUH!!! If you think these lying sacks of shit (can't you smell them a mile away?) are gong to tell the (cue the drumroll...) TRUTH!!, (cymbals and flashing lights...) then you must have just landed from some other country like Switzerland, where the cheese is made from milk, and the furniture is made of wood, and the bottles are made of glass, and the money buys the same today as it did yesterday, and the politicians are honest.
But, Steve, if you live anywhere in the world less than 50 feet above sea level, you better get another job at a higher elevation and sell your house to some dumbass and move, before everybody gets wise to what is coming down the pike, (or, in this case, coming up the beach.)
Even better, if the dumbass you sell your house to is a Congressman.