Since Snowden Leaks, NSA's FOIA Requests Are Up 1,000 Percent 47
v3rgEz writes "A veritable FOIA frenzy ensued in 2013 following a series of leaks about NSA surveillance programs, recently released documents show. From June 6 to September 4, the National Security Agency's FOIA load increased 1,054 percent over its 2012 intake. In that three-month span, the agency received 3,382 public records requests. For comparison, the NSA received just 293 requests over the same period in 2012. While a few have netted new details about NSA surveillance operations, such as a contract with French security firm VUPEN, the majority appear to have been rejected. MuckRock has a guide on filing with the NSA to maximize your chances of actually getting something back."
This reveals the major problem with the FOIA... (Score:5, Informative)
Without Snowden, the people submitting these FOIA requests wouldn't have known what to request, which basically kills the point of actually making the requests. FOIA requires unduly high burden on the requester to actually already know (at least in part) what they're looking for. It's not really written to create transparency, but the illusion of transparency.
Re:Churchill (Score:5, Informative)
The US is not a Democracy, it's a Democratic Republic. You may be aware of that and just took a common short cut and called it Democracy, but the difference is vast. Democracy is the rule of mob and a Republic is a rule of law. Both of these forms of Government, in addition to most others, were discussed 2,500 or so years ago by the same person that came up with the Republic named Socrates.
If the original design of a Republic was followed, it would be superb. The problem is that it's difficult to keep human nature out of the equation. The original design required term limits, a strong education system, and no political class. The best Philosophers, as defined by Socrates, would be the only ones allowed to represent the citizens of the Republic.
If you think the pains that the US Government has gone through to make people ignorant to Philosophy and Rhetoric are accidental, you are not even trying to look. People are not introduced to Philosophy until College and that's only if they choose to take the class. Most Universities will discourage the class and push students toward Humanities (Social Studies). Most US Citizens have never read "The Republic" and have no idea that this was the blueprint for their Government.