Kid Clicks For Sale 91
evenprime writes "Zdnet is reporting that
N2H2
is
selling statistics
from their
BESS
filtering software (a product designed for use in schools) to
marketing companies who are interested in students' browsing
habits."
N2H2's
stock price
jumped dramatically last month when they
put up a helpful website
to explain how schools can comply with the new federal mandate which
requires the installation of censorware. And just wait for the
profit reports once
Europe makes it mandatory too.
Anyway, this selling-traffic-patterns story is interesting because it's the
next logical step in the
continuing trend
to
cash in on kids
-- if anyone gets suspended for reading Coke.com on Pepsi Day, let us
know, OK?
Censorship Question (Score:1)
Re:Just proves the need for gov't regulation (Score:1)
Coke on Pepsi (Score:1)
I wanna say I heard something about a student getting suspended for wearing a Pepsi shirt on Coke Day, how about that? =)
"God is Dead"
--Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is Dead"
Re:What a load of crap! (Score:1)
Well, you have to admit it's a little different: kids can choose not to watch cartoons. Pretty soon kids won't be able to choose not to be statistically analyzed by N2H2 during the school day.
Re:Use the Freedom of Information Act (Score:1)
I remember hearing about a case sort of like this where the school's filter records were being requested by a father who was concerned that the filters at his kid's school weren't working correctly. There was a big dustup because theoretically you could determine a lot of personal information about all of the other students from those logs (from passwords encoded in URLs, etc.). I don't recall how it worked out, though.
I'm not sure if FOIA is the way to go, though, since most schools are operated by state or local governments. Does FOIA work on all levels of government, or just the federal level?
informed consent issue (Score:1)
This looks like a bargain to school administrators who don't really care about these issues so long as things such as pr0n or unwelcome political views out of the doors. There are still issues about expectation of privacy and commercialization should be seriously looked at. Unlike Nielson, students and teacher cannot opt out of the system and keep their activities to themselves. So a student who considers it their right to enter an educational institution and pursue their learning *without being watched by a for-profit corporation* is just out of luck.
In fact, this will be increasingly problematic for students, teachers, or parents who feel that there is no place for corporate presences in schools (particularly public schools). Why do you think that the Defense department bought the data? Because of the low cost, I would guess that BESS's deployment is skewed in the direction of schools with lower socioeconomic characteristics. This would happen to be the same group of schools that the armed forces spend more of their time recruiting from as the candidates better fit their recruiting targets. The aggregate data on entertainment/recreation destinations, employment destinations, politics/culture will take on increasing value as corporations look for ways to target their "partnerships" in schools so as to generate maximal returns.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone has looked at this from the perspective of voluntary informed consent. To do any research in a school (research directed at furthering good education, not marketing) it is extremely difficult for an outside agency (such as a university researcher) to get clearance from the board of education to come in and collect data, and parents are quite skeptical. Here, for example, are Indiana's standards -- there is a case that N2H2 would need consent clearance:
[begin quote http://www.indiana.edu/~resrisk/informed.html]
STUDENTS IN INDIANA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The State of Indiana has placed certain restrictions on research conducted in the public schools. The restrictions apply to personal analyses, evaluations, programs, or surveys that:
are not directly related to academic instruction; and
that reveal or attempt to affect the student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings concerning:
--political affiliations;
--religious beliefs or practices;
--mental or psychological conditions that may embarrass the student or the student's family;
--sexual behavior or attitudes;
--illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior;
--critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the student has a close family relationship;
--legally recognized privileged or confidential relationships, including a relationship with a lawyer, minister, or physician; or
--income (except as required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under a program).
[end quote]
The N2H2 data collection meets both points. The standards that I apply to trying to perform quantitative research in the field of education are a lot more strict than those applied by marketing types, but as far as I know the stricter standards are the ones typically applied to the conduct of our school systems -- at least until some corporation looks like they are going to throw a buck or two the school's way. The important thing is that you remember that the students are generating the data *as individuals*, regardless of how the data is summarized and reported. Aggregate reporting by N2H2 is still performed through individual participation in the activities that generate the data, and the use of human subjects in research always requires the use of informed consent.
--chris
YES! My friend's story... (Score:1)
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Re:At last, we will know the truth! (Score:1)
Guess I'll have to stop reading both now, not that I ever read much of that FUDmaker ZDNET anyway.
----
N2H2 and ad views . . . (Score:1)
Privacy (Score:1)
-----------------------
Ethics Class (Score:1)
I just had a disturbing thought: "We need someone to step and deal with this 'lack-of-ethics' problem." We need the Thought Police.
Re:Ethics Class (Score:1)
Re:Defense department? (Score:1)
Legal hurdles? (Score:1)
On one hand they're not asking for any information directly from the kiddies, but they are apparently using their filtering software to track online usage for them. Would the kids have to be told that they're being tracked (and if so, what's their alternative if they don't want the info saved), or is it enough that the company provides no way to map their statistics back to individual minors (and how would anyone know they can't do this)?
Re:pretty scary (Score:1)
Buddy, that ain't the half of it.
The REALLY scary thing here is that these are just kids. They grow up with it this way and they'll never ever question it. The invasions of privacy and other abuses will just become "normal".
Re:What a load of crap (my argument is)! (Score:1)
Spying is never a legitimate business model.
Re:Use the Freedom of Information Act (Score:1)
Free Research (Score:1)
Not only are the schools supplying the company with money, but they are giving them market research which can be sold again to others. It's a great strategy if you have morals.
One would think that this wouldn't be terribly legal, but then again, one would think that reverse-engineering would be.
Re:Ethics Class (Score:1)
Defense department? (Score:1)
Okay, anyone here care to speculate why the DOD would want or care about this kind of info?
FOIA at local levels (Score:1)
So pretty much any public school district (Since most do receive federal cash) must comply.
x
Here goes my karma (Score:1)
An alternative to gov't regulation... (Score:1)
Better yet, take your kids out of the public schools in favor of the private school that most closely shares your views on this and other matters. Or home school your kids, if you prefer.
It sounds to me like the company's practice sucks. But we do not have to be sheep-like consumers whose only hope is to be rescued by regulation from Uncle Sam.
Re:What's really scary (Score:1)
Ilegal? (Score:1)
It might be a reach, but I for one would think that if it's illegal for Disney.com to know my address if I'm under 13, what this company is doing should be illegal as well.
Re:Others also do this... (Score:1)
They backed off their threat to force the schools to pay for their "free" computers when they pulled out, but it sounded like their creditors would sue to force them to bill the schools. I haven't heard anything since.
Seth
Re:Privacy (Score:1)
Fixed links (Score:1)
It's not really hard is it?
Re:Simpsons episode? (Score:1)
Re:Simpsons episode? (Score:1)
Re:Simpsons episode? (Score:1)
Re:Simpsons episode? (Score:1)
Re:Just proves the need for gov't regulation (Score:1)
damn, now we're going to get a big 'i told you so' from all the 3rd-world terrorists who've been saying shit like this about america for years.
eudas
Re:Censorship Question (Score:1)
On the other hand, I just installed cgi-proxy.cgi onto my webserver and encoded the URLs in ROT-13. Bye bye bess proxy, bye bye stat logging. You can take my trash urls, thank you. I read slashdot almost every day at school now.
Bess is evil (Score:1)
Re:Censorship Question (Score:1)
Re:Censorship Question (Score:1)
Re:Censorship Question (Score:1)
Re:Censorship Question (Score:1)
Filtering software sucks at its job (accidently and on purpose). Too much pr0n gets through, and too many perfectly fine sites are blocked (even by humans who make the list). See Peacefire [peacefire.org] for examples. Corruption has and will happen.
People Who Have No Shame ... (Score:1)
What I wanna know is... (Score:1)
Bypassing bess (Score:1)
Re:Why not? If you wanna be safe, get off the net. (Score:1)
Really most *kids* will stay out of that stuff, and whats the point of blocking it out a school if the kids can just go home and look it up there?
Bess sucks (Score:1)
Re:A wicked thought...Open Source Censorware (Score:1)
This is a great idea! The best part is that we already have censorware built into Linux: it's called ipchains. We don't need to develop it, just point out the advantages it offers:
The benefits are many, the costs very small. This is a good idea, so if your child's school district puts out a bid for censorware, feel free to submit Linux as the low cost alternative.
Bellhead
Selling Proxy Logs (Score:1)
--
Bypassing BESS proxies.... (Score:1)
Re:Coke on Pepsi (Score:1)
How could anyone forget that voice and things like "Wayne Kirkland rules...me! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"?
Re:Bess sucks (Score:1)
http://www.shs.k12.ny.us/deny.html Heh.
"I have not slept a wink"
Re:Censorship Question (Score:1)
Your point is valid in the context you envision, but the implementation of filtering software has been a different matter. Nobody states that children should be permitted to view porn or other things that are so obviously inappropriate for minors.
The problem is that filtering software also incorporates sites and even entire themes that extend past blocking "www.bigcelebrityknockers.com" towards sites that are arguably not inappropriate. For instance, how about a website about breast cancer? Might be a great way to circumvent the restrictions, after all...one man's medical journal is another kid's porn, right?
I don't mean to demonize the companies that make this software. After all, the pressure is on them to cast their net extremely wide so that they don't miss anything, and so they do, for many reasons. One, there's the numbers game relating to how many sites are in everyone's database. On top of that, parents are understandably emotional about the whole issue, so woe to the company whose software refuses to block what some super-tightassed parent thinks is "offensive". The problem is that there is no option to determine just what is in the blocking lists; I seem to remember a company suing an individual for developing software that enabled and end user to read the blocked list. I just can't feel good about a program that takes my willingness to block certain kinds of information in extreme circumstances and expand upon it without telling me exactly what it is doing.
And we accuse them... (Score:1)
Re:What a load of crap! (Score:1)
Fret not.. the kids will prevail (Score:1)
These current school age kids, atleast a good portion of them, know more about computers than we did at twice their age.
When I used to work tech support *shudder*, parents would call, asking for help with a certain not-to-be-named (damn NDA's) kid protection program. Time and time again, parents would tell me they were having trouble using or configuring some of the filtering features. Well.. I'd ask.. "When you installed it, did you " and their reply (all to often) was.. "Oh! I didnt install it. My kid did. He knows so much more about that kinda stuff than i do"
Trust me. These kids arent stupid. If even one geek exists in that school, he/sh/it will find a way around this screening and selling if they really get the urge.
Re:Ethics Class (Score:1)
Re:Coke on Pepsi (Score:1)
What's legal isn't necessarily ethical or smart. (Score:2)
First of all, one cannot gather "statistical information" without gathering identifiable information about individual requests (IP address, time, URL requested, response returned). Second, identifiable information frequently appears in the URL field when browsing personalized sites or sites with lots of dynamic content. Let's not labor under the illusion that it's even possible to collect "clean" data.
That said, I want to know a few things about N2H2:
-Isaac
Re:A wicked thought...Open Source Censorware (Score:2)
The lists of blocked sites would be in an open format. This does not mean that they could not be politically motivated, there would be nothing wrong with the Christian Coalition making their own blocking list, anybody that wants to can use it, but it is also quite clear what it is blocking.
I would hope that users of this software would be free to download blocking lists from anybody they wanted to, and to merge and intersect lists. Or even to subtract lists, thus lists of "sites that should not be blocked" would work.
OSS programmers are much more adapt at programming complex and powerful pattern matching rules than any of the commercial houses (apparently because this is the type of software that very much benifits from the many-eyes complex). They may have the capability to produce a system that works.
Because the lists can be reversed, people searching for pr0n might find them useful, and this may encourage pr0n providers to match the results more carefully, actually improving the censorware!
Re:What about COPA? (Score:2)
Actually, it refers to personal information, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses... not aggregated information. I mean, otherwise kid oriented sites wouldn't be able to keep traffic logs and such...
Re:What about COPA? (Score:2)
Except that instead of being against those "dirty pornographers", you'd instead be being critical of the fashion industry, politicans pushing "family values" (which equate to the idea of everyone should like one (very narrow) style of relationship. etc.
Re:Censorship Question (Score:2)
Well for starters because ths software dosn't work very well and the companies producting it are less than honest about how they compile their lists. Indeed some of the people involved appear to be exactly the kind of people children need protecting from.
Libraries don't carry hardcore pornography on the shelves, why should they on the Net
When it comes to books and periodicals the library need to spend money and time in buying, cataloguing, shelving, etc. When it comes to the net they need to spend extra money and time to restrict people. Some restrictions, such as preventing the installation of third party software can be worth while, in the same way that laminating book covers is worth while. Money and time is expected to reduce a much greater future expense.
Re:Censorship Question (Score:2)
This is something which really shouldn't happen. There are plenty of things which kids should not be using school computers for because they have no educational value or can cause problems with the computers. i.e. sites like www.gamestips.com and download.windows-software.com are legitimate to block from a school, but there's no reason why kids can't access them from home.
Also there are political, history and news sites which might form part of the curriculum, but parents don't wish children to access from home.
Re:Here goes my karma (Score:2)
Or more likely aggregate data on school users (not all of which are children.)
Re:Just proves the need for gov't regulation (Score:2)
The federal government is already involved. According to the article, one of the two purchasers of N2H2's data is the Defense Department. That doesn't give me warm fuzzies about the government's attitude toward privacy.
Re:A wicked thought...Open Source Censorware (Score:2)
Smarmy, smarmy, smarmy. (Score:2)
But I'm sure this information will be very valuable to the marketroids who haven't figured out that kids like Britney Spears and the Backdoor Boys.
Re:Simpsons episode? -- Disney does that to (Score:2)
Statistics Now, and Later??? (Score:2)
Will we see companies like this selling other information that their software collects? Email addresses perhaps? Names? Maybe the folks running the porn sites will want to buy these things so thay no where to send their direct marketing spam.
Re:Use the Freedom of Information Act (Score:2)
I would think that since federal law overrides state law (anyone remember learning about the nullification debate in your high school history class?), the federal law would apply. Sure, Nevada may have slightly different requirements, but overall they would probably have to comply with the federal FOIA.
---
Check in...OK! Check out...OK!
Re:Simpsons episode? (Score:2)
Re:Why not? If you wanna be safe, get off the net. (Score:2)
Schools have a legal responsability to control what is in schools. This goes beyond the internet. That goes for language, smoking, drugs, actions, clothing, etc. Parents have a moral responsability for supervising their kids. Although I suppose it is technically "illegal" for parents to allow minors to view pornography and things like it, the chances of a parent getting sued for thousands (millions?) of dollars for that are much smaller than if a parent found out that students were able to view pornography on the 'net.
As far as direct supervision, that may be OK in grade schools, where computer time will almost always be in a classroom environment, but middle school and high school students are more likely to be alone, in a study hall, library, or some other similar environment.
One more reason that filtering is not a bad idea in schools... typos. Lets see, got to look up something on the president. Go to www.whitehouse.com, right? Try it sometime. It may take you to one of Clinton's favorite sites, but it's definitly NOT the whitehouse.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Re:What about COPA? (Score:2)
Good point. I wonder if that can fall under labor laws because they are profitting from the children's efforts by selling kid-clicks. If the children did not web-surf, they wouldn't have the info to sell.
That's gotta fall under child labor.
At last, we will know the truth! (Score:2)
By the way, that ad for Oracle in the middle of the article was ridiculously large and distracting. It made it kind of tough to focus on the article. Bad trend . . .
The funny thing about this... (Score:2)
Any company that buys into this is not getting their money's worth. Sure, I'll see their adds when I'm browsing at school, but is that what they really want? I don't (and can't) make purchases from school, so is my clickthrough of any worth to them?
Poetic justice, I guess.
Re:Use the Freedom of Information Act (Score:3)
The key point here is, without the current mandatory filters requirement, schools can balance the parents that want tight control and the free-speech advocates by limiting the number of computers that would present such a problem to a number that can be easily monitored by a staff member; you can still have effective computer learning and research, but having full internet access for a GRADE SCHOOL child while in school is not necessary for a good education.
What about COPA? (Score:3)
Bah. This is all another form of Child Exploitation, in a completely other form. There seems to be this image of children as the great innocents, and the quintessence of purity. Ask any kid that's in Kindergarten or First Grade what bad words he's learned. Trust me, he'll be able to spew a few off already. Children aren't any purer than the parents that raise them, and the lowest common denomiator is highly frightening.
So up come these companies: NetNanny, N2H2, what have you, and prey on the very fears of all parents -- What is my little pure one learning that he shouldn't? -- and putting a price on it and turning a profit.
Wasn't that the point of child labor laws? Exploitation of Children was defined as using them for cheap labor, another means for turning a profit. So now, let's exploit children again -- this time, exploit the supposed innocence and purity -- and turn a quick million or two.
Instead of being afraid of children and wanting to protect them from the world -- up to and including age 18+ -- try to listen to them. Talk to them. Be open with them. Don't tell them that it's wrong to look at pictures of people having sex because you said so. Tell them that it's wrong because of the conditions that desperate women undergo to achieve the dream body or the dream relationship. Don't obscure, explain. Children may act childish, but reports show [theory.org.uk] that children, as young as age seven, can come to rational conclusions and informed decisions about the world around them. All they need is guidance -- not censorship. Censorship is another form of obfuscation, and as we've learned from security, code, and other other geekly things around us, obfuscation just doesn't work in the real world.
UNICEF [unicef.org] has a portion of their site dedicated to children's rights [unicef.org]. Included in those rights is a right to education is the right to expression and information [unicef.org]. Article 17 states that "Children shall have access to information from national and international sources. These materials should be beneficial, and those that are harmful to children shall be discouraged." (emphesis added). Not censored, but discouraged.
Teach your children the truth of what they see around them. The world is not a pretty place with dancing squirrels and singing birds, where rabbits and deer talk and frolick. No, the world is always in a state of chaos -- sometimes its simply less harmful at times. Wars occur, people get murdered, men and women get raped. Children take candy from strangers every day. Give them some ray of hope though, and let them think for themselves.
Children aren't pets or toys, they're human beings. Listen to them. Even the student teaches the master something new now and again.
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What's really scary (Score:3)
The Department of Defense. Why on earth does the Department of Defense need to know where kids are going on the internet? I'm scared...
Re:Ethics Class (Score:3)
Re:Censorship Question (Score:3)
And MANY MANY MANY porn sites are not blocked, in fact its VERY easy to find porn sites that are not filtered if you know what you are doing.
Plus now N2H2 is selling information about viewing habits of children at school, when they are forced to utilize the BESS proxy by the damn stupid government here in the United States. Sadly there is too much money being slipped under the table for votes on certain issues....
N2H2's setup is more than just blocking porn, it often blocks my access to highly informational sites about C coding and even blocks stuff on gnu.org... which definately isnt porn or an online store.
Sorry, but you need to wake up and realize that it isn't all about some horny kid wanting to view porn in public.
Damn.
Everyone has missed the really scary thing... (Score:3)
People are going on and on about why this is scary because it is selling out our children to corporations. I think these people are missing the point.
The real scary thing is at least some of these children are going to be reading Slashdot and clicking on links here...and when they do, and the marketting drones finally get this information, we are going to have...Goatsex Cola!
Re:Coke on Pepsi (Score:3)
"I know it sounds bad - ' child suspended for wearing Pepsi Shirt on Coke Day' said principal Gloria Hamilton. "It really would have been acceptable...if it had just been in-house, but we had the regional president [of coke] here and people flew in from Atlanta to do us the honour of being resource speakers. These students knew we had guests." - quote from No Logo [amazon.com], Naomi Klien, page 95.
Others also do this... (Score:3)
"...the in-school computer network ZapMe! doesn't merely seel advertising space to its sponsors: it also monitors students' paths as they surf the Net and provides this valuable market research, broken down by the students' sex, age and zip code, to its advertisers."
Re:Use the Freedom of Information Act (Score:3)
Ummm... last time I checked, virtually all publis schools are operated by local authorities, including the Las Vegas / Clark County School District. IANAL but the federal FOIA may not apply in this case - you may need to submit a request complying with Nevada law.
Zapme == toast (Score:3)
What a load of crap! (Score:3)
What N2H2 is really doing here, is neither illegal, or immoral, but a perfectly reasonable business practice. Here's a fact: More children than ever are surfing the web these days. N2H2 is simply providing advertisers with a list of children's web-surfing habits and tendancies. They are in no way providing any information that could be used to trace individual surfers in any way. Television networks have been using this type of targeted advertising geared towards children for years. This is why commercials for cereal and action figures come on during Saturday morning cartoons. I am deeply offended that Taco would try to spread these slanderous lies!
A wicked thought...Open Source Censorware (Score:3)
Why don't we start an open source project to build a free software censorware product? I know. It's kind of oxymoronic, or maybe just moronic ;-) -- but bare with me here.
Think about it! Schools and libraries don't want censorware, and the American Library Association [ala.org] is challenging [zdnet.com] this law.
We don't want censorware either: it doesn't work, and the companies that make it often push radical conservative political agendas, that target a lot of ideas near and dear to us.
So let's make our own product. By controlling the development, we could make certain that the blocked sites list is as minimal as possible to satisfy the legal requirement. The ALA, schools, and libraries would like it for being
a) FREE software (budgets are important, after all), and
b) software that is made by people who are friendly to free speech.
In the meantime, we all continue to support the legal challenges. But in the event that the ever more conservative Supreme Court upholds the law, we also have a weapon to use in holding censorship at least in check. If someone is going to do censorship, then let it be a civil libertarian.
I'd be willing to work on such a project. I think I would enjoy sticking it to CyberSitter -- they once blocked the site of a friend of mine because he's pagan, and especially because he dared take a public stance against them.
Eris
Simpsons episode? (Score:4)
They claim no schools have cancelled their service due to this. Did any of the schools KNOW about this? Is this tied to that wave program that got exposed during the initial voices from the helmouth series?
Re:Use the Freedom of Information Act (Score:4)
If you are a school district, what scares you more?
1. The threat of ultra-conservative/liberal parents suing you for their kids accessing pornography, Neo-Nazi message boards, or a chat room that hooks them up with a potential child molester...
OR
2. The threat of free speech zealots suing you because kids can't access some legitimate sites.
What most folks don't understand is that outside of the federal $$ issue that has recently appeared, most school districts have installed blocking software already to cover their asses in case of lawsuit (and districts are easy targets). Even if the stuff is flawed, at least a district can argue that they installed the best available safeguards.
While there are certainly an incredible amount of great sites that are blocked by proxies like Bess, you have to understand that a district isn't going to get sued because a student *couldn't* access a site.
Just proves the need for gov't regulation (Score:4)
I am continually shocked at our consumerist society, especially when it targets our poor, impressionable children. The corporate dominance of US culture must end at once. If selling traffic analysis of children's web viewing habits while at school isn't the last straw we need to motivate us into action then I fear our society of individual freedoms may be lost.
I know this is going to generate some flame, but the only way to stop these abuses of our fundamental rights to privacy is for the federal government to get involved. We need regulation of these cash-bloated demons who would sell their grandmother's dentures as long as there was a little gold in them. Freedom of speach does NOT mean freedom to market your damn products to my child while he or she is attending class!
It is truly sad that we have reached a point in history where it is now unavoidably necessary for us to encourage further governmental control of some of our communications mediums. But, there is simply no other way for us to throw off the yoke of our profit-driven, capitalist opressors.
Re:What a load of crap! (Score:5)
>> This article was written to intentionally put a shady, dishonest spin on N2H2's legitimate business practices and to try and spread Taco's own paranoid propaganda.
>> I am deeply offended that Taco would try to spread these slanderous lies!
You're new here, aren't you?
Use the Freedom of Information Act (Score:5)
Below is a letter I recently sent to my school district in Las Vegas, NV:
Freedom of Information Officer
Network Services
Clark County School District
2832 E Flamingo Rd.
Las Vegas, NV 89121
Re: Freedom of Information Act Request
Dear officer:
Under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552) I would like to request the following materials from the Clark County School District (CCSD):
1) All documentation regarding the implementation of the Bess web proxy system provided to CCSD by N2H2. Including proxy configuration, network topology after installation, and the reasons for the Bess installation.
2) All access logs that are recorded by the Bess proxy filter. These logs should be provided in digital form, compressed using either ZIP or gzip compression algorithms.
3) Documentation regarding the effectiveness of Bess at blocking Internet sites deemed inappropriate for minors and sites that have been mis-categorized by Bess.
I am aware that I am entitled to make this request under the Freedom of Information Act, and if your agency response is not satisfactory, I am prepared to make an administrative appeal. Please indicate to me the name of the official to whom such an appeal should be addressed.
If my request is denied, I am entitled to know the reasons for denial.
I am aware that while the law allows your agency to withhold specified categories of exempted information, you are required by law to release any segregable portions that are left after the exempted material has been deleted from the data I am seeking.
I also request a waiver of all fees for this request. Disclosure of the requested information to me is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government, and is not in my commercial interest. I am classified as noncommercial news media under the Freedom of Information Act.
Sincerely,
xxx
Anyways, they responded back by sending me marketting materials from N2H2. Well, its time to re-request the information and "be more specific."
Anyways, this does work well for pissing them off and scaring them to death, plus you can see how ineffective the filters really are.
x
pretty scary (Score:5)
Lets summarize the situation:
Doesn't sound so cool does it?
Where does the line get drawn for what is OK to watch and monitor and what is private?