Year: 2016

Categories
Critters Environment

The Killing of the Profanity Peak Wolf Pack

Gray wolf at rest

By the time you read this, the Profanity Peak wolf pack in Washington State will be no more.

At last count, six wolves of the 11 member pack have been destroyed. All that remains is one adult and four cubs. And if the last remaining adult is killed, the cubs will most likely starve to death.

What’s left of the pack will either survive long enough to join another pack , or they won’t. Regardless, the Profanity Peak wolf pack is gone.

Washington State Proud

Washington State prides itself on not being the same as its neighbors to the east and north. It doesn’t immediately issue a shoot-to-kill order for endangered wolves when one head of cattle is killed or injured. No, Washington State has a Wolf Advisory Board. On this Board are wolf conservation groups, like Defenders of Wildlife, Humane Society of the United States, Conservation Northwest, and Wolf Haven International.

This Board has helped Washington State develop a protocol for when wolves are killed; a set of non-lethal actions that must be followed before the kill order is given.

The reality is, though, the wolves in the Profanity Peak pack are being killed. Just like the wolves are being killed in Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, and other states. But we’re not supposed to feel outrage at such an action because Washington State has a Wolf Advisory Board, and it has guidelines.

The Animal Welfare Group Statement

Four of the animal welfare organizations on the Advisory Board issued a statement about the Profanity Peak wolves:

The authorized removal of wolves in the Profanity Peak wolf pack in northeast Washington is deeply regrettable. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is, however, following the protocol developed by Washington State’s Wolf Advisory Group (WAG) – a diverse group of stakeholders. The WAG and WDFW have committed to evaluating how the protocol worked on the ground this season in order to improve it for next year. In addition, we intend to conduct a thorough and open-minded assessment of the issues raised by all stakeholders involved.

We remain steadfast that our important goals remain the long-term recovery and public acceptance of wolves in our state alongside thriving rural communities. In the meantime, we ask our community and the citizens of Washington State and beyond to engage in respectful and civil dialogue as we work through these challenging events. We believe that ultimately we can create conditions where everyone’s values are respected and the needs of wildlife, wildlife advocates, and rural communities are met.

The organizations don’t want us to be outraged. They want us to accept that “Eh, these things happen.” They want us to treat the destruction of an entire pack of endangered wolves as if it’s just another Sunday, and here’s a cookie. We’re to engage in a respectful and civil dialogue.

An entire pack of endangered wolves is being killed, and they want us to be respectful and civil?

OK, then. Let’s engage in a respectful and civil dialogue.

Grazing Permits and National Forests

The cattle are on public land in the Colville National Forest. They are on this land because the rancher has a grazing permit. His cattle join with approximately 32,000 or so other privately held cattle allowed to graze on public land in Washington State. Graze at a taxpayer-subsidized rate—grazing permit holders don’t pay full value for the true cost of grazing on public land.

The rancher is Len McIver, of the Diamond M Ranch. He’s a multi-generation rancher who uses grazing permits to raise his cattle. You might say, since grazing permits are subsidized, he’s the fourth generation rancher benefiting from taxpayer support. A common term used for this type of rancher is “welfare rancher”.

Oh. I’m sorry. Was that not respectful? I’ll try to do better.

The Diamond M Ranch Connection

This isn’t the first time Len McIrvin has been involved in the destruction of a wolf pack. In 2012, it was his cattle that led to the decision to kill off the Wedge wolf pack, in the same area as the profanity Peak pack. In a 2012 interview, his son, Bill McIrvin, claimed that wolves are the worst predator:

Bill tells me that the first confirmed wolf kill on the Diamond M was in 2007, and probably from the same pack accused of livestock depredation now, the Wedge pack. When I ask about other predators, Bill says lots of predators go after their cattle, including black bear and cougar, although he is unable to tell me how many cattle succumb to these animals yearly. But wolves, he says, are the worse. Why? I ask. Because they are killing but not eating–for fun, not merely for food, he responds.

Wolves kill for fun. It’s an odd thing, but of all the reasons given why wolves kill, not one wolf expert has stated that wolves kill for fun.

One could say that Bill McIrvin is a lying sack of cow poop if one wasn’t attempting to remain civil.

The Anti-Wolf Message

What’s interesting about Bill and Len McIrvin is how dedicated they’ve been about spreading the message that wolves are killers, wolves and cattle don’t mix, and how all wolves need to be killed. I contrast this with the assurances we’ve been given that any and all non-lethal measures were taken, first, by these same individuals before the decision was made to kill both Wedge pack in 20012, and the Profanity Peak pack this month.

I hope I won’t seem disrespectful if I happen to believe that two people passionate about removing wolves won’t do everything in their power to ensure wolves can remain.

Evidently, the McIrvins do support some wolves. I’m not sure what the definition of some is. I mean, it isn’t as if people are tripping over the wolves on a daily basis in Washington state: there are less than 90 wolves now, and it’s a big state. Decrease the number of wolves much more, and you don’t have any wolves.

Contrary to the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife diagram, wolf packs in Washington aren’t growing. In fact, they’ve shrunk by two. And I suspect the Ranchers McIrvin believe this is still too many.

graph of wolf packs in Washington

I also suspect that some wolves the McIrvins want, is more about geography than numbers. Some wolves are OK. Those wolves over there (and not here) are some wolves. Those wolves are OK.

Let’s Not Overly Impact the Ranchers

In 2012, Mitch Friedman from Conservation Northwest, discussed the McIrvin’s motives and processes.

Mitch Friedman, Conservation Northwest executive director, said he remains unconvinced about McIrvin’s efforts to manage his herd to reduce conflicts with wolves. He does not agree that there are no options for better herd management.

“We want to see more clarity, certainty, that wolves are responsible for these past incidences,” he said. “We’re aware there are experts raising questions and the field biologists are themselves not convinced that all, or perhaps even any, of these incidents, are conclusively wolves.”

Friedman believes the state is under pressure and needs to take more time. He accused McIrvin of alerting the media first, then the local sheriff’s office, then the wildlife department while reaching out to county and state legislators to turn up the heat.

“Generally, when wolves are in the neighborhood, everything gets blamed on them,” he said. “But when the evidence is in, it’s a small portion of incidents that actually ends up involving wolves.”

If it’s not a wolf, Friedman isn’t certain what would be the cause. While he admitted to hemorrhaging on the rear flanks and groin in one of the recent calf attacks, there were no puncture wounds in the hide.

“We want to work collaboratively, we want to make this work so ranchers are not overly impacted by the presence of wolves,” he said.

How nice. Let’s ensure that the ranchers aren’t inconvenienced. That should be top priority for an animal welfare group.

By the way, this is the same Mitch Friedman who now exhorts us all to be respectful and civil about the killing of the Profanity Peak pack.

About Those Non-Lethal Measures

A couple of days after the decision to kill the Profanity Peak wolf pack was made, Robert Wielgus, of the Large Carnivore Lab at Washington State University, provided some surprising revelations.

“This livestock operator elected to put his livestock directly on top of their den site; we have pictures of cows swamping it, I just want people to know,” Wielgus said in an interview Thursday.

Evidently, the McIrvins deliberately introduced cattle directly into the den area for the Profanity Peak wolf pack.

The thing with cattle is they drive out most other animals in the area where they graze—they are inherently destructive of their surroundings. They decimate the plant life, damage the trees, churn up and damage the soil, and they muddy creeks and streams, as well as damage stream banks. Animals native to the land have no other choice but to leave.

Cause and effect: If all other prey animals are driven out, a wolf pack has little recourse but to hunt what animals remain. Though of course, they only do so for fun…not because they’re desperately trying to survive, and feed their young.

The Judas Wolves

The decision was made to kill the entire Profanity Peak wolf pack. All 6 adults and 5 cubs.

You know, wolves are hard to hunt. They’re intelligent and cunning. They know how to avoid hunters, even hunters using high-powered rifles from helicopters.

Helicopter and shooter

But the Profanity Peak pack was operating under a handicap: members of the pack were equipped with radio collars, allowing them to be tracked.

Such wolves are called “Judas wolves”because their presence is a threat to the entire pack. I don’t know what’s more disturbing: that we allow hunting of a species that’s so rare, we actually equip them with tracking collars that cost thousands of dollars; or that wolves with such collars have been hunted so much, we actually have a term for them.

Thanks to the radio collars, the 11 member Profanity Peak pack is down to five remaining members. And the hunt still continues.

No, Washington State is Not “Better”

The wolf welfare organizations mentioned earlier have been receiving a great deal of heat in their Facebook posts related to the Profanity Peak pack.

If HSUS had a post with the Profanity Peak statement, it’s since removed it. But a post still remains in Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife, and Wolf Haven International.  In one comment to their post, Defenders of Wildlife stated:

Washington state has made it a requirement that ranchers use multiple nonlethal methods to deter wolves before the state will even consider a lethal option. Once a depredation has occurred, the state also steps in to help ramp up the nonlethal measures, with the goal of exhausting every possible nonlethal option. It is certainly not a perfect plan, but far better than the “shoot first” approach some other states have. As a member of the Wolf Advisory Group, we hope to continue to help revise the state’s protocols to better protect wolves. (emp. added)

The consensus among these groups is that, while it’s sad that the Profanity Peak pack is being killed, Washington State is still better than other states that have no advisory board. Animal welfare and conservation groups have a seat at the table. They have a hand in the decisions. This is better.

It’s an intellectual response to an emotional event…and it’s dead wrong.

We should be reacting emotionally to this event. We should be outraged. All those who support wolves should be speaking with one voice.

This isn’t a few animals killed among many: this is the deliberate extermination of 11 members of a group of 90, in the entire state. The number of wolves in Washington is so low, claiming they’ve recovered borders on the ludicrous. The State pontificates about “recovery” of the wolves, and how they’re no longer endangered, but we’re only talking about 90 wolves.

No. Now we’re only talking about 80. Well, unless those four cubs survive, which is doubtful.

Washington State allows 32,000 heads of cattle to graze on public land, and it won’t cut even a small break for the 90 wolves currently in its borders. It isn’t “better” than Idaho or Wyoming. Its process isn’t superior, or more humane. The only difference between the states is optics.

Never Lose the Outrage

I had a strong scorched earth initial reaction to all of the animal welfare groups that issued such a passive, capitulating statement about the Profanity Peak wolves. I think there were some feelings of sowing salt into the ground at their feet, too.

I am calm enough today to know that ripping these organizations to shreds, while momentarily satisfying, doesn’t really address the problem. The problem is that our government doesn’t value us.

They value ranchers. They value farmers. They value hunters. They value people with guns. But they don’t value people who care about the animals just because the animals exist. In the great scheme of things, we’re expendable.  And so are the wolves.

Six cattle were supposedly killed and that’s enough to wipe out an entire wolf pack. By all that’s sane, this isn’t equitable, balanced, decent, humane, or right. Washington State, for all of its high-mindedness, is no better than Idaho or Alaska or any other state that advocates killing off wolves so ranchers, hunters, and farmers aren’t inconvenienced. Let’s lose this feel-good facade.

What also wasn’t right was the statement the Humane Society of the US, Conservation Northwest, Wolf Haven International, and Defenders of Wildlife made. They were profoundly wrong to urge restraint. They have allowed their participation in the Advisory Board to file down their teeth, blunt their claws, and to remove the only weapons they have to fight for real change.

Membership on the Board or not, they should have howled, as loud as the wolves howled before death. They should have said to all of us, “Don’t accept this! Fight this!”

They should have embraced outrage, instead of trying to damp it down. If they can’t be outraged and serve on the Board, then they have no place on this board. Or they have no place in the animal welfare movement.

I’m not ready to abandon the groups, but I’m not ready to embrace them, either. They screwed up.

Don’t accept this. Get in people’s faces. Be mad. Be vocal. Be loud. And if being loud means to hell with respectful and civil discourse, so be it.

Photos, public domain by US Fish & Wildlife

 

 

 

Categories
Technology

My Current Version of Learning Node

Orangutan laying on grass looking at camera

As we finished up Learning Node, 2nd, the Node.js Foundation released Node version 6. I quickly did a run through to see if I needed to modify the book text. Yes, indeed, I did.

One of the major changes was how new Buffers are created. This is a major change, considering how integral Buffers are to Node. I hastily re-wrote the section on Buffers in the book, noting that the existing examples demonstrate how to create a Buffer in Node 4.x, but not Node 6.x and later. I also provided additional examples for Node 6.x.

Another major change was how to refer to the fast lane version of Node.js, originally called “Node Stable”. Now, it’s referred to as “Node Current”.

I may have influenced this change. I filed bugs last year about the Node documentation.  One bug had to do with the confusion surrounding which version of Node should be the “default” API.

The Node.js Foundation recommends the LTS versions for production use, because of their long-term stability (hence the name). However, if you access API documentation for Node.js directly, such as searching for Buffer in Google, you’ll get the new Current version.

We went back and forth in the comments about the problems inherent with having the least stable API as the default documented API. I also repeatedly pointed out the problems when you have multiple “current” versions of Node (LTS and Stable), and how would people know which is the current version of Node.js?

To be honest, I didn’t see renaming Stable to Current to be one of the possible solutions. That’s a bit like sweeping dirt under the rug. Oh look! We can’t see the dirt now!

Back to finishing up the book. I quickly changed Stable to Current where applicable. What’s done is done. I hope the book does well.

This is my last book on Node. I may, in the future, write other books on technology, but not Node. Change is the byword for the Node community and that doesn’t translate well when it comes to writing books. I will, eventually, return to technical writing here at Burningbird in addition to my other writing, and I will write about Node. But no books.

And when I write on Node, it will be the current version. Whatever that may be.

 

 

Categories
Media

Fact-Checking PolitiFact’s Clinton Email Fact-Check

I had an email exchange with Gene Emery of PolitiFact about a couple of its fact-checks related to the Clinton emails. PolitiFact just tweeted that it updated the ratings for one of them.

I have to give PolitiFact a Pants on Fire for its tweet…and for its rating.

First of all, that False rating is what the story had at the time of my and Emery’s email exchange. Checking in with the Wayback Machine, the rating was False when the story was first released.

So, no, PolitiFact, you didn’t re-rate this item. You said False on the 6th, and you still show False.

You did post a note following FBI Director Comey’s testimony in front of Congress when he clarified that none of the emails had a classified header, and only three emails had the insider markup (c) denoting classified material in the body of the email.

As I wrote back to Emery, to the average person, (c) means copyright. And I also expected PolitiFact would upgrade their rating following the Editor’s Note. After all, why insert an Editor’s Note if it wasn’t because PolitiFact needed to modify its rating?

But the rating hasn’t changed, and all PolitiFact has reluctantly done is add the note.

Let’s look at this rating, then. As Clinton has stated, over and over and over again, she did not send email that was marked classified. And none of her email showed a classified header, required for classified material.

At most, at most, three emails had the little (c) marking embedded in the email. Three out of 30,000+ emails. And yet PolitiFact, rated what Hillary Clinton has said as False.

Says she “never received nor sent any material that was marked classified” on her private email server while secretary of state. False.

This following the PolitiFact Editor’s Note:

The day after we published this fact-check, Comey testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 7. Comey said he believes three emails on Clinton’s server contained information labeled classified at the time they were sent. This information was not properly marked in that the emails did not have a classification header, even though a “(c)” immediately preceded text in the body of the emails, designating confidential information. Without the clear classification header, it’s reasonable to infer that Clinton did not realize these three emails contained classified information, he said.

Couldn’t we also reasonably infer that PolitiFact would update its rating to Mostly True, or even True, based on this Editor’s Note, and Comey’s statement?

Of course not. Because after all…Clinton…emails…All reason goes out the window. Along with fairness, and perspective, and bluntly, honesty.

Your butt’s on fire, PolitiFact.

Originally published at Crooks & Liars.

Categories
Political

How will FBI Findings impact the Clinton Email FOIA Lawsuits?

Update

I had to link to the piece covering the interview between Andrea Mitchell and former DOJ Matt Miller.

Appreciations to Mr. Miller for calling out Director Comey’s behavior as inappropriate. It was.

Earler

In reading FBI Director’s Comey’s statement I was pleased that the investigation is ended and the FBI has recommended no criminal sanctions. The administrative sanctions he mentioned could consist of demotions, suspensions, or other employment impact, but since Hillary Clinton is no longer a Secretary of State, it doesn’t matter.

It’s likely the DOJ will go along with the FBI finding. So, for those who have stated they know for a fact Hillary Clinton is going to jail, sorry to disappoint, but it isn’t going to happen.

I expected this investigation to focus on the State Department’s handling of email as an agency, but instead, it focused on Hillary Clinton and excluded previous Secretaries of State who also didn’t use State email. Director Comey neglected to mention the fact that a private server doesn’t matter if he is concerned about email being transmitted via mobile devices—security would be compromised just as much if the server was State’s.

He also neglected to separate out those emails that originated with Clinton and those that originated with others. Remember that some of the emails actually contained excerpts from articles at the time, and the article contents were deemed classified or top secret.

As for Director Comey’s chastisement of Hillary Clinton, she’s already accepted that she screwed up with the personal server. I can guarantee you that she’ll not make this mistake, again. But I didn’t like Comey’s tone in his statement. Unless he was willing to broaden his criticism to include Colin Powell, as well as various other cabinet members that have used private email accounts, than his chastisement rings hollow. And more than a little patronizing.

But it’s over and done. Trump will excerpt the bad bits, and mangle them as only he knows how, and we’ll hear about them forever and a day. But I think the majority of Americans are just sick and tired of the topic, so Trump will only hurt himself…something he’s very good at.

The FBI Director’s statement also has, in my opinion, an impact on the FOIA lawsuits. If additional emails were found, they were most likely turned over to State and will be released. But Comey also went into a great deal of explanation as to why they weren’t discovered, and most of that has to do with incorrect searches, and technology. He very carefully noted that the FBI found no evidence of emails being deleted in order to hide their contents.

I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed. Because she was not using a government account—or even a commercial account like Gmail—there was no archiving at all of her e-mails, so it is not surprising that we discovered e-mails that were not on Secretary Clinton’s system in 2014, when she produced the 30,000 e-mails to the State Department.

It could also be that some of the additional work-related e-mails we recovered were among those deleted as “personal” by Secretary Clinton’s lawyers when they reviewed and sorted her e-mails for production in 2014.

The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server.

It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.

We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.

The FOIA lawsuits imply that material was held back deliberately, and the FBI has basically cleared all personnel of deliberate malfeasance when it comes to document discovery. The department doesn’t think highly of Clinton’s use of a private email server, State’s email systems and handling of classified information, but that’s not a surprise. State itself has noted that it has problems, as evidenced by the OIG report.

My hope is that the FBI Director’s statement will end these absurd FOIA discovery efforts. Unless Judicial Watch, the instigator of most, wants to depose Director Comey or his agents. In which case all I can say is good luck with that one.

The problem of too many requests for information, the State being badly backlogged on FOIA requests, the large number of lawsuits, and the intolerant arrogance of some of the Judges involved in the lawsuits is costing taxpayers millions of dollars and needs to end.

This all needs to end.

If people don’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton because she used a private email server, fine. I’m glad they found the issue that’s of most importance to them. But large chunks of our federal government are being used by Republicans to attack Clinton rather than focusing on the tasks they should be focused on. And there’s better use for the taxpayer money being spent than to fund Judicial Watch and other conservative organizations’ continuous and never-ending FOIA demands.

Categories
Documents Political

This Week with the Clinton Email Industry

Vulture flying overhead

The Freedom of Information Act was never intended to be a jobs program for lawyers.

Following up on my previous stories regarding the FOIA lawsuit related to the Clinton emails, earlier this month Judicial Watch  deposed Karin Lang, Director of Executive Secretariat Staff at State, and Ambassador Stephen Mull, currently lead coordinator for the implementation of the Iran Nuclear deal for the US.

With Ambassador Mull, we learned that he really can’t remember an email sent in 2011 related to Clinton’s Blackberry. I don’t know why not. Can’t most of us remember every email we sent five years ago?

With Director Lang, we discovered it was the viral photo of Secretary Clinton in sunglasses that sparked a discussion about Clinton’s email, but we don’t know when the discussion occurred, or with whom. She also confirmed that none of the prior Secretaries of State had a government email address, so Secretary Clinton not having one was not unusual.

In addition, in a flurry of filings demanded by Judge Emmet Sullivan, Bryan Pagliano’s lawyer filed a copy of Pagliano’s limited immunity agreement with the DOJ, as well as an argument for him being able to plead the Fifth in a civil lawsuit. The immunity agreement was filed under seal, meaning only the Judge can see it.

To paraphrase Pagliano’s lawyer, pleading the Fifth in a civil lawsuit is not only allowed, but an accepted practice if the witness had concerns about future action related to the topic at hand. Since we already know the FBI is investigating Clinton’s email server—in some regard—the lawyer asserted that Pagliano’s concerns were reasonable.

Judicial Watch filed motions disagreeing with keeping the immunity agreement under seal, as well as Pagliano having the right to plead the Fifth.

The DOJ also filed a motion about keeping the immunity agreement under seal, as it is associated with an ongoing investigation. Pagliano’s lawyers filed a motion concurring with the DOJ. They also gently reminded Judge Sullivan that the only issues pending are whether Pagliano’s deposition is videotaped and if the DOJ immunity agreement is kept sealed. Pagliaono’s right to invoke the Fifth is without question, contrary to Judicial Watch’s attempts to compel Pagliano’s testimony.

Judge Sullivan agreed, for the most part, with Pagliano. He denied Pagliano’s request not to videotape the deposition, probably because all of the videotapes are being kept confidential. But he granted Pagliano’s request to keep the immunity letter under seal. That Pagliano can plead the Fifth is a given.

Now, all of that’s behind Door Number One.

Behind Door Number Two…Another Judicial Watch Lawsuit Against State

I noticed that Judicial Watch’s filings for this case have a sort of breathless quality to them. And no wonder. While it was busy filing motions in the Honorable Judge Emmet Sullivan’s court, it was also filing motions for another FOIA lawsuit against State in another court, under the Honorable Judge Royce Lamberth.

In that case, which is based on an original FOIA request for information related to Benghazi talking points, State is exerting a greater deal of pushback against Judicial Watch’s demand for discovery, because Judicial Watch got too greedy trying to set the discovery parameters:

Now, for the first time, in its proposed reply, Judicial Watch attempts to justify these discovery requests about not just the search for records responsive to this narrow FOIA request, which sought documents within the Office of the Secretary regarding certain talking points about the Benghazi attacks, but for all searches conducted for emails related to the Benghazi attacks. Plaintiff improperly seeks discovery on topics far beyond the scope of its FOIA request, including but not limited to searches for records for the Accountability Review Board, searches in response to congressional inquiries, in preparation of Secretary Clinton’s testimony before Congress, and searches for records responsive to other much broader FOIA requests. The attempt is far too late. Notably, even this belated attempt fails to offer any actual explanation as to the need for discovery ranging far beyond the searches conducted in response to the FOIA request at issue here. Judicial Watch simply asserts, without additional explanation or the necessary attestations, that discovery about unrelated searches “go[es] to the heart” of the Court’s Order.

I believe that “go[es] to the heart” is equivalent to, “We wants it, Precious”.

But Wait…There’s More

The two lawsuits I just described aren’t the only lawsuits Judicial Watch has going related to FOIA requests. According to information in the FOIA Project, and data I pulled from PACER (the federal court system database), Judicial Watch has filed nineteen FOIA lawsuits since January 1. This is in addition to prior year lawsuits still being litigated, like the two I just mentioned. From what I’ve been able to discover, Judicial Watch has at least 17 active FOIA lawsuits in the District of Columbia federal court; the vast majority are related to the Clinton emails.

They must be on first name basis with everyone in the court. Perhaps the Judicial Watch lawyers join the federal court employees in a weekly poker game.

Judicial Watch isn’t the only organization filing these lawsuits. According to one of the motions filed by State in the Lamberth court case, there are currently sixty  FOIA lawsuits pending in court related to the Clinton emails.

Sixty. That’s enough for an entire industry made up of lawyers, legal assistants, law clerks, and FOIA researchers. Let’s hope we never have another former cabinet member run for President: the government couldn’t afford it.

Generations of Workers For One FOIA Request

The Republican National Committee has filed at least seven FOIA lawsuits related to Clinton or the Clinton emails.  The State has worked with the RNC to meet the demands in most of the lawsuits. In one, though, the State asked to have the case dismissed because, according to it, it would take generations of workers in order to meet the demand.

In this particular request, the RNC asked for all emails, to and from, for Cheryl Mills, Jacob Sullivan, Patrick Kennedy, and Bryan Pagliano. Even after the search was limited the government discovered the result would be a burden:

Even after applying the search terms and date limits (to the extent possible given
technological limitations), there remained approximately 450,000 pages of documents that are potentially responsive to the Mills, Sullivan, and Kennedy requests. To be more specific, there are about 100,000 pages potentially responsive to the Mills request, 200,000 pages potentially responsive to the Sullivan request, and 150,000 pages potentially responsive to the Kennedy request. Moreover, the State Department considers the documents responsive to these requests to be complex because they include classified documents and interagency communications that could have to be referred to other agencies for their review.  Given the Department’s current FOIA workload and the complexity of these documents, it can process about 500 pages a month, meaning it would take approximately 16-and-2/3 years to complete the review of the Mills documents, 33-and-1/3 years to finish the review of the Sullivan documents, and 25 years to wrap up the review of the Kennedy documents – or 75 years in total (without considering the requests for the Pagliano records).

Can you imagine having a job whose sole purpose is to process these email requests?

“Hey Sally, how was work yesterday?”

“Pretty good. We had four redactions.”

“Four! Wow, must have been exciting.”

“Yeah, we all went out for a beer after work to celebrate.”

At least Judicial Watch is a pro when it comes to FOIA requests. It knows to keep requests sized so they’re not rejected outright as being a burden. Still, in my opinion, and backed by data, Judicial Watch is the organization putting the most demand on State and other agencies. It’s requests are smaller, but it files new ones on a frequent basis, barely pauses for the agencies involved to process the requests, and then files a lawsuit demanding a response.

How much does this all cost?

Agencies must maintain employees who respond to FOIA requests. The State Department has had to hire at least 50 new employees, just to handle the increased number of FOIA requests. At the end of 2015, it had 21, 759 FOIA requests still pending. This, on top of the 20,000+ FOIA requests it expects to get this year, all under a 15% budget cut from Congress.

In addition, every FOIA lawsuit takes time and money, both in the courts, and in the Department of Justice, which defends the lawsuits.

Most people probably expect these costs. What they may not expect is that the government agencies may also have to foot the bill for the lawyers and legal costs of the FOIA lawsuit plaintiffs.

President George Bush signed the Open Government Act, which amended the FOIA. Among the new additions were provisions making it easier for FOIA lawsuit plaintiffs to obtain legal fees when they “substantially prevail” over the government agency. In addition, a provision also changed the funds for such fees, so that they now came directly out of the agency’s operating budget.

Even without the amendments, organizations could win legal fees for cases against government agencies. In 2004, in a lawsuit against the Department of Commerce, Judicial Watch was awarded close to $900,000. It was only on appeal that some of the award was reversed, because the Judge had awarded Judicial Watch fees for its discovery disputes with third parties who were outside of the DOC’s control.

Discovery disputes like the one related to Bryan Pagliano.

Checking into the Department of Justice records for closed FOIA cases in 2015, for the most part legal fees are not awarded. However, the government agencies still footed the bill for over 2 million in lawyer fees and court costs.

The costs associated with FOIA litigation isn’t in the attorney fees, though. It’s in the court’s time, and the DoJ’s time, and in the agencies time to make additional or expanded FOIA searches. For instance, in 2015, decisions were rendered in 36 Judicial Watch cases, but only one had court and attorney fees awarded.

Keeping Lawyers Gainfully Employed

Judicial Watch isn’t the only organization filing FOIA lawsuits but it is, by far, the most active. From every indication, this is all the organization does.

It discovers a tidbit of information, or hears of something in the newspaper, and then files multiple FOIA requests. In most cases, the agencies respond. If they don’t respond in 2-4 months, though, Judicial Watch files a lawsuit. And why not? It has a staff of lawyers, and it only costs $400.00 to file a lawsuit.

Since the majority of information it seeks is related to Democratic leaders and/or causes, Judicial Watch uses the results of its effort as fund raisers in the conservative community. And it ensures a steady stream of support by how it presents the data it finds.

As an example, the latest Judicial Watch release was related to a lawsuit seeking documents under the FOIA regarding waivers to access web email for officials in the Department of Homeland Security. Judicial Watch presents the data in the worst possible light:

Jeh Johnson and top officials at Homeland Security put the nation’s security at risk by using personal email despite significant security issues,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And we know now security rules were bent and broken to allow many these top Homeland officials to use ‘personal’ emails to conduct government business. This new Obama administration email scandal is just getting started. If the waivers were appropriate, then they wouldn’t have been dropped like a hot potato as soon as they were discovered by the media.

When you look through the emails, though, you realize that personal email access wasn’t a nefarious plot to skirt open records laws, or undermine the security of our nation. It’s just people wanting to access their personal email via web application, because they can’t use their smartphones while on the job.

A mistake in judgement, perhaps. End of the world? Nope.

All of this—the never-ending FOIA requests and multitudes of related lawsuits, in addition to fishing-expedition discovery— is perfectly legal. It may even seem to be a goodness… except the agencies are so tied up responding to organizations like Judicial Watch that other requests, from individuals or smaller organizations without lawyers permanently ensconced at the DC court, end up waiting months, perhaps even years, for a response. And we can’t afford to file a lawsuit in order to ensure our requests go to the top of the heap.

I currently have one request into the DOJ for a lawsuit completely unrelated to Clinton’s emails. I did receive an acknowledgement of my request. However, I would surprised if I receive the documents I’m after before next year. And it’s not because the DOJ is being a slackard. It’s because of organizations that have turned the FOIA into a money machine. Organizations, like Judicial Watch.