THREAD Fascinating. @FBI just sent me a #FOIA release. But all is not what it seems.

So, you've probably seen me talking about how FBI completely ...

@joshgerstein @cjciaramella @BradMossEsq @MarkSZaidEsq @MuckRock @JasonLeopold @CREWcrew @_rshapiro @AshaRangappa_

closed down their FOIA office on 3/17 because their entire FOIA processing system is on their classified system & therefore no FOIA analyst can work from home on any requests, because "work must necessarily be done in the office." https://twitter.com/NatlSecCnslrs/status/1241398545799938048?s=20

On 4/29, the FBI FOIA office (called RIDS) began slowly reopening, with only 1/3 of the employees allowed in the office at a time to ensure social distancing. At the same time, they doubled down on telling courts that they could ONLY process FOIA requests *at RIDS* for ...

security reasons.

RIDS is located in Winchester, VA.

That last nugget of information should give you a clue where I'm going with this.

So I received a FedEx envelope with a CD of responsive FBI records & a release letter yesterday. I know this *now.*

I opened it today.

I was very curious what was in the envelope.

Why was I curious, you ask?

The envelope was sent to me from the FBI field office in Butte, MT.

Butte, MT is not in Winchester, VA.

RIDS is not located in Butte, MT.

You might even say that Butte is *remote* from RIDS.

Recall that David Hardy declared *under oath* that RIDS had to *shut completely down* because there was no way to process FOIA requests anywhere except RIDS. And that the reason FBI must proceed slowly now is because RIDS employees have to come into the office 1/3 at a time.

So that's fun.

I guess they figured out all those security problems they were having. Now that requests don't have to be processed at RIDS any more, I expect they'll advise all the courts they told about the 33% processing rate that they're back to full capacity.

Right?

Side note, had this request not been in litigation, I never would've known where the envelope came from. FBI sends FOIA releases via FedEx *only* for requests in litigation. The release letter was on RIDS stationery with Winchester contact info & "signed" by David Hardy.

So that's a big "oops" for them that I will be prominently citing the next time they complain about how impossible it is to process FOIA requests anywhere but Winchester.

ESPECIALLY since they won a case last year saying that their process for burning a CD was SOOOOO intense ...

and secure that CDs could only be burned by a RIDS employee moving from one computer to another to another to another JUST TO BURN THE CD.

Or, you know, asking someone in Montana to do it. That apparently works too.

If you want to revisit that particular rabbit hole, have fun. https://twitter.com/NatlSecCnslrs/status/1240478968064737280?s=20