How Daily Kos Can Become Central to the Rebel Alliance: The FOIA
It was fortuitous for me to have found a group at Daily Kos called Support the Dream Defenders. The group is always advancing progressive causes, and JoanMar and 2thanks have provided wonderful leadership in those endeavors. An example of that is how the group used Public Records Laws (the state equivalent of Freedom of Information Act "FOIA" requests) to obtain information about what Republican governors were doing in refusing Medicaid Expansion.
THE SPECIFIC REQUESTS
Support the Dream Defenders sent Public Records requests to every Republican governor or state legislature that refused Medicaid Expansion. We asked for a discrete category of information: Every document in the governor's file showing what he or she had done to find out how many people would die or face bankruptcy because of the governor's refusal to expand Medicaid.
WHAT WE DISCOVERED
We found out that, of the 25-odd states that had refused Expansion at the time, only one had a governor or legislature curious enough to find out how many people might die. Texas Governor Greg Abbott had documents in his files showing that more people in his state would die than was previously projected, and that over 60,000, each year, would be faced with bankruptcy because of catastrophic healthcare costs.
That sounds bad, right? Now, think about all those other Red States. They didn't even care enough to find out how many of their working poor constituents would die every year. Most of the red states were happy to let us know that they could care less. A couple of them were savvy enough to try to hide that information.
Consider, for example, North Carolina:
As you can see, the process is time consuming, but it can be satisfying. McCrory ignored our requests, and so we filed a lawsuit against him. The Governor of North Carolina caved like a bat.
APPLYING THE LESSONS WE LEARNED TO THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
The first and most important point about Public Records and FOIA requests is this: It's really easy. The second key point is this: It can be very inexpensive. Support the Dream Defenders sent Public Records requests to about 25 different states. Those states all had different public records laws that had to be read, understood and complied with. The beauty of the Federal FOIA system is that we only have to deal with one law.
THE FEDERAL FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
Signed into law in 1966 by LBJ, the FOIA only applies to the Executive branch. So, any requests to the Supreme Court or Speaker Ryan will be ignored. There are nine exemptions. If a FOIA request involves one of these exemptions, the Federal agency does not have to provide the requested documents. In short, they involve personnel actions, trade secrets, foreign policy and classified national defense material, medical or financial records of personnel, and geological information concerning wells (for some reason).
The law requires every Federal agency "upon any request for records which ... reasonably describes such records" to make them "promptly available to any person." If the agency ignores the request, a lawsuit can be filed in Federal District Court.
You can request emails and text messages. The agency can require you to pay a reasonable fee to search for the records and for copying great volumes of documents.
LARRY KLAYMAN
In a Republican party full of treacherous, paranoid idiots, Larry Klayman may well be Duke of the Deplorables, the Sultan of the Swamp. He puts Alex Jones' conspiracy theories into action. Klayman sued President Clinton's administration 18 times. He filed lawsuits claiming that President Obama wasn't a natural-born citizen. In 2013, he formed something he called a "citizen grand jury" that indicted President Obama for fraud because he supposedly forged his birth certificate.
"So, why are you mentioning this nutjob?"
Glad you asked. Even a nutjob like Klayman had every right to request information from the Government, and he has been a burr in the side of honest efforts to govern. We can do the same thing, but we can expose dishonest efforts to govern.
DONALD TRUMP
Think about his cabinet. Will there be conflicts of interest? Will there be illegal or unconstitutional acts? Will Trump's cabinet-level minions try to hide information from the public? Duh, duh and duh. There will be a need for citizens to fight back, and we can fill that need. The cost can be as little as a postage stamp.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Click on this link. It will allow you to contact JoanMar and 2thanks and the rest of the Support the Dream Defenders gang. We want to hear from you. Join up or just send us your ideas. Cheers!