Sunday, September 26, 2021

VERY Slow Sunday Afternoon

A) it's not the Freedom of Information Act (that only applies to the feds), it's an Open Records request that needs to be filed (that's the law that applies to state agencies in Texas.)

B) You're not going to get anywhere, unless you can find the entity who would keep and maintain records like this.  If you ask the wrong person/agency, they just tell you they don't have anything.  If you ask the "right" person/agency, you're still presuming there is a record that they can access and present to you.

An Open Records request does not require that a record be created (like a transcript of a conversation).  It only applies to records already in existence (like, say, e-mails or text messages, or just general business records kept in the course of actually functioning).  You can't use it to demand creation of a transcript of a conversation between two people, especially if the conversation wasn't recorded and the recording wasn't maintained in the ordinary course of business. 

So, no, you can't file a FOIA request (wrong government), and even an Open Records request would be a waste of time.

As most of them are.

No comments:

Post a Comment