50 More Fun Words (2018) (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives)

Emma North-Best filed this request with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of the United States of America.

It is a clone of this request.

Tracking #

2019-1305

Multi Request 50 More Fun Words (2018)
Due May 9, 2022
Est. Completion None
Status
Awaiting Response

Communications

From: Emma North-Best

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

Copies of emails sent to or from either the director's office (or equivalent) as well as their chief of staff (or equivalent) and executive director (or equivalent) containing any of the following 50 (non-case sensitive) words between 1 January 2018 and the present:

1. damn
2. damnit
3. goddamn
4. goddam
5. goddammit
6. webcomic
7. hurt
8. accuse
9. accused
10. allege
11. alleges
12. alleged
13. disgrace
14. disgraced
15. worry
16. worries
17. worried
18. lost
19. perjury
20. perjured
21. lie
22. lies
23. lied
24. 1001
25. 1621
26. game
27. marijuana
28. drug
29. activist
30. activists
31. riot
32. soda
33. reward
34. prize
35. save
36. kill
37. decimate
38. punish
39. punishment
40. penalize
41. penalized
42. shred
43. wipe
44. erase
45. delete
46. bastard
47. bitch
48. bitched
49. bitching
50. dessert

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter.

I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Emma Best

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

An acknowledgement letter, stating the request is being processed.

From: Emma North-Best

I am appealing the determination that I am a non-media requester, as I am a widely published journalist. Courts have held that the news media status "focuses on the nature of the requester, not its request. The provision requires that the request be “made by” a representative of the news media. Id. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II). A newspaper reporter, for example, is a representative of the news media regardless of how much interest there is in the story for which he or she is requesting information." As such, the details of the request itself are moot for the purposes of determining the appropriate fee category.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Good Morning Ms. Best:

I wanted to follow up on this request when you have a moment. Thank you.

Hirsh

From: Emma North-Best

How can I help?

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Good Evening:

Thank you for your response. In looking at your request, I notice you are seeking all emails containing the terms “MuckRock,” Muck Rock,” or” MuckRock.com.” I’m writing to see if you are still seeking these records? Thank you.

Hirsh

From: Emma North-Best

Yes I am, though you may exclude emails relating to specific FOIA requests (I'm sure the subject line or body includes standard language that should be easy to exclude from searches). That should keep the number of responsive records down to something more reasonable to deal with and more targeted to my interests.

I hope that helps.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Great. Thank you.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Good morning, Ms. Best,

Your request for records related to 50 More Fun Words 2018, ATF, would require an enormous processing on the office. For the Office to respond to your request, we would have to sort through thousands of emails which would take hundreds of hours, to retrieve the information, you seek. Please consider narrowing your request of search terms and a more specific timeframe that you would like to receive documents.

Thank you,

Charlet Allen
Contractor, Paralegal
Information and Privacy Governance Division (IPG)
Bureau of ATF
99 New York Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20226

From: Emma North-Best

The timeframe was much smaller when I submitted the requested. It's your offices fault that it expanded by three years (tripling the timespan) before it began processing the request.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Good Morning Ms. Best:
Searching and reviewing all emails sent to or from either the director's office (or equivalent) as well as their chief of staff (or equivalent) and executive director (or equivalent) containing any of the following 50 (non-case sensitive) words between 1 January 2018 and the present would be an enormous undertaking. We conducted a preliminary search and located over 31,494 items, the equivalent of 9.76 GB. All told we are looking at over 30GB of data and well over 100,000 pages.

While I realize you do not want to change the timeframe, would you be amenable to amending the scope of your request? Many of these words listed below are generic everyday words we would find in most email communications.

Thank you,

Hirsh

1. damn
2. damnit
3. goddamn
4. goddam
5. goddammit
6. webcomic
7. hurt
8. accuse
9. accused
10. allege
11. alleges
12. alleged
13. disgrace
14. disgraced
15. worry
16. worries
17. worried
18. lost
19. perjury
20. perjured
21. lie
22. lies
23. lied
24. 1001
25. 1621
26. game
27. marijuana
28. drug
29. activist
30. activists
31. riot
32. soda
33. reward
34. prize
35. save
36. kill
37. decimate
38. punish
39. punishment
40. penalize
41. penalized
42. shred
43. wipe
44. erase
45. delete
46. bastard
47. bitch
48. bitched
49. bitching
50. dessert

From: Emma North-Best

Which of the words are you worried are too "everyday"? Is it the agency's leadership swearing, talking about webcomics and soda, or mentions of activists or deletion/erasure of records? If you let me know, I can consider eliminating those from the list.

From: Emma North-Best

If it helps, you can exclude any hits that are contained within identifiable 3rd party news clippings/articles or publicly available non-governmental newsletters.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Good Morning:

I am not sure what you are referring to. I propose eliminating the following words and going from there. We can take a look at the number of responsive records at that point. These are fairly generic terms we are proposing to eliminate. Thank you.

1.damn
2. damnit
3. goddamn
4. goddam
5. goddammit
6. webcomic
7. hurt
8. accuse
9. accused
10. allege
11. alleges
12. alleged
13. disgrace
14. disgraced
15. worry
16. worries
17. worried
18. lost
19. perjury
20. perjured
21. lie
22. lies
23. lied
24. 1001
25. 1621
26. game
27. marijuana
28. drug
29. activist
30. activists
31. riot
32. soda
33. reward
34. prize
35. save
36. kill
37. decimate
38. punish
39. punishment
40. penalize
41. penalized
42. shred
43. wipe
44. erase
45. delete
46. bastard
47. bitch
48. bitched
49. bitching
50. dessert

From: Emma North-Best

So to clarify, you're proposing removing all of the search terms?

Since you're not negotiating the scope of the FOIA in good faith, let's just proceed with it as it is.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Excuse me? I crossed out the ones to exclude. It must not have accepted my cross outs. My apologies. I asked that we remove the following:

worry, worried, worries, lost, game, reward, prize, save, dessert

From: Emma North-Best

No, none of them were crossed out - it was just a list of all of the words. https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/50-more-fun-words-2018-bureau-of-alcohol-tobacco-firearms-and-explosives-75271/#comm-1389876

I agree to exclude the words worry, worried, worries, lost, game, reward, prize, save, and dessert from the search.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Thank you.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Hello:

We did a preliminary search for the following words: worry, worried, worries, lost, game, reward, prize, save, dessert and located approximately 21,695. I'm writing to see if you would be amenable to further narrowing the scope of your request. While we appreciate the elimination of some of previously included words, the remaining words are commonly used and without some additional context or phrasing, completion of this request (reviewing 21, 695 items) will take a considerable amount of time to review and process.

Thank you.

From: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

04/12/2023 REFER TO: 2019-1161Ms. Emma Best411A Highland AvenueSomerville, Massachusetts 02144-2516Dear Ms. Best:This responds to your FOIA Request request dated 6/26/2019, and received by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on 5/21/2019, in which you requested records concerning Third Party. Your request has been assigned number 267171. Please refer to this number on any future correspondence. If you still wish to receive the requested records, please notify this office within 14 days of the date of this letter. If we do not hear from you, then we will presume that you are no longer interested and will administratively close this request without further action. Should you later determine that you want the documents, you will need to submit another FOIA request to this office. You may contact our FOIA Public Liaison, Zina Kornegay, at (202) 648-7390, should you need further assistance. Adam C. Siple Chief Information and Privacy Governance Division
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v.E.1

From: Emma North-Best

I am still interested in the records, yes.

After repeated negotiations, sending a Still Interested letter seems improper. But I am still interested.

From:

Hello,

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Take care,

SecureRelease(tm) Support Team (Contractor)

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