As expected, all my FOIA requests came back marked "insufficient personal information provided". Remember the requests were constructed by my lawyer. So, clearly, the process is intended to be so opaque that only the iron-willed can get through.
The rejections each included a little bit of information about how to construct the request better the 2nd time around. I decided to drop the Department of Defense request, since they said they'd only have a file on me if I had some kind of nameable relationship with them. Since I've never been a member of the armed forces, that's a no. But I'm going to resubmit requests to the FBI, CIA, and Department of Homeland Security requests. Those are what my lawyer's working on now.
If I can get the government to finally cough up my files, I plan to work with my lawyer to write up a thorough explanation of how to do it and what to expect, and post it online. In theory there are online resources to make FOIA requests easy, but that's what we've used and clearly they don't.
Why am I bothering with this? Well, for one thing, the law exists and it's all about letting me, so why shouldn't I? And if it turns out to be impossible, then something's wrong, because FOIA's kind of an important law, it seems to me. It exists for a good reason, and if a random Joe like me can't get his file, then probably no one can, and then FOIA might as well not exist. I don't like that.
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