Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
U.S. Customs and Border Protection says using documents to assist refugees and educate the public about refugees is “unconvincing”
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 30, 2010
I just received another letter today from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection about my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. A public servant named Dorothy Pullo, Director of FOIA Division, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in reply to my letter of November 3, 2010 claims that I indicated my belief that, “a message was being sent to residents by the involvement of the U.S. Border Patrol.” As I didn’t make any such statement in my letter I can only assume that Ms. Pullo is again internet surfing in a desperate bid to figure out how to overide my statements to her, rather than simply reading my letter. (I wonder if I’m going to be charged again for this additional internet surfing?) Notice, however, that I never made any such statement in my posting. I said that the Grand Forks Police were sending a message to anyone who dared stand and watch them by making those residents show documents.
Ms. Pullo also claims that, “your argument that the documents requested are to be used to assist refugees and educate the public about refugees is unconvincing”, and, “It appears likely the requested documents would be used in a manner consistent with interests of you and Friends of Refugees thus placing your request in the commercial-use requester fee category.” Thus I will need to pay at least $91.60 for them to press the print button on their computer and mail the 11 page document to me.
This is funny because that’s all I do – assist refugees and educate the public about refugees. Ms. Pullo offers no reason for why she would think I have any “commercial” interests in helping refugees or educating the public about refugees, probably because she has no real reason to think so.
I think what we have here is yet another government bureaucrat, whose salary we pay and who supposedly ought to be serving us, who thinks its her job to withhold government documents from the public and not abide by U.S. laws (Freedom of Information Act). Abiding by the law must seem like such an inconvenience to her.
