The Cypherpunk's 1995 Archive has been forged, and what are we going to do about it? (was:Re: Could someone add news of Cypherpunks Archive...

[Douglas Lucas]

Among the exceptions likely to be cited would be privacy, national
security, ongoing litigation, etc.

On 2019-11-24 03:06, Douglas Lucas wrote:
> Via MuckRock I've filed nearly 100 requests:
> https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/profile/douglaslucas/
> 
> Several of my requests have returned documents, and a few have formed
> the basis of articles by me, e.g this one regarding our gentlehearted
> friends at Stratfor --
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160414073752/https://revolution-news.com/stratfor-wheres-truck/
> -- or this one involving our scholarly friends at the Border Security
> Operations Center in Texas
> https://whowhatwhy.org/2014/07/16/exclusive-the-counterinsurgency-war-on-and-inside-our-borders/
> 
> Because corporations have a few times repeated me in watered down form,
> i.e. because Vice and Salon have published me, echolalia or whatever, I
> usually have success in getting agencies to waive or minimize fees,
> saying the usual stuff about muh journalismszz. Not always though. A
> while back, I asked the Texas state police for certain Stratfor g00dz
> and they wanted a zillion dollars or something.
> 
> In the next 24-48 hours I'm working on a bunch of other FOIA requests,
> including appeals... so I could send requests regarding Cypherpunks off
> as well, if the list clarifies what agencies/offices are wanted.
> 
> Because, what agencies do you suspect might have long ago collections of
> Cypherpunk emails? FOIAs have to go somewhere, to some agency or office.
> Where, Jim and others, were y'all thinking of submitting FOIAs?
> 
> As far as I know, the raw data vacuumed up by federal spy agencies
> haven't and won't be handed out to the public via FOIA. They'll cite any
> one of multiple exceptions. I assume, but do not know for certain, that
> other people have tried such open records requests for laughs, like
> "From the NSA, I hereby request my photos I accidentally deleted back, I
> emailed them to myself 10 years ago, does Joseph Maguire at the ODNI
> have a copy please?"
> 
> It might be good to limit the request to the time frame from and
> including 1 Jan 1995 to and including 31 Dec 1996, because the smaller
> the scope of the request, the slightly less likely it is that the
> gub'ment will delay forever, charge fees, say they don't have anything,
> use some exception, ignore me much like my crushes, etc.
> 
> As I suggested above, I think it would be difficult/impossible to obtain
> cypherpunk emails through FOIA from some agency's covert or clandestine
> or otherwise shady program or other. Agencies usually use exceptions to
> block such requests.
> 
> However, I wonder if there were any overt programs, agencies, offices,
> bureaus, whatever that happened to keep an archive of the cypherpunks
> email list. Maybe some program was liaising with a university for some
> reason regarding computer-y internet-y technical crap. And that program
> housed a bunch of email lists for scientific or advertising or
> educational purposes.
> 
> In other words, don't think spies and covert shit. Maybe there's some
> really overt, goofy program from back then that collected cypherpunks
> emails as part of some straightforward educational or scientific or some
> other mundane thing...?
> 
> Also, regarding to which agencies these open record requests shoudl go,
> don't just limit imagination to the federal government. Many
> agencies/offices/bureaus/etc. at the state, local, county, and other
> levels of government will take open records requests as well.
> 
> Doug
> 
> 
> On 2019-11-22 21:35, jim bell wrote:
>> To Ryan Carboni,
>> It looks like you are familiar with the practice of writing and filing
>> Freedom of Information Act requests. 
>> https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/profile/ryaz/  
>>
>> Given that these requests can take a long time, I think it would be
>> appropriate to make such a filing for any Cyperpunks mailing list
>> emails, especially but not limited to those from 1995-1996.   Naturally,
>> we will want the output on a computer readable format, such as writable
>> CD, writable DVD, or some other downloadable file system.
>>
>>   We will probably want to compare these emails from those that will be
>> obtained by other sources.   What do you think?   Would you help this
>> process?  Can you write the FOIA request?   Thank you.  
>>
>>               Jim Bell
>> e