RNC using FOIA to silence critics?

[thewayne]

This is partial conjecture, but not unreasonable. A professor was asked to write an oped piece on what went on in Wisconsin with the attempt at union-busting by the governor, and as he researched this piece, he posted snippets of what he found on his blog. The Republican party filed a Freedom of Information Act request for his email with many key words, such as Scott Walker. The prof thinks that this is an attempt to silence people trying to reveal the machinations of the RNC, I think he might have a valid point.

And I didn't know you could FOIA a university, I guess you could if it's a public uni but not one that's privately funded (good luck funding that!).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/opinion/28mon3.html?_r=4&pagewanted=print

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/03/27/0154213/Using-the-Open-Records-Law-To-Intimidate-Critics

Comments

[silveradept]

Yep, and I'd bet they got better turnaround time on their request than all of the FOIA requests looking into what the Republicans are doing while thye govern.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

No doubt. There were some interesting comments about another link in the original Slashdot post saying that the FOIA request has the potential of violating the law as there are aspects of student records and communications that fall under privacy restrictions similar to HIPAA.

[silveradept]

But they'd redact those things, right? It's not like they're on some sort of moral crusade to expose people doing things they don't like, right? *Ha-hah-ha-haha!*