This Bot Files FOIA Requests Whenever Someone Dies
An exciting but underappreciated genre of writing is the Great American FBI File. Think of government agents as taxpayer-funded paparazzi, invading the lives of private citizens for the supposed good of the country. There are files on many popular figures, including John Lennon, Lucille Ball and Biggie Smalls. Writer William T. Vollman famously found his own file and dug through it for a great long Harper’s essay. Say what you will about the FBI, but it has decent taste in artists.
Our government’s massive surveillance apparatus naturally results in large stacks of files. Imagine the warehouse at the end of , filled with detailed dossiers on suspected. One just has to ask for them, via a Freedom of Information Act request. Not all information is free, of course. There are nine exemptions. Exemption 1, for example, locks down any files that might compromise the “interest of national security.” Exemption 6 “protects information that would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy of the individuals involved.” The latter privacy exemption becomes void after the individual in question dies.
