{"id":18423,"date":"2012-07-11T02:13:23","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T05:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=18423"},"modified":"2017-03-30T22:32:41","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T01:32:41","slug":"michael-weinstein-and-the-problem-with-air-force-foias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/11\/michael-weinstein-and-the-problem-with-air-force-foias\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Weinstein and the Problem with Air Force FOIAs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Weinstein and his cohorts make frequent use of the US Air Force Inspector General complaint system.\u00a0 As noted previously, its win-win\u00a0for Weinstein<\/a>, as he’s immune to any stigma should it go awry and he can cry foul whether the IG validates his complaint or not.<\/p>\n

Weinstein also hammers the Air Force with Freedom of Information Act requests.\u00a0 Again, for him they’re a win-win.\u00a0 He gets to harass the Air Force, as the Air Force is required by\u00a0law\u00a0to dedicate precious and scarce resources to answer his every call, which also has the effect of distracting from the military’s mission.<\/p>\n

Weinstein\u00a0also gets access to information he normally wouldn’t.\u00a0 While the Air Force tries to cull private and restricted information from files before it hands them out in response to FOIAs, there is no such thing as\u00a0perfection.\u00a0 In virtually every FOIA you can find, you’ll see a name or email address that was supposed <\/em>to be redacted, but wasn’t.\u00a0 Such was recently the case with one of Weinstein’s own allies, when his name was released when the FOIA documents were given to\u00a0the local press:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The name under the yellow redaction was not obscured in the original\u00a0FOIA release.\u00a0 Because this same\u00a0LtCol has repeated his story so many times on the internet, it’s not hard to find out that LtCol R. comments as “falcongrad<\/a>” on the website of the Colorado Springs Independent<\/em>, local to the Air Force Academy.\u00a0 (The Independent <\/em>released these FOIA documents, and falcongrad has said he’s shared USAFA information with Indy reporter Pam Zubeck.) It’s also not hard to find the report from his appeal to the Board for Corrections of Military Records<\/a>.\u00a0 The BCMR is also redacted, though LtCol R. has publicized the names of some of the people involved.<\/p>\n

FOIAs work to Weinstein’s advantage, because they’re busy-work for the Air Force and give him further ammunition to continue his self-described “agitation” of the Air Force as it attempts to accomplish its mission.\u00a0\u00a0Weinstein is almost guaranteed access to non-releasable data simply by filing a FOIA, as errors are common as shown above.\u00a0 It can be yet another tool in his coercion of members of the military to bend to his will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Weinstein and his cohorts make frequent use of the US Air Force Inspector General complaint system.\u00a0 As noted previously, its win-win\u00a0for Weinstein, as he’s immune to any stigma should it go awry and he can cry foul whether the IG validates his complaint or not. Weinstein also hammers the Air Force with Freedom of Information Act requests.\u00a0 Again, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[134,2160,1615,85,2,5218,7,1073],"class_list":["post-18423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-air-force","tag-foia","tag-inspector-general","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-pam-zubeck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}