HeHateY

I was looking for the painter's name to find him, and no one from the railroad would tell me whom they arrested. So I filed a formal freedom of information request, asking for all Amtrak arrests in Connecticut in 2009.

That was back in March.

This week, more than seven months later, I got a letter back from Sharron H. Hawkins, Amtrak's freedom of information officer, who explained at length why all the names of those arrested, dates and the names of arresting officers were scrubbed from a three-page list of 2009 Connecticut Amtrak arrests.

"The disclosure of names appearing in the above-mentioned records could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy of those individuals," Hawkins wrote in her Nov. 9 letter to me, explaining why the names were blacked out.

Really?

Amtrak won't reveal the names of the people it arrests because it could be an invasion of their privacy?


http://www.theday.com/article/20101119/NWS05/311199863

Centurion

I feel sorry for the reporter and the paper. He is not aware of FOIA steps reporters use and methods to get government agencies act quicker. I have a FOIA request that is three years old and I am still waiting to hear from the US Department of Transportation. If my request was important enough to me I could have had a response in days not years. You just need to know how to work the system. Almost every major paper has staff that knows what to do.