[blindLaw] Oral argument today 2pm ET in my E-FOIA case re rasterization & metadata destruction

Fri May 8 10:21:40 UTC 2020

I figured this might be of interest to y'all.

If I win, it could have a major impact on enforcement of electronic,
accessible, original/native, metadata-including FOIA production
against agencies (like DHS) who currently destroy all of that by
converting everything to rasterized PDFs (because, they claim, they
don't know any other way to prevent "countermanding" redactions).

More broadly, it could be precedent against agencies justifying
violations of the law by preventing themselves from obeying it —
underfunding / short-staffing the responsible offices, buying
508-violating software, having incompatible internal policies, etc.

### Case & today's topics

Sai v. TSA, No. 1:14-cv-403 (D. D.C.)
Last decision, denying TSA's MSJ: 315 F. Supp. 3d 218 (2018)

Topics to be covered today:
"(1) whether rasterized versus non-rasterized documents or specific
file types (e.g. PDF, TIF, DOC), constitute forms or formats under
EFOIA,
(2) whether discretization versus conglomeration of records
constitutes a form or format under EFOIA or merely constitutes a
manner of organizing documents,
(3) the burden on Defendant of having to perform redactions in native
file types or non-rasterized PDFs,
(4) the extent of Defendant's redactions of the records responsive to
Plaintiff's policies request through the FOIAXpress process,
(5) the quantity of documents responsive to Plaintiff's SFO and BOS
Re-Requests, their content, and the extent to which they were
redacted, and
(6) Defendant's ability to redact documents in their native formats or
non-rasterized formats without serious risk of those redactions being
countermanded."

### Participation info

Oral argument is at 2pm Eastern Time today (May 8).

You can dial in (muted), per
<https://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/covid-19-emergency-public-access-teleconference-information-for-judges>,
at:
+1-877-336-1839
code: 4817814

If you'd like to chat about it live, Signal/Telegram/WhatsApp/Keybase
me at +15103944724 / saizai, or Twitter DM @saizai.

I'm *very* interested to hear comments / feedback / suggestions / etc.
And feel free to ask if you'd like any additional info / explanation /
context.

I'm represented by counsel, so (a) I'm not going to talk at oral
argument, and (b) there are some limits on what I can say to you. I
can introduce you to my lawyers (Jeff Green & Chike Croske at Sidley
Austin) if needed.

Feel free to hyperlink/embed/copy the docs below, and forward/quote
this email, however you like. If you post about it, or see one, I'd
appreciate it if you email or tweet me a link (@saizai).

### tl;dr primary context for today's argument

All of DHS uses commercial software called FOIAXpress to process FOIA
& Privacy Act requests, once the docs hit their FOIA office, for all
documents except audio & video.

FOIAXpress:
1. converts whatever it gets into a PDF (discarding all metadata in
the original, eg author, date modified, comments, access rights,
versions, bookmarks, alt text, navigation structure, table structure,
etc)
2. lets them redact in the usual 'select text / highlight region to
black out and pick a reason' way
3. outputs the result as a rasterized PDF (i.e. every page converted
to an image)
4. combines the entire set of documents into a single concatenated
PDF, in no particular order, with no metadata like bookmarks /
chapters / portfolio, thus discarding all metadata about e.g. what is
a separate document, original filenames, etc.

This stems from TSA's irrational overreaction to a 2009 incident †
where TSA leaked their standard operating procedures, with redactions
that were done improperly due to human error (and notably *not* due to
a flaw in their redaction policy at the time):
OIG-10-37 report on the whole thing https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/dhs/breach.pdf
leaked Screening Management SOP v3 (redactions removed & highlighted
in red boxes) https://s.ai/tsa/tsa-screening-sop.pdf
- source: https://cryptome.org/tsa-smoke/tsa-smoke.htm

My objectives here are to enjoin TSA (and by extension, all of DHS) to:
* prohibit FOIAXpress altogether as a violation of E-FOIA & force DHS
to get ESI/508-compliant FOIA software ‡
* produce native format docs (eg DOC, PPT, EML, etc) rather than PDF
* produce fully accessible, text docs, not destroy them by rasterization
* preserve & produce metadata integral to the original file (as kept by agency)
* preserve & produce file discretization - i.e. one produced file per
input file, w/ folder & file name the same as in their system (or if
n/a, like email, named usefully)
* in general, obey e-discovery / ESI type standards in FOIA responses

† Another upshot of that overreaction is that TSA has since made a
policy to designate the *entirety* of SOP docs as SSI, 49 USC 114(r),
rather than just the parts that are actually sensitive (as seen in the
above). OIG-10-37, Appx. H, p. 51 of PDF. This means they now withhold
everything, violating the "withhold only the minimum necessary"
(segregation) rule, 5 USC 552 (a)(8)(A)(ii)(II). But that's not up for
discussion today.

‡ I am partially blind, and raised Rehab Act § 508 as an argument for
electronic production during the last MSJ. That was denied because I
hadn't told TSA I was blind in the FOIA request, but just flatly
demanded 508-accessible docs. Therefore, my FOIA request template now
has a line explicitly saying I'm blind.

### Case docs

Full case docs (2 folders due to gdrive sync issues):
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzmetJxi-p0VbEhCV2RYV19vQlk
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UFvCbxYNJZyZQqH_InORTTsMdKKx7B3W
- partially on RECAP:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/5101196/sai-v-transportation-security-administration/?entry_gte=169

Relevant docs for this argument (ECF #s):
* 172, opinion on first TSA motion for summary judgment (MSJ) (as
amended), 315 F. Supp. 3d 218
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RMZUOb3XvZgGFkeIALl_PRdJdNUaky5e

- 173, diff of amended vs original (162) opinion:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PMnE5Gx08iBs5uqDNhpWZPgOKx15Bu0K/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M04Iy_pFfDh_ln4LuEGZI2-UDWtsmQem/view
- 169-1, my notes on open issues
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F4e4tRnhIrZHWHzhqrvyV1LdcJcQ1xsa

* 174, TSA 2nd MSJ
motion https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DWwJDxYQyB2LaTo5eC-4wrobrwWg-FdD/view
memo https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WyKejX0Lu49SN0seSzaT1uvUqDTmhHQr/view
SOF https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fmNlwrnoJdN3rh8GpGTw_O-Zp8eAgA97/view
Vaughn https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ReL8uxX4dGgZX-QZDwRdlCEuwiQbm_G/view

* 184, Sai opp to MSJ2
memo https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EZvPytuqM0JpLCaYUExy9gmRM04l8S_6/view
SOF opp https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sWfS_sahxizx3AeR-VWULESOaFwkf787/view

* 185, Sai cross-MPSJ
motion https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FF2DN-zNPsquLk91617raIpUK10d1L9J/view
memo https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WzbFWxoJmceozOQMK-OO4s1afjDTxgpn/view
SOF https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b5YIIzkb74qozTnxRTvDmN0aync-c0IK/view

* 189/190, TSA reply re MSJ2 & opp to cross-MPSJ
memo https://drive.google.com/file/d/10L6_6LE_Mfo7__dbLZpXYWbRz80bpqA2/view
SOF opp https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HaRwFz70P8Kl4p0Jyn9uy3oWBDs655kO/view

- ex 1 CCTV spreadsheet, re-production (higher resolution but still
rasterized) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wwo4CVM7xME4KQ888NYzt8wkO2PhkVPK/view

* 193, Sai reply re cross-MPSJ
memo https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eZcbaiPn6tYQj3U5mbLQDEoiX_E4CByA/view

- Exhibits:
A CAED How to redact
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZNDHmcDhSJraDwICkq34FJ9dg-tZfbBe/view
B Hide confidential data in Word 2007/2010 doc
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZwKWtzdcYANyhELvZZlZxYY16wEZtKC6/view
C Word redactions
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lT77ARuWVpxFn8vcubxysw34KnCwucH4/view
D Office 365 Word redactor tool
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vn9HkvJUP0LyWzWtZBG5gsVxdQHFSzGU/view
E XLerator https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dvENd4WLqpN0XOHkulqI25XfjTcL7lS9/view
F How to hide personal info in Word docs
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vSVQXXgVnLin4EbQSX4PGZ_ps4oVVmSc
G How to edit email in Outlook
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EEmZ-01tm_KGdUY5buQQl8xsefoS2zAq/view
H Redacting images & PDFs
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qf2-23CWAVjBMHrKBsLSt9jxHkQ6aYFu/view

Hope you enjoy.

Sincerely,
Sai
President, Fiat Fiendum, Inc., a 501(c)(3)

PS Non-gendered pronouns please. I'm a US citizen.