Today’s links The Foilies: Come for the self-own, stay for the absurd cop theories. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Podcasts, events and more. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. The Foilies (permalink) This marks the 10th anniversary of the Foilies – awards given to the public agencies responsible for the most egregious, absurd and outrageous defiance of freedom of information requests: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024 The Foilies are awarded by EFF and Muckrock. This year’s honorees are an entire Coen Brothers movie’s worth of bizarre excuses and shenanigans. Top honors (the “Not-So-Magic-Word” award) goes to Augusta County, VA: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024#augusta The staff at the Augusta County Sheriff’s office somehow got the impression that if they wants to make an official communique immune to a public records request, all they had to do was add the words “NO FOIA” to the memo. Needless to say, the law doesn’t work this way. When a county employee anonymously tipped Breaking the News off to this practice, the organization quite naturally filed a request for every county document containing the phrase “NO FOIA.” Given that the county’s employees had thoughtfully tagged every document they suspected would get them into trouble with these words, it’s no wonder that the request delivered a bumper-crop of news stories of incompetence and corruption: https://www.breakingthrough.tv/post/augusta-foia-nightmares-sheriff-slams-county-growth-amidst-challenges-managing-department-s-payroll These scandals…Pluralistic: The Foilies (11 Mar 2024)