Personal Grievances

There are (At time of writing) 333,221 FoI requests on www.whatdotheyknow.com.  A lot of them are for things which are interesting or help deepen our knowledge of the government and its workings. There are people who use the FoI act, however, for their own personal agenda.  I can understand that because at the end of the day, people have a right to know what their government is doing and why it is doing it.  The thing is when it is used to harass or bully, then this is against the spirit of the law.  

Why am I bringing this up to you?  It’s horrible when you see FOI request like this, it's horrible.  Have a little look at this:

Many of your requests are hostile in nature and within several requests you have made unsubstantiated accusations about Council staff. These are not new allegations and you have now decided to continue your campaign through FOI, despite the Council responding to your accusations outside of the Act. Your requests have also been made through the `What Do they Know' website and can be viewed by anyone who has access to the Internet. It is unfair and distressing for Council staff to have unreasonable allegations made about them in public. The Council has in the past had inflammatory remarks by you about Council staff removed from the Internet. So you are well aware that the Council does not tolerate this yet you continue to do so.

Why do people think that council workers are immune from criticism? Why is the FoI being abused for this?  I mean don't get me wrong, if the question was how many complaints had been made then game on, but this is something else. This one, is pretty horrible. Unqualified use of judges as psychologists?  What are thinking of?

Have a look at this.  Asking if the council had paid money to make a case go away?  Ok, it's understandable in one respect (Because if there was an issue or bribery then it needs to be found), but look further down the request and you can see the venom in the request.  Surely there should be something that stops this sort of thing?

How about this guy?  Now, don't get me wrong, I love birds as much as the next person, but this sort of request doesn't help anyone except the person making it.  If you have a look at the attached\similar request attached to this as well, they are pretty horrible. You need to think what is this for?  

The reason that I am writing this is simple. I do truly believe that democracy works only if everyone is involved.  The FoI act was written to find out what is going on in the democratic process. Why are people using this to further their own agenda. If they want this information then there are better ways of getting it OR a much easier way than the deliberate and pointed ways that this occurs.

Here are a list of different account\requests that are inappropriate here, here, here,  and here.