[OSGeodata] FOIA and VMAP1 anyone?

[Ned Horning]

Chris,

I spent about 2 years using FOIA requests to get some VMAP 1 data but in the
end was unsuccessful. A bunch of the VMAP data can be purchased through USGS
but some of the datasets are still being created and others cannot be
distributed due to international agreements. 

In my case I was trying to get data covering Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and
even though there are no restrictions for these countries I couldn't get the
data because they resided on CDs that contained restricted data. They
claimed that the amount of work required to extract these data from the CD
was too great to qualify for a FOIA request. After hitting dead ends with
the letters I contacted my congressman as well as colleagues as USGS and
NASA but didn't make much in the way of progress. I did have the option to
petition my rejection but declined due to the expense and the Museum wasn't
thrilled about me harassing the government. 

If you're interested I'm happy to share the somewhat outdated material that
I have (letters, contacts, CD index map, VMAP 1 CD availability). 

All the best, 

Ned 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Holmes [mailto:cholmes at openplans.org]
> Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 3:04 PM
> To: geodata at geodata.osgeo.org
> Subject: [OSGeodata] FOIA and VMAP1 anyone?
> 
> Hey all, was wondering if anyone here might be excited about doing
> Freedom of Information requests and legal action on full VMAP1 datasets?
> 
>
http://www.mapability.com/index1.html?http&&&www.mapability.com/info/vmap1_i
n
> dex.html
> 
> Has an introduction, if you don't know basically it's 1:250,000 scale
> vectors for the whole world.  Only portions have been released, and NGA
> ignores FOIA requests for access to more.  I have a good friend who's a
> lawyer who recently set up a non-profit legal institution to do, among
> other things, FOIA actions.  He's pretty excited about going after this,
> and with some more information feels we have a good chance of winning
> it.  You take them to court and if successful the court demands that the
> data be handed over.
> 
> So my question is, is this something that the geodata committee could
> get behind?  We may be able to get fee waivers on the requests if we can
> show that it's an organization helping to 'understand government' or
> some such, basically we can pretty easily spin what we are in to
> something that could get a fee waiver.  And indeed if we have the
> apparatus to distribute the data once we get it then it also may be
> easier.
> 
> He's willing to give us a very good discount on time spent, and the cool
> thing is that if we win, which we should, then the government will pay
> all his attorney fees.  And in that case any money he takes from us will
> be returned.  I was thinking we could set up a fund, use pledgebank or
> something for the initial money, and then if/when we win that money goes
> back in to more FOIA actions.  Perhaps go after things like NYCMap,
> things at a more regional level that have really nice data (we don't all
> have organizations like MassGIS :( ).
> 
>   Chris
> 
> --
> Chris Holmes
> The Open Planning Project
> http://topp.openplans.org