The timeline is based on the number of pages they propose to release (500 a month) and the fact that the group requested 329,000 pages of documents.

I would guess that since the law requires that the documents be released in a timely manner, some concessions will have to be made. They might have to hire a lot of people or assign a lot of people to that department for a month.

FOIA requests have to be manually reviewed to make sure that only data that can be released is released. Some info is free from FOIA, specifically personal data (patients names and addresses, for instance) and possibly any proprietary information that the government was provided but is not free to disclose due to NDA's.

Nice attempt, I'll give you that.

Attempt? I just read the article you screen grabbed from. Did you? https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/wait-what-fda-wants-55-years-process-foia-request-over-vaccine-data-2021-11-18/

"U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman has set a scheduling conference for December 14 in Fort Worth to consider the timeline for processing the documents."

I've read it.

Yes, attempt. Sounded like you were coming up with excuses for the FDA when their "response went beyond typical bureaucratic foot-dragging" with hiring and assigning people.

FDA will do everything they can not to release this data, since they are well aware what's in it and the implications that come with. A bit like the JFK assassination documents – we'll never get to see what's in them.

A judge reviews next month. We'll see what they say.

I was borderline defending - they reported and came back with his long it would take. It's now the job of the court to see if the size of the request warrants more time.

If not, people could DOS attack government agencies with random requests.

I hear you, Speeling_dragon.
Yeah, that would only give them another reason to delay the release.

Maybe we can revisit after next month. I think you are paranoid, but it's easy enough to circle back.

I would personally think a fair work around would be to give the government longer (not 50 years, but longer based on the size of the request.) Maybe break the request into x number of chunks. Then, to make sure it wasn't being used to delay certain data, let the requestor prioritize what gets reviewed and released first.