DLP Dispatch #1
Hello there! Thank you for subscribing to the Data Liberation Project’s newsletter. This is the first edition. I hope to send these semi-regular dispatches at least monthly but no more than weekly. I’ll also try to keep them short. So: Onward!
FOIA request updates
The Friday before launching, I submitted the DLP’s first batch of five FOIA requests. Here’s where they stand:
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Our request for student loan database documentation was granted a fee waiver; the Department of Education agrees that we qualify as a “news media” requester.
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In response to our request for FEMA’s database tracking “direct housing” assistance, the agency said it “will conditionally grant your request for a fee waiver.”
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In response to our request for public housing inspection data, HUD said it’s “in the process of making a determination on fees.”
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Our request for data from the DEA’s Theft Loss Reporting system was placed on the “complex” processing track, unfortunately.
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The Department of Justice’s Civil Division has not sent a formal acknowledgment letter regarding our request for Radiation Exposure Compensation Act claims data but says one is forthcoming.
An update on updates
Updates on individual requests, such as those above, are now reflected on the DLP website's request-specific pages. I've also added RSS feeds to those those pages, in case you want to track particular requests more closely.
A potential scraping project
FOIA requests will be one key tool the DLP uses to liberate data. Another will be web-scraping — i.e., using computer scripts to gather information dispersed across multiple webpages or difficult-to-use interfaces. I have a few scraping-based efforts in mind. Here’s one in particular I could use your feedback on:
The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is responsible for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act — "the only Federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research, teaching, testing, exhibition, transport, and by dealers."
The agency provides information about registrants, licensees, and inspection reports through an online query tool, but does not appear to publish any structured, downloadable datasets that would allow for further analysis. Moreover, many details from the inspections (such as the specific infractions, species examined, and narratives) are available only within PDFs. The same seems to go for the annual animal-use reports that research facilities must file to APHIS.
A few questions for you:
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Am I mistaken about the absence of downloadable data? (I have also emailed APHIS to ask.) Have you seen such data published elsewhere?
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If the DLP were to turn this information into structured data, are there particular things you'd want to use it for?
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Do you have any related expertise, thoughts, suggestions, or concerns?
Elsewhere in the data-FOIA-sphere
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Shawn Musgrave would like your help researching how state laws handle records requests for data.
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From Reveal: “We Forced the Government to Share Corporate Diversity Data. It’s Giving Companies an Out Instead.”
That’s all for now! Thank you for reading, and please don't hesitate to reply.
— Jeremy