Have you tried to buy a fax machine lately? They’re obsolete!
Of course what is also crazy about this answer it the simply process of forwarding the fax number to a fax to email service. It would cost practically nothing, the fax would never be “tied up” and they wouldn’t have to use fax paper, they could print it out.
But of course this is not what this is about. This is about them hating to do FOIA requests and doing what ever they can to make it hard and costly for the people filing them.
Or, just their own way of bitching about the sequester…
They can’t just forward to a fax to email service. It would technically have to be vetted and checked to be sure it can process potentially secret documents. (I assume that 1 - FOIA requests aren’t the only things being faxed there, 2 - They aren’t faxing out from that number.)
Fax isn’t quite as obsolete as we would like it to be. It is almost there, but it is still used around the country.
I think I can see somebody’s priorities showing…
Can we Kickstarter the DoD a fax machine?
Sounds like fun! Want to?
They doubtless still have the landline the fax machine was hooked up to. Fax machines can be had for as little as $30 new. What’s kind of shocking is what a blatant “fuck you” their incredibly lame excuse is. It’s way beyond insulting our intelligence, they’re not even trying to present a semblance of deception.
When they eventually do get the fax back up and running, someone should file a FOIA request for documents related to the breakdown of the old fax machine and the procurement of its replacement.
This is how you say “Let them eat cake” in 2013.
Maybe folks could start donating FAX machines. A well publicized delivery of several thousand machines might make for some amusing nightly news…
And we sort of ignored the fact that DoD has access to a warehouse just jam-packed with office equipment…probably a few fax machines laying around in there.
But never mind that now - I just like how you guys think! So public service-minded. Makes me proud.
This reads exactly like something Joseph Heller or Kurt Vonnegut would write.
I’m getting Z vibes.
The synopsis of that movie makes it sound extremely dull and depressing. I can’t believe it was as popular as it was. Perhaps because lens flares?
It’s an amazing film, one I personally found gripping the entire way through. Very French, though, and certainly a product of its time, but immensely historically important, both in terms of cinema at large, and in terms of telling a story that many people have never heard, and which should really not be forgotten in the modern age.
The wikipedia summary doesn’t do it any real justice. It’s like describing Star Wars as a movie in which a bunch of insurgents blow up a space station.
Costas Gavras films are about the human element, the fantastic dialogue and interactions between characters, and people as people. The events in and of themselves aren’t the focus - it’s what they tell you about society and humanity and just how mad and broken our modern world is. Films like Eden is West, Amen. (sic), and Z are about showing just how obviously absurd and wrong aspects of society and civilization are, how corruption flourishes and how evil always seems just one step ahead of good.
Z is dark, cynical, compelling, and tantalizingly situated on the brink of hilarity. So much of what happens in the story is just absurd, almost as if you were watching a farce, but with just enough of an edge and grounded so unmistakably in reality that you’re caught between laughter and horror. As unbelieveable as the situations and events seem, you’re constantly reminded that they’re more true to life than we’re comfortable realizing, and when you stop to think about things, you eventually have to admit they’re accurate to life.
Fax machines still exist?!
This article is BS. If you go to the DoD FOIA request website it says they not only accept, but prefer elecronic submissions, and also accept FOIAs by mail.
Link: www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/foiareq.html
I tried to post more, but it said I could only put in two links. Bleah.
-
The Office of the Secretary of Defense appears to have an online FOIA request form. Why didn’t they use it? Snail mail and fax are two other options; the OSD FIOA office even says the electronic submission is preferred.
-
Isn’t the FY2013 OSD budget information right here? Granted, this is only the Unclassified stuff.
I’ve never read the MuckRock website (or heard of it until this article), but seeing as how you can send in a FOIA request electronically), I think that undermines their creditability quite a bit.
