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Comment by punnerud | Hacker News Reader

I love it! Will try to make a request for the same type of data from Oslo municipality (Norway). We have a law where they have to hand over the data. Think we have a lot to learn from NYC.

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> Will try to make a request for the same type of data from Oslo municipality (Norway). We have a law where they have to hand over the data.

Is asking them to spend time getting this data for you honestly a good use of precious public money?

Transparency is always a good use of resources.

Always? No exceptions? You can't conceive of any situation whatsoever that spending time responding to a frivolous freedom of information request is a better use of a civil servant's time over meeting an actual immediate need of a member of the public?

Freedom of information is not frivolous.

I can see you editing your comment out from underneath my response, removing your abuse of public servants.

No individual freedom of information request can be frivolous? I can't understand how someone can think it can never be a waste of finite time and resources to respond to a request.

Transparency does not inherently require a request.

It’s the government’s fault that the data isn’t easily accessed by citizens. No employee time would be necessary if data was accessible by everyone without having to go through a worker. I know this firsthand because there are places in the US that you have to submit requests and deal with government lawyers and slothful employees, while the exact same type of data can be directly downloaded from another municipality without any barriers or assistance.

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