[tor-talk] Tor Project Corporate Document FOI Request

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 10:01:58AM -0400, z9wahqvh wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 9:46 AM, Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:
> 
> > Nope, you can make an FOI request of anyone. You can make an FOIA
> > request of any government agency and they have certain statutory (the
> > "A"ct part of FOIA) obligation to respond in a certain way.
> >
> >
> >
> "I know a term has a generally accepted and even legal meaning, but I'm
> going to use it however I want and demand you use it that way too."
> 
> always a great way to start a dialogue.
> 
> the principles you express are all correct and I agree with them. why it
> helps to muddy the waters by using a term that means something specific to
> most people  that hear it is beyond me.

As follows:

1) The "tor community" as we consider ourselves collectively, are under
the umbrella of Tor Inc.

2) As said many times in the past, and loudly proclaimed on the tpo
website, both Tor Inc, and therefore the community that has arisen under
its aegis, consider certain principles as foundations of our community,
and as reasonable expectations (and frankly, stated intentions) to be
achieved - transparency, privacy, anonymity, trust etc.

3) The term "FOI" hints at this "duty" we project upon Tor Inc, it hints
at our community members' expectations that this particular request be
treated -not- as a flippant "oh by the way, can I get a copy of all
these documents", but a little more seriously, to treat the request as
sincere, genuine, in the interests of the community, and that likely a
lot of us onlookers ("community members") will in fact be treating the
response to this "FOI" request with this level of gravitas.


So, it was not only an entirely appropriate term to use in this request
that grarpamp made, matching what "we" consider a "duty" of a sort, upon
Tor Inc, pursuant to its position in this community, but gave a little
hint to those who actually care about this community, who care about the
fallout happening at the moment, and who care about the truth, to keep
our eyes open and perhaps, respectfully, do our bit to support this
community.

Why that cannot be considered eminently reasonable?