My CSIRO FOIA request
On 29 August 2022, I submitted an FOIA request to the CSIRO, as follows:
"I seek all emails, sent to/from or cc'd, CSIRO staff, including any attachments, for the period 1 June 2021 to 29 August 2022; which contain keywords "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena;" and/or "UAP" and/or "UAPs" and/or "Unidentified Flying Object" and/or "UFO."
A response letter, dated 20 September 2022, FOI 2022/46, included the following reply:
"CSIRO's FOI team has conducted internal enquiries to ascertain how many potentially relevant documents CSIRO might hold that relate to your request and the work required to search for, identify and collate those documents, prior to reviewing them and preparing a decision in response to your request.
Given the amount of work we estimate that would be required, I have decided that I need to send you this notice of an intention to refuse access to the documents you have requested...
The results of our searches todate indicate that CSIRO is likely to hold at least approximately 22,500 items including emails and attachments, that may be relevant to your request...
This amount of items concerning a topic about which the CSIRO says it does not research or investigate, seemed excessive, and I wondered how this volume of items could be possible?
Grant Lavac
In October 2022, Melbourne researcher Grant Lavac submitted his own FOIA request, ultimately scoped as:
"...a copy of all emails and supporting file attachments (excluding media clippings); sent to/from or cc'd CSIRO staff for the period 1 July 2022 to 5 October 2022 (inclusive) that contain any of the following keywords: Unidentifed Aerial Phenomena, Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena, Unexplained Aerial Phenomena, Unexplained Aerospace Phenomena, Unidentified Flying Object, UFO, Unidentified Flying Objects, UFOs, Unauthorised Aircraft Movement, Unauthorised Aircraft Movements, Unusual Aerial Sighting.
The CSIRO, in a letter dated 18 November 2022, in part responded:
"I confirm that electronic searches were conducted by CSIRO Information Managment and Technology staff of all CSIRO email accounts...The searches resulted in a very high volume of documents being captured, including emails containing numerous media feeds that were addressed to multiple employees...From the roughly 7,000 items captured...CSIRO's FOI team identified four documents that fall within the scope of your request due to the inclusion of one of the keywords..."
Four documents
1. An email dated 1 July 2022 from [redacted] to [redacted A&F, Black Mountain] Subject: Whata headline. "I wonder what they were going out there? Sounds suss. And where is the wheel? UFO country out there."
There was a link shown of https://duchetridao.com/two-men-mired-and-lost-on-south-african-outback-dirt-road-for-two-days-rescued-by-police
2. An email dated 28 September 2022 from [redacted L&W, Sandy Bay] to Green Acres Hydroponics, "...unfortunately one of our 200w UFOs we bought off you has spontaneously stopped working..."
3. An email dated 5 October 2022 from [redacted A & O Hobart to [redacted] subject Re: Freezer UFO13." "...freezer in constant alarm." Unless this is a repeat of the 2013 story of an "alien kept in a freezer," then it is of no value to us.
4. An email dated 5 October 2022 from [redcated\ to [redacted] subject freezer in alarm. "The upright -80 freezer UFO13..."
So, of the 7,000 items captured between 1 July and 5 October 2022, we end up with four documents. Compare this to the approximately 22,500 items captured for my request between 1 June 2021 and 29 August 2022, and we do not know how many actual relevant documents would have resulted if they had gone through the 22,500 items. However, given the nature of the four documents provided to Grant Lavac; it is reasonable to deduce that the approximately, 22,500 items would have produced may be a dozen documents. If these dozen were of the same quality as the four released to Grant, then they would have been of no value to us.
Maybe you should reduce the scope of the dates you requested info for to get small sample of the types of documents you would get. From that you could modify a second request as many results might not be relevant.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thought.
Deletehttps://duchetridao.com/two-men-mired-and-lost-on-south-african-outback-dirt-road-for-two-days-rescued-by-police
ReplyDeleteIs a mistranslation of
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-28/Two men bogged and lost on SA outback dirt track for two days rescued by police
This duchetridao.com site is not reachable without pre-arranged access:
"It depends on what you assume it's being used for. Sure, the site may contain no accessible content - it's still an active domain, email forwarding works. Any mail sent there gets forwarded to the sites actual owner, who is screened.
When you set up a website via hosting you have a number of folders at a specific IP address only you have access to via an FTP client.
Through that you can up load your active website, update, chop and change, etc - but - if your only looking for the hosting space on the server you can upload any content you like. It isn't visible externally and the host doesn't care - kind of like a Drive or Drop box account, you can share access direct with whomever you like, all you need to do is give them the ip and login password, the person who you want to share with plugs that into an FTP Client their end, you can then transfer files to each other via the host site.
Nobody sees anything externally and your host site has no business checking on the content - both users are insulated either end, especially if operated via VPN."
It sounds very much like someone (the Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the Central Intelligence Agency, identified in your post last month as the source of information to ASIO and DIO via RHMCSXX) has created a system to disseminate this type of information via unofficial means, therefore circumventing future FOIA requests.
Circumvented until the recipient reveals it when they get FOIA'd!
This sounds very dodgy Keith, why would CSIRO go to such extreme measures if "UFOs don't exist"?
Request for docs with the word “anomalous” within the same range.
ReplyDelete