Been there with a 33M cost estimate [1]. If the requester is reading this -- hold them to it and request a much smaller but still significant amount of records. Use that as the foundation for "how much time it actually takes". Another option is to get clever with helping them with means and modes of review/redaction. This is how I got the email metadata for 6M emails from Houston for example.
Wow, that bash script they wanted him to run would have absolutely thrashed his drive:
head -500000 /dev/urandom > fill_unused_space
while [ 1 ] ; do
echo " "
echo "Making a copy of the large file on `date`"
cp fill_unused_space fill_unused_space`date +%s` || break
echo " "
echo "Pass $counter. Display how full the file systems are:"
df
done
How many times can your system overwrite a 500k file in a second? Hopefully it wouldn't get flushed each time, saving your disk.
There are some really hilarious responses when asking for student grade distributions (i.e. records they 100% have):
> Purdue University does not have such a record in existence. One would have to be created in order to fulfill your request. Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act puts no obligation on a public agency to create a record in order to satisfy a records request. Therefore, Purdue has no records to provide.
> The University of Utah received your GRAMA request. In that request you seek grade distributions for all formal courses at the University of Utah for the last five years. You requested this information in a digital CSV format. We can only provide a paper format. The report for the last five years is 9,714 pages. The reasonable copying fee for documents responsive to most GRAMA requests is $.25 per copy. Therefore, your cost for this report will be $2,428.50.
Often you can request it in the format they have available, etc. You can also apply pressure by submitting a different request, i.e. all the invoices or secondary records, then have AI scan them.
Less egregious, but still egregious, a few weeks ago a local news investigator in Houston was quoted $121,000 for public records request related to Flock cameras:
FOIA requests that have to be redacted are labor intensive.
However, flock shouldn’t need to be redacted right? They’re just public webcams. Lots of those already exist and many stream live.
The police still have to redact all the times the cops accessed the camera feeds to stalk women, creep on children, and spy on people they don't like, plus remove any instances of the police (both on and off the clock) committing crimes that just happened to get caught by these cameras. Of course it's going to take "14 years of labor" to edit that stuff out.
All digital government records should already be freely distributed. This is basically the same thing as poll extortion tax. You want to use your rights? Then pay up! Oh you didn't go away yet? Pay up even more!
It still will often be expensive, because governments have a lot of personal data about citizens that interact (often involuntarily) with those governments.
Unless you think those citizens should lose their privacy rights the records concerning them need to be redacted before distribution.
> governments have a lot of personal data about citizens that interact (often involuntarily) with those governments.
If it's recorded on a Flock camera it happened in public where there's zero expectation of privacy. If the police in Texas are being so careless about people's actually private data that it's showing up in Flock camera feeds the public should absolutely be able to see the evidence of that so that something can be done to stop it.
Another example from Vermont's governor's office: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/vermont-80/email-metadata-55744...
Happy to help more but I'll probably be unavailable tonight.
[1] https://mchap.io/that-time-the-city-of-seattle-accidentally-...
0 - https://www.ia.nato.int/niapc/Product/BCWipe_178
There are some really hilarious responses when asking for student grade distributions (i.e. records they 100% have):
> Purdue University does not have such a record in existence. One would have to be created in order to fulfill your request. Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act puts no obligation on a public agency to create a record in order to satisfy a records request. Therefore, Purdue has no records to provide.
> The University of Utah received your GRAMA request. In that request you seek grade distributions for all formal courses at the University of Utah for the last five years. You requested this information in a digital CSV format. We can only provide a paper format. The report for the last five years is 9,714 pages. The reasonable copying fee for documents responsive to most GRAMA requests is $.25 per copy. Therefore, your cost for this report will be $2,428.50.
Often you can request it in the format they have available, etc. You can also apply pressure by submitting a different request, i.e. all the invoices or secondary records, then have AI scan them.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/10/05/texas-flock-cameras-...
Less egregious, but still egregious, a few weeks ago a local news investigator in Houston was quoted $121,000 for public records request related to Flock cameras:
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/09/24/harris-c...
Unless... no, that couldn't have been a lie, could it? The government would never try to overcharge anyone, right?
Unless you think those citizens should lose their privacy rights the records concerning them need to be redacted before distribution.
If it's recorded on a Flock camera it happened in public where there's zero expectation of privacy. If the police in Texas are being so careless about people's actually private data that it's showing up in Flock camera feeds the public should absolutely be able to see the evidence of that so that something can be done to stop it.