Info from reddit:

>The page moved. This is the page in question: http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/e-scams Read the note: For the the latest e-scams and warnings, visit the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. Here's where the one in question is specifically: https://www.ic3.gov/media/2012/121012.aspx Here's the internet archive of the original page where it was removed: https://web.archive.org/web/20150201005359/http://www.fbi.go... The text in the new page is identical! They didn't delete it. Edit: If the author of the article really cared about the truth of the matter, he could have taken 2 minutes to follow the new link they provided and found the page. That's how long it too me to find it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/48gxlq/fbi_claims_...

>>> "we conducted a search of the locations or entities where records responsive to your request would reasonably be found. We were unable to locate records responsive to your request."

That's the problem. The OP believes he has described where the data is, but in reality he has only described the change. You need to describe in which of the many FBI databases you want them to look. Funny story... Techdirt is well aware of the problem.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150626/09583531469/how-f...

I think the author is giving the FBI way too much credit by expecting them to document this. Whether the intent behind taking it down was nefarious or not, I really doubt they would have documented the action.

I can't say whether the FBI's intent was nefarious or not, but I used to work for the Fed and have some experience in FOIA as well working with them.

First, not all website changes go through some high level review. We had an internal tech team that did our websites. The big stuff would be reviewed, but minor revisions would not necessarily. It's like if you have a personal website and see something that you think could be worded better or weird formatting, you just jump in and change it. It's not clear to me that this is some conspiracy versus someone just cleaning up the page.

Second, I'm not sure how this stuff is documented. If someone had sent me a FOIA request asking for some specific documents, that's easy. But how exactly to find documented deletions, I probably would have gone to IT to see if there was any sort of log and whether those logs were saved. Many things are required to be saved under a required Records Retention Schedule, but I'm not clear whether edits to the website fall under this.

Third, the people I met in FOIA are generally helpful. If something is worded wrong, they don't just throw out the request, they try to understand what the request was actually looking for and contact the requester. There was a customer service aspect to the job of course. I can't speak for everyone at every agency, but that was my experience.

Fourth, in all my experience internally with FOIA and Privacy Act stuff, I never heard once of anyone saying to cover something up or return garbage or anything. Many times something legitimately couldn't be found, but it was never intentional and we tried really hard to make sure things were returned if there was anything responsive.

I flagged this one, since (as documented by ikeboy here, and elsewhere) the recommendation still exists[0]. Maybe it was moved, but it obviously wasn't deleted.

[0] "Depending on the type of phone, the operating system may have encryption available. This can be used to protect the user's personal data in the case of loss or theft."