Spent $60 on a FOIA request and it actually paid off lol

I got tired of hearing the same old arguments about that weird power outage in Phoenix last summer. So I filed a request for the official grid operator logs, cost about sixty bucks. Got the PDF last week, and the timestamps show a simple transformer fault, not some crazy cascade failure. It's nice to have the actual document to point to now. Anyone else tried getting official records to settle a debate?

4 comments

4 Comments

rowanw954mo ago

Spending money on a government request just to win an online argument seems a bit much. Was the debate really that heated? Most people just repeat what they hear and move on. I guess having the proof is cool, but I'd rather keep my sixty bucks.

jason_stone591mo ago

Is the Phoenix power outage really the hill you needed to die on? Like, was someone in your life actually losing sleep over this, or did you just get annoyed at random internet people? I get that it feels good to have the truth, but $60 is gas for a week or a nice dinner. If this was a big deal in your friend group then okay, but if it was some stranger on Twitter, you could have just linked the Department of Energy report and moved on. Feels like you spent real money on imaginary points.

felixhenderson4mo ago

Honestly, it's not just about winning an argument. Having the real document stops the same wrong story from spreading. That sixty bucks bought a permanent fact check.

-1

finley_shah644mo ago

But that sixty bucks only fixes one wrong story. The next person will just make up something new, and you can't buy every single document. The money is better spent on something that actually changes minds, like donating to a fact checking site.