Randy, I get your frustration and needing to vent; however, I believe this thread is going to exasperate the problem. As noted by many who posted here, this isn't something most people were aware of. I see FOIA requests for not just you, but others in the industry skyrocketing as word spreads.
You could be right. I thought about that possibility. For me, given how this stuff has ramped up in the last two years, both in volume and scope of years that people are requesting information on, there is probably not a hunt we've been on in the last five years that hasn't been subject to a FOIA or state information law request.
Quite honestly, I could care less if people know where we hunt. We meet so many people out in the field who recognize our rig or our crew that not much is ever "secret." What does bother me is the film permit applications and how it is being leveraged in a way that does not happen to film permit applicants outside of the hunting space.
What set it off yesterday was a film permit application where someone wanted confidential information that was not necessary and not required by law or Federal Regulation. Even after a series of email exchanges that showed the requested information is not necessary/required and my pleading to the person and their supervisor of how FOIA requests are resulting in my confidential information ending up in the public domain, I still don't have any assurance that we will get a film permit. In this instance, I will just cross that hunt off our list before I will give something as invasive and onerous as is being requested as part of that film permit application.
After that email exchange and reading the other emails cataloged in that folder of recent inquiries and accusations, I decided to make this post. You are right that it might increase the number of people asking for my, or yours, hunting applications and draw results. If it does ramp up, I suspect a serious backlash to state agencies when private citizens start becoming the target for hunters too lazy to do their own research.
It is troublesome that hunting tag applications, not just mine, but anyone who applies for tags, is subject to having their information provided to any person who asks for it. Maybe I have to accept that our society is changing in a strange way and we as hunters being a cross section of that society will change our collective behavior in a similar manner.
I fully support FOIA laws and similar state based laws. But, it seems those open information laws are being used/abused/pushed far beyond what they were intended for. Most all of them were intended for "Open and Transparent Government;" passed to support the important efforts keep elected officials honest and keep government from operating in back rooms. I doubt those rules were intended for private citizens to have their tag applications (or insert any other interaction citizens have with their governments) shared with the entire world.
I accept this kind of stuff comes with the territory I operate in. That said, when I think it is unreasonable and getting out of hand, I feel it is helpful to use our platforms to push back.
