In recent weeks, we've noted how ISPs are now moving beyond broadband usage caps and overage fees, and have begun charging users a $30-$35 premium if they want to avoid usage caps entirely. While the industry often dresses this up as everything from "improved flexibility and choice" to something necessary for the sake of fairness, it is, quite simply, an aggressive rate hike on uncompetitive markets. Users are being socked with dramatic new limits and fees -- simply because most have no real competitors to flee to.

Entirely uncoincidentally, the House is now pushing for new legislation that would hamstring the FCC's ability to regulate broadband rates. The "No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act" (pdf) is set to be debated this week in Congress, and would, according to a press release by the Energy and Commerce Committee, prevent the FCC from regulating rates charged for broadband Internet, "just as the administration promised when they reclassified access to the Internet as a utility under Title II of the Communications Act."

Except according to a Medium post by attorney Harold Feld, the bill tries to use a special definition of "rate regulation" to ban the FCC from, well, doing much of anything:

"H.R. 2666’s language would protect broadband providers from any “review” or “enforcement” of their prices, and prevent the FCC from even “declaring” — let alone addressing — any broadband prices or fees as even “unreasonable.” To make this even more clear, the bill prohibits the FCC from reviewing any prices, fees, or overages “regardless of any other provision of law.” That goes way beyond the FCC’s traditional rate setting authority. “Any other provision of law” includes the FCC’s mandate to promote competition and its consumer protection authority."

So basically, the House, at the behest of large ISPs, is looking to further neuter the FCC. Not only so it can't protect consumers from usage caps and price gouging, but to try and derail the FCC's plan to expand consumer broadband privacy protections, or say, open up the cable set top box to additional competition.

It should probably be reiterated that while the FCC says it does have the authority to regulate some rates under Title II and its net neutrality rules (preventing "paid prioritization," for example), the agency so far has shown no interest in really doing so. Whether it's a $300 million national broadband map that fails to show broadband prices (at industry behest), to the agency's continued blind eye to hidden fees, usage caps and zero rating, the FCC has made it abundantly clear that it finds a large amount of the broadband industry's current price gouging just "creative experimentation."

But while the FCC hasn't done much about broadband prices directly, it has tried to shore up competition in the market so prices drop organically, including support for municipal broadband. Between this, the agency's push for privacy rules, and net neutrality, the House has made it abundantly clear it plans to punish the FCC for standing up to giant ISPs like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. As such, if it isn't a series of pointless, FCC "fact finding" hearings, it's yet another bill like this one that aims to tie the FCC's arms securely behind its back.

As it stands, there remain just two serious ways to roll back net neutrality and the FCC's decision to reclassify ISPs as common carriers under Title II: win the election and gut the FCC and its decision, or win the ongoing lawsuits against the FCC (a ruling on that front is expected soon). The House likely knows this, but is apparently keen to try and earn its telecom campaign contributions by putting on one hell of a taxpayer-funded show.

Last fall, Comcast added a new wrinkle to its plan to impose arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps on the company's broadband customers. It began charging users a $30-$35 premium if users wanted to avoid caps, effectively turning the idea of unlimited data into a luxury option many could no longer afford. Caps continue to be a great way to impose price hikes on uncompetitive broadband markets, charge more money for the same service, with the added bonus of both curtailing -- and cashing in on -- the growing use of Internet video.

And because the broadband market is so uncompetitive, AT&T this week effectively just came out and decided it would follow Comcast's lead. In a blog post, the company announced that it's bumping the usage caps on its U-Verse broadband customers, but it's also going to be following Comcast's lead and charging users a $30 premium if they want to avoid them entirely. That is, unless you sign up for AT&T or DirecTV (now owned by AT&T) TV services:

"On May 23 we will introduce a new unlimited data option for our U-verse home Internet customers. Customers who subscribe only to our home Internet service who anticipate they will use more data than their new higher monthly data allowance – or who don’t want to think about how much data they are using – can sign up for unlimited home Internet data for $30 more a month. If you have AT&T U-verse Internet and DIRECTV® or U-verse TV service and pay for your services on a single bill you will automatically get unlimited home Internet data at no additional charge – a discount worth $30 a month.

What sweethearts! To soft sell the idea, AT&T emphasizes that they're raising the company's previous caps, but it forgets to mention (and most news outlets aren't noticing) that it had never bothered to enforce caps on U-Verse previously, effectively making these new caps. And like other ISPs before it, AT&T tries to argue that the caps aren't a big idea because most of its customers won't run into them:

"Today, our home Internet customers use just over 100 GB of data per month on average. So even with our smallest U-verse Internet data allowance of 300 GB the average customer has plenty of data to do more...If you don’t have unlimited home Internet data and you exceed your data allowance at any point during the billing cycle, you will receive increments of 50 GB of additional data for $10 each. The usage of approximately 4% of AT&T U-verse Internet customers currently exceeds our new higher data allowance.

The fact that the majority of your customers won't hit the caps now doesn't mean they won't in a year or two. It also doesn't magically explain away the reality that usage caps on fixed-line networks simply aren't necessary. They exist solely as a way to take advantage of uncompetitive markets, charging users more money for the same product. They're also an ingenious, anti-competitive way of protecting legacy TV revenue from Internet video. But an ISP can't come out and just say that, so AT&T sells it as a way for consumers to have "more choices":

"We want to continue providing a great experience for our Internet customers so we’re giving U-verse® Internet customers more choices and more data, including an unlimited data option available to any U-verse Internet customer."

Again, forcing customers to pay more money for the same service isn't giving consumers more choices. All AT&T's doing is imposing a glorified price hike. That's after the company announced it would be charging users a different $30 fee to opt out of AT&T snoopvertising, making privacy a luxury option just like unlimited data. It's yet another example of how the only real competition in the broadband industry -- is a competition over who can screw a captive market the hardest while with a straight face proclaiming they're improving the "customer experience."

Nothing quite tells the public to mind its own business like attaching a ridiculous fee demand to an FOIA response. It's pretty easy to price the public out of the transparency market, seeing as it doesn't have access to the monetary resources its tax dollars are paying for.

We've covered a few of the more ridiculous FOIA fee demands here at Techdirt, like:

The City of Ferguson charging $135/hour for FOIA response work -- a rate roughly 10 times the hourly wage of entry-level city clerk's office employees.

The City of McKinney telling Gawker emails related to a police misconduct investigation would run 9,000 hours and cost $79,000.

The Florida State's Attorney's Office demanding $180,000 to turn over records on a questionable suicide.

The FBI telling MuckRock that it would cost $270,000 to respond to an FOIA request about Booz Allen -- and that's with an electronic file "discount" of over $6,000 applied.

MuckRock has now topped that last number… exponentially. Martin Peck's FOIA request for information on the Dept. of Defense's use of "HotPlug" systems (a portable power pack that keeps seized devices from powering down) has resulted in an FOIA fee estimate exceeding a half-billion dollars.

Mr. Robert R. Jarrett, Director of Operations, Defense Procurement Acquisition Policy, and a FOIA Initial Denial Authority, stated that it is possible that contracts that acquired the requested items are present in the Electronic Documents Access (EDA) system; however, there are more than 30 million contracts in EDA, consisting of more than 45 million documents. No method exists for a complete text search of EDA, as some documents are scans of paper copies. The estimated time required to perform the necessary redactions of proprietary data, assuming 20 minutes per document, is estimated to be 15 million labor hours at an estimated cost of $660 million.

While this amount may be couch change for the DoD (0.1% of its $573 billion budget), it's ridiculously out of reach for any US citizen without billions of dollars to their name. Then there's the question of feasibility. Even if every man, woman and child in America tossed MuckRock a couple of bucks to push this request forward, the estimate of 15 million labor hours suggests the DoD will never fulfill it. If the DoD throws 30 people at the problem 24 hours a day without a day off, Peck still shouldn't expect a response until 2073 at the earliest.

This astronomical estimate says two things about the DoD, though. One, it apparently uses these forensic devices frequently enough that searching for responsive documents will be a massive undertaking. Two, it says the Electronic Document Access system is not nearly as useful as its name would suggest, what with document scans not being searchable. This is a government-wide problem and one that no one's too interested in fixing.

Many FOIA responses contain documents scanned at skewed angles using the worst hard copy available. It happens often enough that it almost appears the government is seeking to maintain a level of obfuscation while still paying lip service to transparency. Sure, a released document is better than no response at all, but the insistence on releasing documents capable of defeating OCR software prevents collation of similar documents and thwarts search efforts for relevant info -- both on the government's end and the public's.

This decision will be appealed and the request narrowed significantly, but I imagine the DoD's database will continue to thwart both its FOIA response team and requesters like Peck, for years to come.

The NYPD is once again in the middle of a transparency/accountability controversy. The law enforcement agency has achieved the dubious distinction of being more difficult to obtain public records from than federal three-letter agencies like the CIA and NSA. The latest news does nothing to improve its reputation.

Some of this is due to its in-house classification system, which allows it to arbitrarily declare potentially-responsive documents "secret" -- something it does quite often with no apparent oversight. Some of it is due to the department's general antagonism towards transparency and openness, which keeps documents not marked secret out of the public's hands just because. Its steadfast belief that the only entity truly entitled to information is the NYPD has seen this attitude carried over to discovery requests in civil lawsuits and criminal cases, much to the general disgruntlement of presiding judges.

With the NYPD's court-ordered body camera program going into effect, the recorded footage is the latest target of FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requests. TV station NY1 asked for a "sampling" of body-worn camera footage from five weeks of recording. In return, the NYPD has given it nothing but delays… and a high-dollar estimate.

When the NYPD first rolled out its body camera pilot program, the idea was increased transparency and accountability. But last spring when NY1 requested five weeks worth of footage under the state’s Freedom of Information Law, known as FOIL, the NYPD said it would cost NY1 $36,000 so that an officer could first review and edit the video, to address privacy and other concerns.

After a couple rounds of appeals, the TV station has taken the next step. It sued the NYPD, citing a number of FOIL violations.

The NYPD denied NY1's request for unedited footage without specifying what material it plans to redact, how much material will be excluded from disclosure, or how the redaction will be performed. Instead, Respondents suggested that they may provide with edited footage, but only on the condition that remit $36,000.00, the alleged cost to the NYPD of performing its unidentified redactions.

FOIL does not permit public records to be withheld absent a full explanation of the materials that are exempt from disclosure. FOIL also does not permit agencies to levy any charge for review and redaction of records (let alone a $36,000.00 charge). As a result, the response to NY1's request violates FOIL.

Indeed, the response to NY1's request for footage runs counter to both the public policy of openness underlying FOIL, as well as the purported transparency supposedly fostered by the BWC program itself.

Redacting footage isn't necessarily inexpensive, but the NYPD has provided no justification for the $36,000 fee. The FOIL request doesn't ask for anything more than a "sampling" of the recorded footage. The NYPD responses don't specify whether the agency considers this to be every minute of footage recorded during those time periods, or something considerably more limited.

It is true that the footage will have to be redacted, at least in part. But without further information, the "reasonableness" of the NYPD's fee demand can't be assessed. This FOIL paywall runs contrary to the law's purpose, as well as the presumption of disclosure stressed in comments made by NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who lauded the new body-worn camera program as a step forward in transparency and accountability. If the footage remains solely in the possession of the NYPD, there will be no additional transparency or accountability.

On the other hand, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton seems to feel the state's public record law only applies to other government agencies. The NYPD currently ranks at the bottom of the list for city agency FOIL responsiveness. That seems unlikely to change if this is how the department responds to requests for footage.

"We have never released 911 calls, and video recorded by these officers, I think, would be under the same protection of not being released, even to FOIL requests," said Police Commissioner William Bratton.

Unfortunately, this response from the NYPD -- despite effectively pricing NY1 out of the market for these public records -- directly contradicts the commissioner's beliefs. Obviously, the NYPD FOIL team feels these documents are responsive to public records requests. However, it's more than willing to do whatever it takes to ensure this responsiveness remains in the realm of the theoretical.

Comcast certainly had quite a year. When it wasn't busy failing to justify its latest attempted mega merger or criticizing bloggers for calling its top lobbyist a lobbyist, the company continued to deliver what's statistically the worst customer service of any company in the United States. This is before you consider the company's latest efforts to expand usage caps, and use those usage caps to give their own streaming services a leg up, while payrolling the industry's attempt to kill net neutrality protections.

As a bow on the shit show that was Comcast in 2015, the company is spreading good cheer for the new year in the only way it knows how: major rate hikes for nearly all of the company's services. The company is not only jacking up the costs of most of its TV services, it's raising the rates on most Comcast installer "services", from installing a new coax jack to the fees charged for upgrading or downgrading your service packages. Also being hiked is the company's relatively-recent (and aggressively misleading) "broadcast TV fee":

"Comcast also will hike a "broadcast TV fee" by 66 percent to $5 a month from $3. This relatively new fee covers the cost of retransmission fees that over-the-air broadcast TV networks - CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox - charge cable companies for distributing their networks on pay-TV systems. Retransmission fees and sports are the two biggest inflationary-costs pressures in TV bills, according to industry observers and Comcast executives."

Except, as the report fails to note, these programming costs are simply the cost of doing business -- and should be included in the advertised rate. Instead, companies like Comcast tuck this bogus fee below the line to covertly jack up the advertised price post sale. Of course, cable operators are quick to proclaim that programmers are solely responsible for users' soaring cable bills, but as you'll note the cost of everything is going up at Comcast/NBC, from the cost you'll pay for installer service to the $4 (previously $3) you have to pay for digital adapters.

Clinging to one of the stalest and most insulting price hike justifications in the industry, Comcast claimed the cost increases were necessary to provide that amazing "customer experience" its customers consistently complain they don't get:

"Comcast spokesman Jeff Alexander said the company continues to invest in its network and technology "and to give customers more for their money - like faster Internet service and more WiFi hot spots, more video across viewing screens, better technology like X1, and a better customer experience."

Right. That's the same "customer experience" that's so consistently awful, the company's dysfunction goes viral on almost a weekly basis. Some companies are content just aggressively milking the legacy markets they've dominated quietly. Comcast's a different animal entirely, aggressively pushing the barrier on new and amazing anti-competitive ideas with relentless aplomb. The company's political muscle ensured regulators turned a blind eye for much of the last decade, but Comcast's attempt to protect this legacy empire with usage caps, overage fees, and zero rating its own streaming services -- may finally gift the company with a 2016 run in with the FCC.

The NYPD is jerking around FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requesters again. Usually, the NYPD just pretends it's the CIA (somewhat justified, considering its hiring of former government spooks) and claims everything is so very SECRET it couldn't possibly be edged out between the multiple exemptions it cites in its refusals.

It tried the usual deflectionary tactics with Shawn Musgrave, who's seeking the department's mandatory reports on firearms discharges by its officers. After five months of promising to get to his request, the NYPD finally sent out a response letter denying him access to every document he requested, citing a plethora of FOIL exemptions.

While the NYPD may be (purposefully) terrible at remembering pertinent FOIL-related court decisions, Musgrave isn't. He quickly responded with this:

The NYPD FOIL office has not claimed inability to find the requested 24-hour and 90-day reports following firearm discharges for 2010 through 2014. Rather, the NYPD errantly claims that these documents are exempt from release under FOIL for a variety of reasons.

All of the cited exemptions are categorically incorrect. No less an authority than the Supreme Court of the State of New York has ruled as much in a case that is virtually identical to the present request.

In January 2009, the New York Civil Liberties Union submitted a FOIL request to the NYPD for 24-hour and 90-day shooting incident reports from 1997 through 2008 (see http://www.nyclu.org/case/nyclu-v-nypd-seeking-access-police-shooting-incident-reports). As you can see from my original request, these are precisely the same documents I seek.

The NYPD rejected that request, claiming that such reports were exempt from disclosure pursuant to:
1) Public Officers Law 87(2)(a), New York Civil Rights Law 50-a(1);
2) Public Officers Law 87(2)(b) and 89(2);
3) Public Officers Law 87(2)(e)(i-iv);
4) Public Officers Law 87(2)(f);
5) Public Officers Law 87(2)(g);

Conveniently, these are the same exemptions by which the NYPD FOIL office has rejected my present request. I will allow Judge Goodman's ruling in the NYCLU case (see http://www.nyclu.org/files/releases/NYCLU%20v%20%20NYPD%20Shooting%20FOIL%20decision%202-14-11.pdf) to address the invalidity of the NYPD's response in my own case:

"The issue is whether the 24-hour and 90-day firearms discharge incident reports are categorically exempt from disclosure under FOIL. After a careful review of the NYPD Firearms Discharge Manual containing the 28 section form for the 24-hour and 90-day firearms discharge incident report, the Court finds that these reports are not categorically exempt."

Having been reminded that the Supreme Court of its home state had previously said it couldn't do the very thing it was attempting to do, the NYPD's FOIL team regrouped. A month later it finally admitted Musgrave's appeal had been accepted. Three weeks after that, it told him it could have all the documents the state's highest court had declared any citizen could access... for the price of a late model SUV.

It is estimated that the copying fee for preparation of the requested copies, including redaction and copying thereof, is $42,000. Preparation of the copies will commence upon receipt of payment of in the form of a check or money order in the amount of $42,000, payable to New York City Police Department.

The response doesn't explain how the NYPD reached this dollar amount. It simply states that it is the dollar amount the NYPD will be charging and that nothing will be done until the money is in its hands.

Having failed to discourage Musgrave with its bogus exemption ploy, the NYPD has gone for another favorite technique of open records request-resistant agencies: pricing requesters out of the market. Musgrave will certainly be appealing this estimate, but until forced to back down by higher authorities, the NYPD has successfully managed to evade yet another records request.

Kim Davis -- yes, THAT Kim Davis -- is proving to be as willfully obtuse in her other duties as a Kentucky county clerk as she has been in refusing to recognize the Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage. Her brief stint in the local jail for contempt charges hasn't dampened her indomitable spirit, much to the chagrin of her critics, fellow employees (except her son, who works in her office as a deputy clerk) and anyone still attempting to make their way past her refusal to separate church and state.

Shawn Musgrave has requested all of Kim Davis's emails (sent or received) from August 1st through September 16th. It would appear Davis's current status as a pariah/hero (mileage varies greatly) has resulted in an outpouring of support/hate. According to her estimate, there are 6,000 emails responsive to Musgrave's request. So, of course, she has decided to handle her office's response in the least efficient way possible.

Hello,

I have received your request and need to confirm, I can furnish you with all that you have requested. There are well over 6000 or so emails received/sent during the time period you have ask for. With that being said, there will be considerable time and paper consumed in the processing of your request. I am estimating approximately 40 hours of labor at $12.50 per hour to retrieve and print all emails, along with a copy fee of $.10 per copy and the open records $3.00 fee plus postage for mail (estimated $100.00) for the request. This would make the approximate amount due $1,203.00. Once that amount is received, ($1,203.00 will be considered a deposit until all the records have been processed, if it is less, I will refund you the difference, and if more is due, I will contact you with the additional amount due prior to releasing said records), your request can begin to be processed.

Respectfully,

Kim Davis
Rowan County Clerk

Yes, as you probably would have guessed even without seeing it in [print] pixels, Kim Davis is one of THOSE people. The kind of person who still thinks email is a passing fad/tool of the devil and views trips to the post office as social events. And if she isn't one of THOSE people, she's one of those OTHER people -- the kind of public servant who thinks the government's job is to be as much of a standoffish dick as possible to the "little people" who pay their salaries. (Think every DMV you've ever set foot in...)

Davis's response was probably meant to dissuade Musgrave from pursuing this further. She picked the wrong FOIA warrior to tangle with.

Musgrave's immediate followup was to ask why in the name of all that is considered holy by certain people/not-so-holy by others would someone print out 6,000 emails and hand them off to the next Pony Express rider?

Is it possible to avoid copying time and fees by sending electronic copies of the emails?

Best,
Shawn

Davis's tone then shifts from deliberately unhelpful to "I'm in charge here" dismissiveness.

Dear Sir,

I have responded to and conveyed what all was needed to be able to process your request. I do not have the means to transfer electronic and the email dated 9-16-2015 is still my response. Once you have sent the fees as I had indicated in the email dated 9-16-2015, your request will be processed as timely as possible.

I think what Davis is trying to say is she doesn't have the "technical capability" needed to "transfer electronic." And I'm going to assume she's above asking for help. If not, then she's just trying to make Musgrave pay for inconveniencing her with an open records request.

Musgrave asks for clarification on the inability to "transfer electronic" and receives nothing more than Davis impatiently tapping her finger on the printout of her original response to his request.

Musgrave then tries to get some assistance on appealing her decision to ramp up fees by felling a forest. Davis basically tells him he's screwed.

Dear Mr. Musgrave,

Your consideration regarding my response contrary to the spirit and letter of the KRS in estimating cost to your KORA request is not substantiated. The Attorney General Opinion from 2012 states 'the agency may, but is not required to, provide the requested format. The agency may then recover staff costs as well as any actual costs it incurs.'

I was trying to be fair in this request, while I do retain the right, through the Kentucky Open Records Law, to refuse your request all together, as it is an 'overly burdensome request'. Again, I will refer to the email dated 09-16-2015 for the cost of this request and upon receipt, your request will be processed in as timely manner as possible.

Nah. There's nothing "fair" about her response. It's now clear she's taken this open records request up as Yet Another Personal Crusade in which Davis abuses her elected position to withhold for as long as legally possible something the law requires her to hand over.

Musgrave then tells Davis he will be filing a complaint with the District Attorney over the excessive fees, as is provided for in Kentucky's open records laws. No dice.

Mr. Musgrave,

I have tried to be obliging to you and your request, however, if you feel I have not, you may do as you have stated in your email.

With that being said, if you feel reviewing and printing or transmitting well over 6000 emails is not a burdensome task, I am sorry. I have said many times prior and will say again in this email, I will be happy to complete your request, for the fees as discussed in the email dated 09-16-2015…

Musgrave says, "Let me help you lower the cost."

Ms. Davis -

That is a substantial number of emails, admittedly. I am attempting to lower your manhour requirement (as well as the cost) by requesting that emails be sent in electronic format, rather than printed. As printing comprises approximately half of your fee estimate, eliminating the print requirement would cut down the cost considerably.)

And with that, Davis is done discussing this with Musgrave. After two more attempts to have the unresolved issue (the unnecessary printing of electronic mail) cleared up -- and receiving no response from Kim Davis -- Musgrave utilizes a communication Davis might be more familiar with.

Ms. Davis -

As you've stopped replying to emails regarding my two open requests — both of which you initially acknowledged by email — I am reaching out by fax.

Apparently Davis still answers faxes. But her answer is the same obstinate recital of her first estimate and a brief reminder that nothing will be returned to him until payment is made. A little more back-and-forth confirms Davis believes she's entirely in the right and that Musgrave's threatened appeal will go nowhere.

Because it appears nothing will move forward without payment and/or the District Attorney weighing in on the massive tree cull Davis has planned, Musgrave is crowdfunding the release of these emails over at MuckRock. The final total appears to be nearly $1,400. For 6000 emails that could easily fit on a single $10 USB stick/$1 blank DVD.

What makes Davis' response even worse is that when the emails finally arrive in paper format, Musgrave will have to spend his own time converting them back to electronic format. It's yet another case where government employees begrudgingly follow the letter of the law while steamrolling right over its spirit.

Once again, a government agency is attempting to price itself out of the public records market. The Hayward (CA) police department told the National Lawyers Guild that it needed to come up with $3,000 before it would turn over requested body camera footage.

In response to this gouging, the ACLU, in conjunction with the NLG, has opened up its wallet legal fund.

The suit alleges that, on Jan. 27, 2015, the NLG, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, submitted a PRA request to Hayward PD for body worn camera footage from Hayward police officers who participated in crowd control during demonstrations in December 2014 to protest the refusal of grand juries to indict police officers involved in the deaths of two African American men, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. A number of protestors were injured by the police during these demonstrations. On May 15, 2015, Hayward PD informed the NLG that they would have to pay the department $2,938.58 in order to receive the first round of body camera footage requested. The NLG paid this amount under protest, and faces similar cost bills for the additional video footage requested.

The ACLU points out that the PD's demand for nearly $3,000 in fees violates several parts of California's public records law.

Information that is in an electronic format must be made available in an electronic format when requested by any person and, when applicable, must comply with the following: (1) The agency shall make the information available in any electronic format in which it holds the information. (2) The agency shall provide a copy of the electronic record in the format requested if the requested format is one that has been used by the agency to create copies for its own use or for provision to other agencies.

The cost of duplication shall be limited to the direct cost of producing a copy of a record in an electronic format. Gov. Code § 6253.9(a).

An agency is only permitted to impose additional charges when the request would require data compilation, extraction, or programming to produce the record. Gov. Code § 6253.9(b).

The body camera video requested do not require compilation, extraction or programming.

Respondents have failed to make the records "promptly available" as required by Government Code § 6253(b).

Respondents require payment of unauthorized and excessive charges for the duplication and production of police body camera and hand held videos as a condition of producing such records to members of the public.

Furthermore, the ACLU notes that a failure to rein in the PD's demands for excessive fees will not only dissuade others from exercising their right to examine public records, but encourage the department to continue levying unlawful fees.

I do think the PD can legitimately argue some form of compilation and extraction has been performed to isolate the video footage requested, but it offered no explanation for the amount it charged for processing, much less what steps it took that resulted in this unknown number of billable hours.

Using fees to stymie requesters is one of the easiest ways for government agencies to maintain the opacity they're used to operating under. Even when the demand for excessive fees is accompanied by an explanation of the "costs" the agency is looking to recoup, the breakdowns seem to raise just as many questions as they answer. Whether it's the insistence on charging page duplication fees for responses served electronically, or somehow claiming a record system is impervious to existing search methods, the government still holds most of the cards when it comes to keeping the public separated from public records.

Comcast has slowly but surely been expanding the company's usage cap trials since around 2012, largely focusing them on less competitive markets where annoyed users can't vote with their wallets. In these seventeen (and counting) trial markets, Comcast broadband customers face a monthly usage cap of 300 gigabytes. After that, users need to shell out $10 for each additional 50 gigabytes of data consumed. The trials have expanded slowly but surely in the hopes of minimizing user backlash. Basically, Comcast is the hot water slowly coming to a boil, and you're the frog.

It appears that Comcast has now added a new wrinkle to the mix, and has started charging these trial users an extra $30 if they want to bypass usage caps. The company's FAQ for the new option tries to argue that the change is being made to provide consumers with greater "choice and flexibility":

The Unlimited Data Option provides additional choice and flexibility for our customers who may make heavier use of the Internet. Enrollment is optional. The Unlimited Data Option costs the current additional fee of $30 per calendar month, regardless of actual data usage. The 300 GB plan will not apply to customers who enroll in the Unlimited Data Option.

Yeah, that's bullshit. Back in 2012, users in these trial markets used to get uncapped Comcast broadband service as a matter of course. They now get to pay $30 more a month for the honor of avoiding Comcast's totally arbitrary and unnecessary usage restrictions. And it's all thanks, of course, to the painful lack of competition in most Comcast markets. While this "unlimited" option is currently only being tested in the Florida cap markets, Comcast has made it clear for years it hopes to impose this kind of punitive pricing system in all markets.

You'll recall the cable industry used to claim usage caps on fixed-line networks were necessary due to congestion (fear the Exaflood!). But as bandwidth costs dropped and intelligent network gear offered far more sophisticated ways of managing network load, the cable industry finally admitted that congestion had nothing to do with it. And while the cable industry now tries to argue that usage caps are necessary due to "fairness," they're really about one thing and one thing only: taking advantage of limited competition and protecting legacy TV revenues from Internet video.

If you peruse the Comcast usage cap FAQ you'll notice that Comcast doesn't even really bother with an explanation or justification as to why the caps are necessary, since even the nation's least-liked company knows any defense of this position is futile. This is about as close as Comcast gets to delivering a coherent explanation as to why these limits were imposed:

As the marketplace and technology change, we do too. We evaluate customer data usage, and a variety of other factors, and make adjustments accordingly. Over the last several years, we have periodically reviewed various plans, and recently we have been analyzing the market and our process through various data usage plan trials.

So yeah, we're not a massive incumbent telecom exploiting uncompetitive markets and lazy regulators, we're just experimentin' and changin' and what have you! Comcast has made it abundantly clear that it plans to keep expanding these usage caps (and charging you to avoid them) until either the competition fairy somehow materializes better broadband options out of the ether, or regulators wake the hell up and realize that usage caps on fixed-line networks are a predatory assault on captive customers, an affront to innovation, and an aggressive abuse of monopoly power.

It's been a while since we last checked in on PRS, a collection group in the UK that generally goes around acting as a kind of collection of prosthetic assbags for the musical artists it purports to represent. Actions like demanding money from a grocery store employee who happened to sing a song at work, demanding money from a woman who played some music for her horses, and demanding payment from small businesses it calls up on the off chance it might hear some music being played far off in the background are all taken under the theory that PRS has the best interests of the musical artists at heart. The problem with this theory is two-fold. First, it appears that, for a collection society, PRS is very terrible at collecting money, seeing as it has come to light that it doesn't have enough money for a copyright tribunal hearing over licensing with a television station. Second, in order to support that legal effort, PRS has decided to do what it always decides to do: slurp just a little bit more money away from the artists it represents.

When rights owners choose to licence as one through a collecting society, all deal making is subject to extra rules and regulations in order to satisfy competition law. If the society and a licensee cannot reach an agreement, the matter can be taken to a special court, which in the UK is called copyright tribunal. Which is what ITV is now doing having failed to agree a new deal with PRS covering broadcasts from the start of this year.

In the letter to its members, posted by the Music Law Updates website, the PRS executive board says that: “We feel it is vital that we fully participate and vigorously defend this referral to secure a fair return for the use of our members’ work. Copyright tribunals are costly but it’s important to protect and champion your work and ensure you are fairly remunerated whenever it is used."

And, with that supposed goal in mind, PRS announces that it will increase admin fees by 1 percent on all revenue it generates from music on television. Not just artists whose music is played on ITV, but all music on television. For those of you keeping score at home, that means a collection society that bills itself as a protector of artists' rights has unilaterally announced an increase in its fees because it actually has to do that job, and it's collecting those increased fees from members who do not stand to directly benefit from this legal action. That, my friends, is quite an operation they have going over there at PRS.

“The Executive Board has approved a proposal for a one percent increase in our TV admin rates for a period of one year, this being the fairest way of covering the expected costs in defending this referral. While the tribunal will only rule on the ITV licence, it is an important decision for all members whose music is played on TV, meaning we are sharing the cost across all our TV revenues”.

Yes, we're taking more money from you artists who will not be affected by this legal action over this license with this television station because it's extremely important to you, because we said it is. And, keep in mind, we alone have your best interests at heart, which is why we're taking more of your money.

It's always been this way. Collection societies serve as skimming operations, gently whisking away some percentage of revenue from artists under the guise of good intentions. But what else could you expect? Given how PRS treats the general public, why would artists expect to be treated any better?