[privateSFacct]

Dude, trying to get proof is not proof.

For all they know ancestry didn't even ask the state to do the work but did it for them for free, and then after doing the work themselves gave it to these guys (not required).

So no cost estimate needed, no fight about cost needed.

You've got one group demanding detailed costs estimates, demanding names of vendors (the government probably doesn't even have yet because they've not bid it yet).

You've got ancestry who shows up, willing to work for free, willing to give images back, with past experience.

Do we seriously want government to turn group #2 away and battle away with group #1?

Or do we want govt to let group #2 do the work, no battle on price needed, then give the items to group #1. After exercising some common sense, the government is now going to be sued by these guys.

[matthewmacleod]

You have made the same misleading comments over and over again and it seems unreasonable.

The situation we have here is that something seems suspicious. From the perspective of this group, who have a fair bit of experience at this, either Ancestry stumped up what they consider an unreasonable sum, or they performed digitisation under what they consider unreasonable circumstances. Why is it unreasonable to require the state to explain what happened?

[SpelingBeeChamp]

> Why is it unreasonable to require the state to explain what happened?

Because nothing requires them to explain what happened.

With a few notable exceptions, public records statutes only provide a right of access to extant records. They do not require agencies to answer questions or provide information.

That's just the way it is.

Reclaim the Records:

I read all of the publicly available court filings in your lawsuit. I'll reserve my comments on its merits for now and will simply recommend that you focus your PR efforts on the actual violations you are alleging in your lawsuit, and not on the possibility that Ancenstry.com was treated favorably vis-à-vis Reclaim the Records.

To be brutally honest, your focus on the latter sounds like whiney sour grapes at this stage, as you have zero solid evidence indicating that anything nefarious happened.

I completely understand the 'hot news' value of some public records. (I earn my living from it.) I also understand your suspicions about what happened as well as your interest in obtaining all records relating to the Ancenstry.com records request and its processing.

But until you have those records, your only potentially legitimate complaint is that they have not fulfilled their obligations under the FOIL. That's it.

Focus on that, otherwise you are going to see this thread repeating itself.

(For examples of what I mean, your website's page linked to in this very post literally highlights that Ancestry.com "received their copies of the records first" and that Ancestry.com "cut-and-pasted" "the exact words" of your organization's FOIL request. Unless you are suing Ancestry.com for copyright infringement, come on. People "steal" my request language all the time. It's only significant if something funky happened regarding preferential access.)

Good luck.

[acct1771]

Their communications regarding this are now FOIA-able, no?

[Asparagirl]

That’s the whole point! We’re not asking questions of the New York State Department of Health, we’re asking them for copies under FOIL of their e-mails, contracts, bids, evaluation materials, meeting notes, and such.

And the NYS DOH was like “nah”. Which is shady, and possibly illegal. So here we are.

[jhall1468]

> Because nothing requires them to explain what happened.

Actually that's the point of discovery in a lawsuit, and discovery absolutely compels both New York and Ancestry to provide explanations via evidence.

So you managed to be wrong on multiple accounts in a single sentence. You keep talking about "evidence". The point of discovery in a lawsuit is to discover evidence of wrong-doing.