It’s unreasonable to request six months’ worth of emails simply because they contain the term “anti-retaliation.” What’s the goal here? Are you hoping to find a smoking gun? And if you do find it, what’s next? To me, this feels like an abuse of resources and a counterproductive approach. When you lack influence, the more strategic move is to find someone with the necessary authority and align incentives to make progress.
Additionally, I wouldn’t categorize this as a roadblock, but more as an opportunity to remind the requester that there are real costs associated with their unnecessary demands.
I FOIA government agencies frequently. Asking for a keyword in specific mailboxes for time windows of one year is not overly burdensome, and I’ve paid a subject matter expert to provide an opinion on appeals. You can also request retention schedules and email information system data to reinforce this approach, as well as FOIA request logs to understand if others have requested what you’re looking for.
Reasonable costs are up for debate, that is what the process is for. Hourly rate * quantity of artifacts requiring review for potential redaction is a rough approximation of what cost outcome will be. As a technologist, I know what the effort is to perform discovery in Google Workspace or O365, others should be able to demonstrate this trivially.
Well, if it ain't a Nazi bar it's certainly the Hotel California. I'd happily delete my account if that were permitted, but it isn't, and I'm sure as hell not going to email the management and say "pretty please".
Additionally, I wouldn’t categorize this as a roadblock, but more as an opportunity to remind the requester that there are real costs associated with their unnecessary demands.