网站要求披露信息未果 美国国防部：我们的传真机坏了

新华网9月17日电 据美国科技博客Gizmodo报道，你最近是不是根据《信息自由法》要求美国政府披露文件全文或部分呢？坏消息是美国国防部办公室的传真机坏了，而且一时半会儿修不好。

两周前，致力于政府信息透明的MuckRock网站发现他们所有请求披露信息的传真都发送失败。MuckRock决定联系国防部办公室，然后得到了以下（加密）声明：

“如果”我们的IT部门没有可替换的传真机，他们会订购一台。如果发生这种情况，那么他们在下一个财年开始之后（10月1日）才能申请。我们希望10月份能获得批准，不过可能会延迟到11月。

现在你肯定会有疑问。比如，一个拥有318亿美元预算的机构怎么只有一台传真机？更换一台传真机怎么能花费几个月的时间？最后，什么是传真机？所有这些问题恐怕都得不到有效的答案。

当然，你还有其他方式提交信息披露申请——纸质邮件和电子表格。但是Gizmodo的编辑发现在线表格一样不靠谱，不过也有几个成功了。所以，如果你在美国邮政和传真之间做出选择的话，你肯定会选择传真，那你就错了。（本来大家都认为这种高科技的政府部门应该有基本的技术支持，唉。）

不管因为什么原因，整个国防部办公室都依赖一台传真机。所以如果你想行使宪法赋予的权利，请不要发传真。因为你的传真件很可能被发送到未知空间里的“过时技术部门”，然后就没有然后了。

译者：林杉

百度新闻与新华网国际频道合作稿件，转载请注明出处。

The DOD Can't Read Your FOIA Form Because Its Only Fax Machine Broke

Have you attempted to fax your way to full or partial disclosure of government documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) recently? Well too bad, suckers! Because the Office of the Secretary of Defense has a broken fax machine, and it ain't getting fixed anytime soon.

It all started about two weeks ago when MuckRock noticed that all of their faxed FOIA requests were getting spit right back out as undeliverable. They decided to follow up with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and received the following (cryptic) statement:

“IF” our IT department doesn t have a replacement available, then they will need to order one. If that is the case, then it wouldn t be ordered until the start of the new fiscal year (Oct 1). We would hope that it is back up sometime in October, but could extend into the beginning of November.

Now, you're likely to have a few questions at this point. For instance, why does an office with a $31.8 billion budget for maintenance and operations only have one fax machine? How could it possibly take several months to replace a fax machine? And lastly, what is a fax machine? All valid questions that will probably never receive valid answers.

Of course, there are two other ways of submitting your FOIA should you be so inclined—snail mail and online form. But previous attempts from a few us here at Gizmodo have found the online version to be shaky at best, although some have had success. So should you find yourself choosing between USPS or the immediacy of a fax, you—who likely assumes that this clearly technologically adept government watchdog will have basic functions running—will probably choose fax. Wrong.

Because for whatever reason, the entire Office of the Secretary of Defense has been relegated to one single fax machine. So if you do decide to exercise your constitutional rights—please—don't do it by fax. Because chances are, it will be sent to the nether regions of Outdated Tech Hell, never to be seen again. [MuckRock via The Daily Dot]

(原标题：网站要求披露信息未果 美国国防部：我们的传真机坏了)