Feds Charge $522,000 For One FOIA Request: Via Threat Level.

The Treasury Department wants more than $500,000 to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, a fee an attorney on the case suggested Tuesday might be one of the largest bills of its kind.

“I have not seen one that has been larger,” said Noah Wood, a Missouri attorney suing the government to comply with his nearly 4-year-old FOIA request.

The Treasury Department, Wood said, is “downright telling us where we can stick it.”

Wood wants the government to produce documents he hopes shows where are perhaps millions of dollars of once-frozen assets of a former Libyan-backed company in the United States, which Wood says owes his law firm legal fees. Toward that end, he is suing the government (.pdf) to comply with the FOIA request and to reduce the bill.

Still, the government wants Wood to pay “approximately $522,886″ for the records. The original tab was $26,000-plus, but after some revisions in what Wood was seeking, the government upped the ante – even though not all information being sought would be forthcoming, according to the bill. (.pdf) [ Read more ... ]