It's kind of funny--you know that subcomponent of PRISM where the government sends a machine-readable subpoena, and a corporation, in response, automatically runs a query to pull together a user's records and drop them in a government-accessible dead-drop computer? If done correctly, this would basically be the same thing, but for citizens "subpoenaing" government.
I say "if done correctly" because it currently sounds like it only handles the "send" part of the FOIA request. It'd be a lot more convenient if it also used the Center for Investigative Reporting as the receive address, scanned in and OCRed all the FOIA'ed documents that get received... maybe even have some lawyers pick through each received document and provide analysis + highlight interesting bits, like Groklaw does. Is that part of the plan? (The non-receiving version could always be kept in place either way, for when people want to just get at their own personal records.)
I say "if done correctly" because it currently sounds like it only handles the "send" part of the FOIA request. It'd be a lot more convenient if it also used the Center for Investigative Reporting as the receive address, scanned in and OCRed all the FOIA'ed documents that get received... maybe even have some lawyers pick through each received document and provide analysis + highlight interesting bits, like Groklaw does. Is that part of the plan? (The non-receiving version could always be kept in place either way, for when people want to just get at their own personal records.)