Show HN: New search engine and free-FOIA-by-fax-via-web for US veteran records

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 4:26 PM UTC

Asparagirl wrote: post #31

draftsman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s critically important to mention that the VA provided all this data to Ancestry.com years ago. According to the newletter op linked, Ancestry.com charges $300/year for access to this data. This unfairness is what prompted the lawsuit and ultimate release of data.

Indeed. This is ABSOLUTELY not the first time we’ve dealt with a government agency (at the local, state, or federal levels) providing a copy of a public dataset to Ancestry.com and not to the general public. Our taxpayer-funded data keeps ending up solely behind a $300/year paywall. It’s not fair. (Also, the stripped-down version of BIRLS that has been on the Ancestry website for a while now is much smaller and older…

Post by greentxt » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC

Asparagirl wrote: post #28

necovek wrote: post #17

I believe you should work to limit exposure of sensitive information like SSN: while it's ok to allow search by an exact SSN, you should probably not display it unless the requestor already knows what it is. OTOH, if you have really succesfully worked to make this database public domain and do publish it somewhere (and you did, as I can see at https://archive.org/details/BIRLS_database ), this wouldn't be of much hel…

The VA worked to confirm that everyone in this dataset is deceased, in order to satisfy the judge’s order, and produced an internal document about how they did it — which we then FOIAed and posted online too. (It’s up on the site, next to the legal paperwork.) The veterans and their SSNs are believed to have been deceased prior to mid-2020, checked by the VA’s internal datasets as well as public data sets such as the…

Post by Asparagirl » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

greentxt wrote: post #43

Asparagirl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The VA worked to confirm that everyone in this dataset is deceased, in order to satisfy the judge’s order, and produced an internal document about how they did it — which we then FOIAed and posted online too. (It’s up on the site, next to the legal paperwork.) The veterans and their SSNs are believed to have been deceased prior to mid-2020, checked by the VA’s internal datasets as well as public data sets such as the…

Have you ever worried about your impact on veterans? Maybe not a concern?

Post by greentxt » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

Asparagirl wrote: post #45

greentxt wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worried about your impact on veterans? Maybe not a concern?

The veterans in the data set are all deceased, and I have not heard any complaints from them so far.

Post by Asparagirl » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

greentxt wrote: post #46

Really hope op and crew are sued to oblivion.