Amazon Sues WA State Over Washington Post Request for Kuiper Records (geekwire.com) 34
The company that Jeff Bezos founded has gone to court to keep the newspaper he owns from finding out too much about the inner workings of its business. From a report: Amazon is suing Washington state to limit the release of public records to The Washington Post from a series of state Department of Labor and Industries investigations of an Amazon Project Kuiper satellite facility in the Seattle area.
The lawsuit, filed this week in King County Superior Court in Seattle, says the newspaper on Nov. 26 requested "copies of inspection records, investigation notes, interview notes, complaints," and other documents related to four investigations at the Redmond, Wash., facility between August and October 2024. It's not an unusual move by the company, and in some ways it's a legal technicality.
Amazon says it's not seeking to block the records release entirely, but rather seeking to protect from public disclosure certain records that contain proprietary information and trade secrets about the company's satellite internet operations. The lawsuit cites a prior situation in which Amazon and the Department of Labor and Industries similarly worked through the court to respond to a Seattle Times public records request without disclosing proprietary information.
The lawsuit, filed this week in King County Superior Court in Seattle, says the newspaper on Nov. 26 requested "copies of inspection records, investigation notes, interview notes, complaints," and other documents related to four investigations at the Redmond, Wash., facility between August and October 2024. It's not an unusual move by the company, and in some ways it's a legal technicality.
Amazon says it's not seeking to block the records release entirely, but rather seeking to protect from public disclosure certain records that contain proprietary information and trade secrets about the company's satellite internet operations. The lawsuit cites a prior situation in which Amazon and the Department of Labor and Industries similarly worked through the court to respond to a Seattle Times public records request without disclosing proprietary information.
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Is going to call daddy and have this lawsuit tossed.
Jeff Bezos owns both companies.
His daddy ran a bicycle shop.
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His new Daddy, Donald Trump... AKA Elon Musk's vice-President.
wat (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon says it's not seeking to block the records release entirely, but rather seeking to protect from public disclosure certain records that contain proprietary information and trade secrets about the company's satellite internet operations.
All of that stuff would normally be made public anyway through FCC-related (and other) mandatory public disclosures. Of course, Bezos may have buttered Trump sufficiently to avoid that somehow...
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All of that stuff would normally be made public anyway through FCC-related (and other) mandatory public disclosures.
They're asking for the records of a Department of Labor & Industries investigation of the facility. It is unlikely that this would be in FCC disclosures; it's not in their purview to investigate labor conditions.
But are the records stored undershot or overshot? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: wat (Score:2)
secret.
oh that sounds scary.
the use satellites is totally beyond what any normal human can understand.
maybe it is that.
dare anyone hear it.
his business model is what second year business students have to listen to.
but on the good side of this.
Amazons business model makes for a compact linear programming exercise
Is the article wrong or Amazon? (Score:3)
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There are also records the public has the right to access after any private information which might be included in the record is redacted which are buried and require some type of FOIA request, but the record is not available until someone requests it. On the other hand.. once the request is fulfilled; my understanding is the response to the requests become a public record that can be duplicated for a fee.
How does Amazon know a record request was made? (Score:4, Interesting)
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You don't think Bezos keeps tabs on what his newspaper is doing? You don't think Bezos still has significant engagement with Amazon?
Re:How does Amazon know a record request was made? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon has security contractors whose sole purpose in life is to monitor every state agency for any incoming records requests or signs at surveilance or reconnaissance attempts related to anything to do with their company.
Another thought is if the newspaper company's correspondence in and out on such matters is monitored, and management gets an "insider heads-up". They likely have some internal systems of their own to track their own organizations' requests, and probably there are ways people outside the newspaper can figure out what kind of requests they have pending with different states as well.
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If he's involved in both why does Amazon need to sue to stop the actions of the WaPo?
Couldn't Bezos just order WaPo to have the story killed like a certain political cartoon.
very secrective (Score:2, Informative)
Amazon is very secretive about Kuiper. The company I work for does lots of contract work for Government programs. We have to meet all kinds of cybersecurity requirements, and do. Amazon requires a 3rd party audit, has strict/short data retention requirements, and generally only provides minimal information anyway.
I asked an Amazon employee a fairly generic question about their product and got a shocked look and asked who I was and what I needed that information for? He couldn't answer my basic question tha
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I guess they'll have to tighten the Kuiper Belt
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Amazon is very secretive about Kuiper. The company I work for does lots of contract work for Government programs. We have to meet all kinds of cybersecurity requirements, and do. Amazon requires a 3rd party audit, has strict/short data retention requirements, and generally only provides minimal information anyway.
I asked an Amazon employee a fairly generic question about their product and got a shocked look and asked who I was and what I needed that information for? He couldn't answer my basic question that is otherwise public information I can look up.
Only the most secret programs get that level of scrutiny.
Secret, or non-existent attempts to make competitors panic. "You can't know our details!" can sometimes directly translate to "There are no details to know, but we don't want you to know that." Not that I have any knowledge of this particular situation, I've just seen that pulled by . . . *shifts eyes back and forth* never mind. Best I not say more.
Doesn't he own the Post? (Score:2)
Can't he just call the Post upper management and tell them to knock it off?
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NO! It's public information that anybody else could get and simply drawing attention to it means that more people are interested; if you quietly told the paper it would leak somehow.
The only sure way is to cut it off at the source. If Trump somehow steps into it expect that somehow $Trump coin to have gone up.
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NO! It's public information that anybody else could get and simply drawing attention to it means that more people are interested; if you quietly told the paper it would leak somehow.
The only sure way is to cut it off at the source. If Trump somehow steps into it expect that somehow $Trump coin to have gone up.
Sure, anybody could do it. But in this case it's his own people doing something he doesn't want them to do.
Journalism is dead in America (Score:5, Insightful)
I watched multiple long-term journalists heading editorial boards "resign" last year. It was painfully obvious they were fired for not towing the line during the election.
I watched what used to be legitimate media outlets taken event where Joe Biden was listening to somebody ask a question off camera and post the video saying he was staring off into the distance when he was actually looking at somebody off camera.
And we all watched Donald Trump stop a town hall 20 minutes in and then spend the next 39 minutes swaying rhythmically back and forth refusing to answer questions. Several news outlets covered it as a brilliant move that brought him closer to voters and not a clear moment of senility.
And just recently a pair of weathermen were fired for calling out Elon musk's Nazi salute on their own private social media accounts. Signaling to everyone that dissent will not be tolerated. Hell given that Musk is basically our shadow president that should probably be a first amendment violation.
I don't know what we're going to do. It's bad enough that every branch of government is now in the hands of somebody who thinks they can casually shut down the government by executive order. It's like watching the Xbox One launch all over again where Microsoft kept doing crazy and nasty things to see what they could get away with. Only this time I can't just buy a PlayStation instead.
And now even the fourth estate (Google what if you don't know the term) has fallen completely. What do you do when every single news outlet gets bought up by a billionaire and they just put their foot down and refuse to allow anyone to be anything but an offshoot of Fox News?
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question: "What do you do when every single news outlet" becomes partisan garbage? ...
answer: stop reading them - then go on something like X and become the news. or launch your own news outlet and refuse to be bought out or tow any lines. ...
now, someone please tell me how to add line breaks in comments, thanks
First, line breaks can be "<br>" or paragraph breaks are "<p>".
Second, going on X and posting anything Musk doesn't like gets you tossed off X. Social media is not going to be your answer to news outlets being voices for the billionaires. The only real thing to do for those with actual brains is to not listen to local media outside of staying informed about what the billionaires want aired. Even my local news channel is now a constant stream of Hollywood news and Federal Government insanity. The
Yeah they figured that out ages ago (Score:2, Insightful)
There's a reason I link to fark.com in my signature. It is the most useful news aggregator I've found on the internet. The comment section there is a shit show because you have to pay to get into it and there are order clearly bots that have paid so they can control the conversation but that doesn't have any effect on the quality of the links.
But most of those links are going to be news outlets outside the United Stat
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And now even the fourth estate (Google what if you don't know the term)...
Google seems Ancien Régime. I wikipedied it instead. I also deep sought the verb "wikipedia", or I would have written "wikipediad", if left to my own devices.
The three estates of the realm were clergy, nobility, and commoners. Social media might be the Fifth Estate. Is Deep Seek et al. a new Estate (sixth?), or is it nobility in disguise?
The medieval concept of the estates of the realm has been replaced with the modern concept of separation of powers. I'm afraid we may be be reverting towards
Just tell the WaPo to lay off! (Score:2)
Jeff, it's your dammed newspaper. You own it. You don't have to sue. Just tell them to stop it.
Is it really smart to fund BOTH sides of a lawsuit?
What's the point of owning a newspaper if you can't tell it what to do? Newspapers don't even make any money!
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Jeff, it's your dammed newspaper. You own it. You don't have to sue. Just tell them to stop it.
That's what I thought too. But perhaps he wants to create a precedent with this lawsuit to protect his interests in Kuiper, should some other newspaper he does not control make a similar information request. Having his own Washington Post be the originator of the request is an advantage, or something?
Is it really smart to fund BOTH sides of a lawsuit?
One side is Kuiper. The other is Washington state, not Washington Post. So no, he is not funding both sides of the lawsuit. I'm not aware of any situation where a person sued himself.
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Jeff, it's your dammed newspaper. You own it. You don't have to sue. Just tell them to stop it.
That's what I thought too. But perhaps he wants to create a precedent with this lawsuit to protect his interests in Kuiper, should some other newspaper he does not control make a similar information request. Having his own Washington Post be the originator of the request is an advantage, or something?
Is it really smart to fund BOTH sides of a lawsuit?
One side is Kuiper. The other is Washington state, not Washington Post. So no, he is not funding both sides of the lawsuit. I'm not aware of any situation where a person sued himself.
I am, but it involved a tremendous number of chemicals and a rough night that started in Vegas and ended in Tijuana.
Since he owns the newspaper.. (Score:2)
Why wouldn't he just put the question Internally to figure out who is responsible for the records request?
Doesn't make sense to allow a Newspaper you actually own to investigate your own companies beyond what you wanted them to have access to, lol.
Since the records request is made by the newspaper company; that same company can rescind the request under the proper direction from management, or the employee who requested can be ordered to do so.
FOIA requests can also be expensive to fulfill if you are not
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Since the records request is made by the newspaper company; that same company can rescind the request under the proper direction from management
That would make another newspaper quite eager to find out what they don't want made public.
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That would make another newspaper quite eager to find out what they don't want made public.
They could quietly rescind the request without announcing it to the world, since the employees would be covered by NDA.
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