Let me read a quote from a previous witness, Mr. Wernick:
I'd ask you to remember that a request is not a request is not a request. Some of them are extremely focused and they know what they're looking for and it's relatively easy to decide whether it should go out or not or to apply the screens. But there are also requests formed, particularly by the brokers and resellers—
He is talking about people who access information in order to sell it to someone else. They're looking for information so they can resell it.
—which are kind of like the trawl nets that go over the ocean floor scooping up everything that lives. I used to get a monthly request, when I was a deputy minister, for every note I had ever sent to the minister that month.
Therefore, I'm wondering if requests like these are bogging down the system. Maybe they're not from journalists and they're not specific. They're not from people looking for information they particularly want. They're just throwing out a trawling net to see if they can find anything that sticks.