Document dump

A document dump is the act of responding to an adversary's request for information by presenting the adversary with a large quantity of data that is transferred in a manner that indicates unfriendliness, hostility, or a legal conflict between the transmitter and the receiver of the information. The shipment of dumped documents is unsorted, or contains a large quantity of information that is extraneous to the issue under inquiry, or is presented in an untimely manner, or some combination of these three characteristics. The phrase is often used by lawyers, but is in increasing use in the blogosphere. It is often seen as part of the characteristic behavior of an entity that is engaging in an ongoing pattern of activities intended to cover up unethical or criminal conduct.

As one facet of the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy in 2007, relevant committees of both houses of the United States Congress, controlled by the Democratic party, requested, and then subpoenaed, backstory information from the United States Department of Justice on how the process that resulted in these dismissals had taken place. The Justice Department was reluctant to respond in a friendly manner to these requests, which they regarded as hostile; the Department responded with significant quantities of unsorted and extraneous information. Many U.S. liberals saw this response as a series of document dumps and communicated amongst themselves accordingly:

A big new bundle of documents just got dumped by the Department of Justice. Here's a link to the documents in PDF form at the House Judiciary Committee website. As per our routine in recent document dumps, if you'd like to help us cull through the mails and reports, use this thread to share your findings with us and other TPMm Readers. Identify the items you find by document dump set number and page number. (Josh Marshall, April 27, 2007).

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