What does that have to do with it? The writer could easily, with no additional effort, treat people more respectfully and get the same results. We should not celebrate casual meanness.
"slightest bit of irritation or frustration in response."
I'll admit I could have been kinder, but I'm not sure I'd call their irritation "slight". You're really downplaying the (clearly intentional) audacity of their response as well as how often these sorts of audacious responses happen. It's hard NOT to get aggressive in these communications when their intentions are clearly rooted in just making me go away. It's a very common pattern and a very frustrating one at that, especially when the gov folks are intentionally obstinate on top of everything else. Here's another example of an agency that started off aggressively and got egg on their face from their hubris to show what I mean:
"The production of the requested records for March 5, required the time of 5 interns (3 unpaid) who all worked 6 hours cutting and pasting the emails from paper copies. This also required staff time to collect and print the emails and review for the security concerns we indicated in an earlier email. The estimated cost, which was not charged to you, was conservatively, $412 for the record we produced:"
To this, followed by the records for free, after I sent them instructions:
I have been working with our IT folks and may be able to extract to a spreadsheet to fulfill your request.
But anywho, whenever I teach FOIA stuff these days I always start out with the advice to always be kind. So it's a lesson learned.
Just because they're incompetent doesn't mean the public should suffer for it.