Yet just the other day that reply arrived. The first paragraph of the massive missive reads: "This letter is in response to your complaint filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). We are reviewing your complaint and will contact you if any further information is needed. Thank you for filing."

That's it. Oh, that was just the start of those eight densely typewritten pages with the four separate mentions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, but those three sentences represent the sum total of what one might call pertinent information contained in the correspondence ... and the first sentence tells me something that I already knew, while the third sentence is a mere cordiality.

In other words, the FCC took eight densely typewritten pages to tell me it had received my complaint six months ago and would be in touch if there was any other way in which I could be of assistance to my government.

I'll briefly summarize the rest of the letter, which, in an apparently genuine bow to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, covered both sides of four sheets of paper:

On Page 2 they tell me my name, address, telephone number and e-mail.