Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over Data On Fake Net Neutrality Comments

from the plot-thickens dept

We've long discussed how the Pai FCC's net neutrality repeal was plagued with millions of fraudulent comments, many of which were submitted by a bot pulling names from a hacked database of some kind. Millions of ordinary folks (myself included) had their identities used to support Pai's unpopular plan, as did several Senators. The Trump FCC stonewalled both law enforcement and journalist inquiries into who was behind the comments, and why the FCC didn't lift a finger to either stop them or to help identify those responsible.

Numerous journalists like Jason Prechtel have submitted FOIA requests for more data (server logs, IP addresses, API data, anything) that might indicate who was behind the fraudulent comments, who may have bankrolled them, and what the Pai FCC knew about it. Thanks to that effort, early last year, Gizmodo's Dell Cameron worked with Prechtel to link some of the fake comments to Trump associates and some DC lobbying shops like CQ Roll Call. Then late last year, Buzzfeed's Kevin Collier and Jeremy-Singer Vine showed how, unsurprisingly, the broadband industry funded at least some of the fraudulent efforts.

Meanwhile two reporters for the New York Times, Nicholas Confessore and Gabriel Dance, sued the FCC under the Freedom of Information Act after the agency refused to reveal logs that could show the IP addresses used to submit the mass comments. Last week, a Manhattan federal judge hand over copies of the logs to both Confessore and Dance:

"The FCC attempted to quash the paper’s request but failed to persuade District Judge Lorna Schofield, who wrote that, despite the privacy concerns raised by the agency, releasing the logs may help clarify whether fraudulent activity interfered with the comment period, as well as whether the agency’s decision-making process is “vulnerable to corruption."

Keep in mind this sort of thing wasn't a one off; numerous regulatory agencies have been plagued by similar efforts for years. Generating bogus support for shitty government policy is now just an additional service many law, lobbying, and PR firms offer corporations and clients as an added service. But much like astroturfing -- which often extends to real world protests -- it's such an obscure concept to most people it never warrants a second thought. But it's ethically grotesque all the same, especially given it pollutes some of the only opportunities the public has to comment on harmful government policies.

At this point there's enough evidence to reasonably conclude that the broadband industry and GOP hired a bunch of K Street firms to "stuff the ballot box," and the FCC -- likely knowing the broadband industry's involvement -- took steps to try and help cover it up. This lawsuit is likely to reveal even more data to help bolster that conclusion. The question now is whether the courts (or anybody else) will actually care, and whether anybody's going to do anything about it.

Filed Under: ajit pai, comments, fcc, foia, net neutrality, transparency
Companies: ny times

Court Tells Agency That Tried To Charge $1.5 Million For A Records Request It Now Owes The Requestor $12,000 In Fines

from the chug-disinfectant,-Missouri dept

It's too bad it takes a lawsuit to free up supposedly "open" records. A few years ago, transparency group Reclaim the Records asked for some easy-to-compile birth and death data from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and received this ridiculous response.

DHSS told [Brooke] Ganz her request would cost $1.4 million to gather the documents. Ganz hired an attorney, Bernie Rhodes of the Lathrop GPM law firm. Rhodes, of Kansas City, is a Sunshine Law expert. He did some research and figured out obtaining the records would literally take a few keystrokes at a computer. He protested the ridiculous charge — a common tactic in Missouri when public officials don’t want to release public documents. The state backed off and said the search would cost closer to $5,000.

When this drastically-reduced estimate was delivered, Reclaim the Records said it was still too high. So, the state just decided it wasn't going to release the records at all.

The Cole County Court has sided with Reclaim the Records. The state will have to produce the records and for even less than the $5,000 it quoted before deciding it wasn't going to release anything. The decision [PDF] details the government's dishonest dealings during this case, making it clear the DHSS did everything it could to avoid complying with the state's Sunshine Law.

The first couple of communications from the DHSS quoted an hourly rate of $20.85. The next response -- sent after state officials spent a few days "obtaining information about Reclaim the Records" -- suddenly increased the hourly rate to $42.50/hour, raising the entire estimate to nearly $1.5 million.

This estimate was drastically reduced when Reclaim's lawyer pointed out the search could be performed easily, pulling birth/death data from the state's database a year at a time, rather than the state's proposed day-by-day search through 40+ years of data.

The ruling provides more insight on the DHSS's obfuscation -- a coordinated effort by the government to withhold these records permanently.

On July 21, 2016—while Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Loethen were corresponding about search methodologies that would comply with the Sunshine Law—Dr. Wambuguh spoke with Garland Land, the former State Registrar, about Ms. Ganz’s requests.

Later the same day, Mr. Land wrote Dr. Wambuguh and told her that DHSS should deny Ms. Ganz’s requests, and “require them to take you to court,” and to use the delay caused by the lawsuit to get the Legislature to change the law.

The court's opinion includes a screenshot of an email from Garland Land detailing the state's attempt to wait this out to see if it could get the law amended before Reclaim could sue the records out of the state's hands.

I would not honor the request. I would require them to take you to court and then bring in national genealogical and vital records experts to testify why making indexes is not good public policy. By delaying this you might file a regulation or get the Legislature to clarify the intent of the law.

That's what the DHSS did. It went to work trying to have the law changed, rather than simply comply with a (simple) public records request.

As stated in Mr. Ward’s e-mail, DHSS did in fact put forward a request to the Missouri Legislature to remove the provision from Missouri law providing that birth and death listings are available upon request.

Specifically, DHSS lobbied to have the Missouri Legislature remove the provision in Section 193.245 that provides that birth and death listings are available upon request.

The court finds the DHSS is obligated to produce these records. The law clearly states the DHSS "may disclose" the information Reclaim the Records requested. Nothing forbids the production of these records. Not only that, but it will have to do so for even less than the $5,000 it last quoted. The court says the allowable charges are only $2,557.30 -- a total it arrived at after stripping the cruft from the DHSS's quoted hourly rate of pay, decreasing it from $42.50/hour to $20.65/hour. This final total is "three-tenths of one percent of DHSS' original $1.49 million estimate."

The court doesn't care for the government's actions at all.

This secret plan represents an utter disdain for “the public policy of this state that … records … of public governmental bodies be open to the public unless otherwise provided by law.” Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.011.1. Governmental bodies are not allowed to deny requests and then seek a law closing them; instead, they may only close records that are closed by existing law.

It is also important to consider the chronology of events—specifically, the fact DHSS’ denial came only after Ms. Ganz’s counsel had debunked the original $1.49 million demands for fees, which was clearly intended to be a back-door denial of Ms. Ganz’s requests. And when DHSS refigured its cost estimate using information supplied by Ms. Ganz’s counsel, it arrived at an estimate of approximately $5,000—still significantly higher than the allowable charges, but in a range that Ms. Ganz might consider paying.

Faced with this reality, DHSS had to scramble to find a way to prevent the disclosure. It found that way when Mr. Land provided a literal roadmap to achieve DHSS’ illicit goal: deny the request, make Ms. Ganz sue, and then use the delay caused by the resulting lawsuit to go to the Missouri Legislature and try to get them to change the law to close otherwise open records. It is hard to imagine a more purposeful plot.

For these willful violations of the state's Sunshine Law, DHSS has been hit with $12,000 in fines, payable to Reclaim the Records. It is also now liable for Reclaim's legal fees, which are yet to be determined. Unfortunately, these payments will come out of taxpayers' pockets, which kind of limits the deterrent effect. But it's clear the government never had any intention of following the law. Worse, it tried to have the law changed to align with its desire for opacity -- an amendment that would have produced zero net benefit for residents of the state. It's a pretty bold move to charge constituents for the privilege of having less access to public records. Fortunately, none of this worked out for the DHSS.

Filed Under: bernie rhodes, brooke ganz, foia, missouri, missouri department of health, sunshine, transparency
Companies: reclaim the records

Florida Governor Responds To Lawsuit Over Coronavirus Infection Documents By Pressuring Newspaper's Law Firm To Drop The Suit

from the yes-more-opacity-will-definitely-flatten-the-curve dept

We're at a time when we need more transparency from our government officials than ever. And, of course, we're not getting it. The White House ordered federal health officials to designate documents from top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, keeping them away from FOIA requesters. The nation's other coronavirus task force -- headed by Jared Kushner -- is carrying out its official business using private email accounts.

Things aren't much better at the state level. The Miami Herald filed a public records request seeking information about nursing homes in the state affected by the virus. The governor has repeatedly refused to release this information, which is putting healthcare workers and nursing home residents at risk. So, the Miami Herald sued. It notified Governor Ron DeSantis' counsel that it would be filing suit, as is required by the state's litigation process. The governor's lawyers responded by telling the Herald's legal rep to drop the case.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ general counsel called a representative of the Miami Herald’s law firm seeking to quash a public records lawsuit that would force the state to divulge the names of all elder-care facilities that have had a positive test for the coronavirus.

The back-door pressure — through an attorney that had no involvement in the case — paid off.

The law firm, Holland & Knight, told Sanford Bohrer, a senior partner with decades of representing the Miami Herald, to stand down and abandon the lawsuit.

The newspaper will not be abandoning its lawsuit. It has found another law firm to take up its case. But there's already a chill in the air, thanks to these actions.

It appears the governor's office spoke to a different partner in the firm, rather than the lawyer representing the paper. Conveniently, this member of the law firm has represented the state in other matters, making it that much easier to persuade the law firm to drop the Herald as a client in this case.

General Counsel Joe Jacquot sought to short-circuit the litigation. He didn’t call the lawyer who drafted the lawsuit and had sent the letter, but rather another Holland & Knight lawyer, George Meros.

Meros has represented the state on numerous matters, including its recent efforts to defend legislation that undermines the intent of Amendment 4, the ballot measure — passed overwhelmingly — that gives felons the right to vote after they have served their sentences.

Meros has represented a long list of state agencies during his career as an attorney. And his employer apparently felt the best step to take was to direct the paper to drop its lawsuit.

The governor is claiming his office did nothing wrong. His office's spokesperson says contacting a law firm to dissuade them from filing a lawsuit is just a normal pre-litigation tactic used to "avoid unnecessary litigation." That would make sense if the governor's office had called to settle or offer to turn over the records the paper is seeking. But it didn't do that. The governor's lawyer instead leaned on a law firm employee with a long history of defending the state in lawsuits and the firm obliged by "advising" the paper to drop the lawsuit.

There's enough plausible deniability built into this that the blame may lie with the law firm, rather than the governor's office. If the law firm wanted to pass on the lawsuit due to possible conflicts of interest, it could have said as much. And if the governor's office wanted to discuss the lawsuit during the five-day waiting period, it could have spoken to the paper's rep, rather than an attorney that had frequently defended the government in the past. None of that happened, and the paper was forced to hire a new legal rep to continue seeking information the governor's office should have been willing to release in the first place.

Filed Under: florida, foia, george meros, law firms, litigation, pressure, public records, ron desantis, sanford bohrer, threats, transparency
Companies: holland & knight, miami herald

FBI Says It Will Only Accept Snail Mail FOIA Requests Until Further Notice, Due To Coronavirus Concerns

from the and-it's-not-even-going-to-respond-to-those dept

With the Coronavirus grinding everything to a halt (except for stock market losses! [sobs in 401(k)]), it's understandable that public services would be affected as well. The unexpected shift to telecommuting means everything is going to slow down as public and private entities figure out how to still serve customers/citizens while still keeping the spread of the virus to a minimum.

But none of that explains this completely incomprehensible response from the FBI, which appears to be using the virus as a way to become even more tight-fisted with its stash of FOIA-able files. "FOIA terrorist" Jason Leopold reports the FBI is seeking to serve the public in the worst way possible during this national health crisis.

A message posted on the FBI's Freedom of Information Act website Tuesday says:

"Due to the emerging COVID-19 situation, the FBI is not accepting electronic Freedom of Information/Privacy Act requests or sending out electronic responses through the eFOIPA portal at this time. You may still submit a FOIPA request via standard mail. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your understanding."

Left unexplained by the agency is how sending out snail mail -- which could conceivably carry a bit of COVID with it -- is preferable to email requests, which can only infect others if they insist on opening sketchy attachments.

This is also against the law, unless the administration decides it's going to suspend FOIA law until the it's declared safe to act sane again. The regulations governing FOIA responses say all federal agencies must have the capability to "receive requests electronically" either via email or their FOIA portals. It appears the FBI has simply chosen to ignore its online portal and its capability to receive emailed requests.

Even if lower staffing levels might result in slower responses, the agency's virus response shouldn't be to switch off the online portal and direct everyone to another government service that itself might be negatively affected by the virus in the near future.

But there's more to it than this inexplicable explanation for shutting down the internet-friendly side of its FOIA services. Those bothering to send snail mail shouldn't expect responses, either.

Katie Townsend, the legal director for the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, told BuzzFeed News that in a FOIA case she is litigating, an assistant US attorney filed court papers Tuesday saying the office that handles the FBI's FOIA requests is "closed at least until March 30, 2020 because of the current coronavirus outbreak."

This has been confirmed by other attorneys involved in FOIA litigation with the FBI. The regulation-dodging statement on the FBI's website doesn't inform requesters that the FBI won't be touching any requests for the rest of the month. The FBI -- through its lawyers -- insists this all very logical because FOIA response personnel can't work from home due to security issues. Even if so, encouraging people to climb into an FOIA time machine to take them back before the internet was a thing isn't helping anyone but an agency that would rather not answer FOIA requests at all.

Filed Under: coronavirus, covid-19, fbi, foia, pandemic, transparency

Local Government Employee Fined For Illegally Deleting Item Requested Under Freedom Of Information Act

from the it-may-be-small,-but-it's-still-a-win dept

Techdirt writes about freedom of information matters often enough. Sadly, many of the stories are about governments and other official bodies refusing to comply with local Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws for various reasons, and using a variety of tricks. In other words, rights to FOI may exist in theory, but the practice falls woefully short. That makes the following story from the UK a welcome exception.

It concerns Nicola Young, a local government employee in the English market town of Whitchurch, in Shropshire. Part of her job as town clerk was to handle FOIA requests for the local council. One such request asked for a copy of the audio recording of a council meeting. Apparently the person requesting the file believed that the written minutes of the meeting had been fabricated, and wanted to check them against the recording. However, the reply came back that the file had already been deleted, as was required by the official council policy.

Undeterred, the person requesting the file sent a complaint to the UK's main Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which carried out an investigation. The ICO discovered that the town clerk had not only claimed that the audio file had already been deleted when it actually existed, but that she personally deleted it a few days after the FOI request was made. Quite why is not clear, but as a result:

On Wednesday 11 March, Young, of Shrewsbury Street, Whitchurch, Shropshire, was convicted at Crewe Magistrates after pleading guilty to blocking records with the intention of preventing disclosure and was fined £400 [about $490], ordered to pay costs of £1,493 [$1,835] and a victim surcharge £40 [$50].

In its press release on the case, the ICO comments that it "marks the first ever successful conviction under the [UK's] FOIA.". It may be a small victory, but we'll take it.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

Filed Under: foia, nicola young, record destruction, uk

Federal Agencies Are Still Abusing Their Favorite, Super-Vague FOIA Exemption Thousands Of Times A Year

from the (b)ecause-we-can-can-can dept

The Freedom of Information Act was supposed to result in, you know, the freedom of information. Obviously, not everything the government produces paperwork-wise can end up in the public's hands, but far more should be turned over to the public than has been.

Using a proprietary blend of stonewalling and excessive fee demands, countless government agencies have managed to keep public documents away from the public. It takes a lawyer to win FOIA lawsuits, which may be why corporations are getting their hands on far more documents than American citizens.

Exemption b(5) is, by far, the federal government's favorite. It's vague enough it can cover just about anything.

inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency

Sprinkle a little intra-agency imagination over a pile of paperwork and responsive documents suddenly become unresponsive and are removed from life support as soon as feasibly possible. FOIA lawsuits are the metaphorical families in the waiting room, begging Dr. Info to reconsider pulling the plug.

Exemption b(5) has been used to withhold everything from State Department's "what a load of crap" Post-It note (attached to a Congressional proposal to designate Pakistan as a sponsor of international terrorism) to the CIA's files on the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

The abuse of this exemption may have peaked in 2013, when federal agencies used it more than 81,000 times. But things haven't necessarily improved in the last seven years. In 2018, (b)5 was still cited more than 60,000 times. The (otherwise considerable) drop in deployment may be due to 2016 legislation, as the Project on Government Oversight explains:

One possible factor in the reduced use of Exemption 5 since its peak in 2013 may be reforms instituted by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016. One reform barred the use of the exemption for records more than 25 years old…

That would remove the CIA's strategic blockade of its Bay of Pigs docs. But there's plenty of info far less dated that still receives the (b)5 "get out of transparency free" card. Multiple investigations of ICE detention centers highlighted the inconsistent application of the feds' go-to exemption. Documents handed to NPR [on the left in the image below] by ICE contained plenty of information. The docs handed to POGO, however, contained only redactions and the b(5) excuse.

Somehow the same information was both able to be released and able to be withheld under exemption b(5). As POGO points out, the b(5) boilerplate makes zero sense when applied to the text released to NPR. This exemption isn't supposed to deny the public access to common sense conclusions.

It’s difficult to understand how these statements—that inadequate mental health care leadership leads to poor care, and that solitary confinement is the “most important issue” at this particular detention center—can be properly withheld under Exemption 5. There is no attorney-client advice, and no deliberation on a pending policy decision.

If this is repairable, it will take an act of Congress, just like it did the last time. This exemption is like qualified immunity for cops: why not toss it up against the wall and see if it sticks? Since it usually takes litigation to reverse agency non-judgment calls, the house -- which spends other people's money to stick it to the people -- almost always wins.

Filed Under: b(5), foia, government, inter-agency communications, secrecy, transparency

CBP Employees Obtain New Accountability Shield With 'Security Agency' Designation

from the everyone's-pr dept

Our nation's border security agencies want to be national security agencies. ICE and CBP both made it clear they expected to be treated as Intelligence Community equals and given a seat at the grown-ups' surveillance table. They got their wish. Trump's "extreme vetting" wishes opened the door for the agencies' access to NSA collections late last year.

The CBP's addition to the long list of Intelligence Community agencies gives it another layer of opacity. As Ken Klippenstein reports for The Nation, being added to the OPM's list of exemptions will make it even more difficult to obtain information via FOIA requests.

On Friday, the Trump administration quietly designated the entire Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, which polices US borders, as a “Security Agency,” according to an internal memo obtained by The Nation.

This puts CBP on the same playing field as secretive agencies like the FBI, DEA, and ATF. While ostensibly only concerned with border protection, the CBP's reach has been extended by its access to NSA collections and its personnel more insulated from accountability by this designation.

The memo states: “I am pleased to announce CBP has been designated as a Security Agency under Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) official Data Release Policy, effective immediately. Previously, only frontline law enforcement, investigative, or intelligence positions held this designation. This policy change now protects all CBP employee names from subsequent responses to Freedom of Information Act requests or other public disclosures for CGP employee data.”

Every CBP employee is now shielded from public scrutiny, no matter how much "security" work they're actually involved in. The memo obtained by The Nation came from a CBP contractor who blew the whistle on this bullshit designation. According to the unnamed source, they came forward to inform the public about an "absurd" designation that gives CBP employees a new layer of opacity they haven't earned.

The memo says this new designation is a reaction to supposed "doxing" of CBP employees via a Twitter account that may have been run by an OPM employee. But it wasn't really "doxing." The information released was pulled from publicly-accessible OPM databases. If this is the case, this doesn't seem to justify unilaterally declaring CBP employees to be more equal than other federal employees not fortunate enough to work for one tasked with bringing President Trump's anti-immigration fantasies to life.

CBP employees aren't special. And they're only "security" personnel in the loosest sense of the word. Just because they're involved in border security doesn't mean any exposure of their personal info would result in decreased employee safety or harm intelligence gathering. For that matter, the CBP isn't really in the intelligence gathering business and it's not known for operating extensive investigations utilizing undercover personnel who could suffer from being "outed" by publicly-available info. This is just opacity creep -- one that spreads from agency to agency like black mold. And it will make holding the agency accountable for its actions even more difficult when the public isn't able to pinpoint who's behind the latest string of abuses.

Filed Under: accountability, cbp, foia, intelligence agency, law enforcement, transparency

Second California Court Tells State AG To Stop Screwing Around And Release Police Misconduct Records

from the wasting-taxpayer-dollars-for-fun-and-opacity dept

A California appeals court has just handed Attorney General Xavier Becerra a second defeat in his quest to keep police misconduct records out of the public's hands.

Becerra first stepped up to defend bad cops from transparency and accountability shortly after a new law went live, giving Californians access to police misconduct and use of force records for the first time ever. Becerra claimed (without legal support) the law was not retroactive, an assertion contradicted by the crafter of the bill.

No courts agreed with this contention, even when it was made by police unions and department public records reps. The law applies to all misconduct records, not just those created after the law's enactment. Some departments saw this coming and purged older records prior to enactment. Others complied quietly. A few sued to block enforcement of the law.

Xavier Becerra made the dubious legal assertion the state's Department of Justice didn't need to turn over records because it wasn't the original source. He made this assertion despite the DOJ being the agency that routinely investigates misconduct and use of force complaints, which means the DOJ should have plenty of responsive records on hand.

The First Amendment Coalition and public media outlet KQED sued after Becerra refused to turn over records. Becerra asked the appeals court to tell him he was right to refuse to comply with the law. The appeals court says that's not the way the law works. The state DOJ holds records on police misconduct and the public can directly approach the DOJ for these records, rather than filing requests with numerous different agencies. (via Courthouse News)

The ruling confirms the lower court's determination: if the DOJ has these records, the DOJ needs to turn them over. From the decision [PDF]:

In this case, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the California Department of Justice (collectively, the Department) have filed a petition for a writ of mandate seeking to overturn the trial court’s order in favor of First Amendment Coalition and KQED, Inc. (KQED) over two aspects of the Department’s disclosure obligations under section 832.7. We conclude, as a matter of statutory interpretation, that section 832.7 generally requires disclosure of all responsive records in the possession of the Department, regardless whether the records pertain to officers employed by the Department or by another public agency and regardless whether the Department or another public agency created the records.

The court says the law's wording makes it clear any agency holding records is obligated to release them -- not just the agency where the records may have originated.

[T]he Department’s construction is at odds with the CPRA, which provides in no uncertain terms that, barring an applicable exemption, a member of the public has the right to inspect any nonexempt “public records,” defined as “any writing” containing information relating to the public’s business that is “retained by” a state or local agency.

Clear, unambiguous language in the law. Clear, unambiguous language from the court. And yet…

The Attorney General’s press office said in an email that the Justice Department is reviewing the decision.

Come on, man. Being willfully ignorant of the law is no excuse. Appealing this decision further just wastes time and the public's tax dollars. Turn over the records, you coward.

Filed Under: california, foia, police misconduct, transparency, xavier becerra

Judge Says Chicago PD Must Release Nearly 50 Years Of Misconduct Files Before The End Of This Year

from the maybe-if-you-had-better-cops,-you'd-have-fewer-burdensome-documents dept

The Chicago Police Department is one of the worst in the nation. There's simply no denying this.

The Chicago PD ran its own black site for years, subjecting to arrestees to interrogations without access to legal counsel or notification of their families. Citizens effectively disappeared until the Chicago PD felt they had something worth booking them for. Only then would the paper trail begin and arrestees given access to their rights.

Police officers spent years screwing with recording equipment to ensure anything they didn't want recorded wasn't recorded. This resulted in only a couple of silent films being produced during the controversial shooting of Laquan McDonald. The surviving footage -- the stuff that didn't disappear because of a supposed "disk error" -- contradicted the official narrative, even without the mysteriously-missing audio.

There's more. Documents obtained through records requests shows thousands of misconduct investigations but very few punishments. The department used asset forfeiture funds to buy Stingray devices so it could bypass city government scrutiny of its surveillance tech purchases. Its gang database is a travesty even by gang database standards, filled with inaccuracies, sloppy paperwork, and a wholehearted lack of concern about the collateral damage it causes. And since it's so great at handling present crime, the PD has decided to take on future crime with its predictive policing program -- one that will allow cops to more proactively violate rights.

In the near future, we'll get to learn even more details about the department's awfulness. A FOIA lawsuit filed by a former inmate has resulted in a win for the general public.

In 2015, six years after his release, [Charles] Green filed a FOIA request with the city asking for copies of any and all closed complaint register files from 1967 to 2015. The request was made, Green’s attorney said, “in order to help him discover evidence of his innocence and to preserve and disseminate evidence of innocence to others wrongfully convicted.”

Judge Alison Conlon ordered the CPD to produce all files to Green by the end of 2020, noting that the CPD had “willfully and intentionally failed to comply” with the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

Fifty years of complaints should be pretty enlightening. The document dump will be routed through the Invisible Institute, which has already done some great things with previous FOIA releases from law enforcement agencies.

The rollout probably won't begin immediately, but the Chicago PD -- which has only turned over about 100 files so far -- has until the end of the year to fork over the remaining 174,900 responsive documents it says it has on hand. Right now, it seems to be focusing its energy on appealing the decision and complaining about how producing misconduct documents will somehow be unfair to the general public.

The City of Chicago is committed to the highest level of transparency and responds to tens of thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests every year, including requests regarding allegations against Chicago Police officers. This request is different, however, as it seeks every Complaint Register file created since 1967 – approximately 175,000 files, each of which contain dozens to hundreds of pages… Complying with this request would present numerous challenges, including millions of dollars in costs and expended public resources.

I think the city's taxpayers will be fine with their money being used this way. Seems like exactly the sort of thing the public would benefit from -- a welcome change from the terrible policing they've been funding for years.

Filed Under: chicago police, foia, misconduct files, transparency