3/17/2008
Gov. Doyle's office not enamored with Freedom of Information
I wrote the governor’s Deputy Counsel Mindy Dumermuth February 15 seeking e-mails sent and received from the governor’s office February 9 through February 12.
My letter was part of the Sunshine Blogger Project conducted by the not-for-profit Lucy Burns Institute. Per John Washburn, citizen, and pro-liberty volunteer extraordinaire, the purpose of the Sunshine Blogger Project is to determine which American governors have systems in place to allow ordinary citizens to obtain copies of e-mails sent to and from “our public servants.” Again, Washburn:
E-mailed documents are considered to be a matter of public record in nearly every state. However, if ordinary citizens (or reporters) can’t actually get copies of those e-mails… well then, they are not really public records, are they?
Well so far, I’ve not been able to get my hands on any e-mails going in or out of the den of activity that is Governor Doyle’s office.
In a letter dated March 6, Ms. Dumermuth responded to me by stating:
Your request is not reasonably limited as to subject matter or length of time, and therefore, is insufficient under Wis. Stat. §19.35(1)(h).
Access to records is addressed in great detail in Subchapter II of Chapter 19 of the State Statutes.
I specifically noted compliance with the statutes, quoting a portion of §19.35(1)(h).
My request is specifically limited in time (Saturday Feb. 9 through Tuesday Feb. 12) and scope (only e-mail messages sent to and from the Governor’s office).
The governor’s Deputy Counsel complained that
…locating potentially responsive e-mail messages would require the search and examination of all e-mail correspondence that the nearly 50 staffers who work in the Governor’s office have received or sent over a span of four days. Your request would cover, at a minimum, thousands of e-mail messages. Prior to disclosure, each e-mail message would have to be individually reviewed by an attorney to ensure that information legally protected from disclosure is not improperly released – a task that would potentially require review of tens of thousands of pages.
So, the governor’s office wants the request narrowed, suggesting I
…resubmit a narrower, amended request that is reasonably limited by subject matter and length of time, which would allow this office to conduct a more focused search for specifically responsive materials within a reasonable time period. For example, you could narrow your request by identifying specific search terms to use.
Is the governor’s office stonewalling?
I responded March 13, noting Ms. Dumermuth’s misinterpretations of case law; I pointed out the Office of the Governor cannot claim burdensomeness as a reason to excuse it from fulfilling a statutory duty. And I pointed out that sorting, review and redaction of electronic records can easily and effectively be done electronically and should not require “review of tens of thousands of pages.”
In the same letter, I also changed my request to cover e-mails sent and received from the governor’s office over a period of two days (as opposed to four), attempting to find a limitation that satisfies the office of the governor’s interpretation of “narrowness.”
In the spirit of this week’s designation as Sunshine Week by the American Society of Newspaper Editors… I’ll keep you posted!
COMMENTS
Thanks for all you do Jo. If we can't count on our Governor...........
In todays articles you have an article about the SAGE program in Eau Claire.
I challenge anyone to supply clear empirical data showing that the SAGE program works and makes a difference over a child's 12 year education.
David (Mon Mar 17 07:34:49 2008)
So this is a test-- this is only a test.
Right?
The response of the activity being burdensome then has more than a little credibility.
How about focusing on things more local to the area? Maybe Steve Wiegert's emails talk about how he's going to enjoy all that extra free time after the legislature shut down 7 weeks early.
How is this Sunshine Project not a snipe hunt?
Lon, why don't you try to navigate the system and seek out Rep. Wieckert's e-mails, calendar, communiques, etc.? The government is us (The government is we??) - and the more of us who work with and learn from the ins and outs of government data available to us, the better. JE
Lon Ponschock (Mon Mar 17 11:20:16 2008)
Perhaps the stalling tactic is an indication that our Governor has no email activity to disclose, which means that there is no work being done? ;)
I'm just playing with that one but its the usual red tape. They are hiding behind bureaucracy because they think you may be trying to get information to use against them.
Jesse Seymour (Mon Mar 17 14:40:35 2008)
Having written an essay on the subject of hiding records I can assure you these sorts of obfuscations are quite ordinary. Conducting such searches can be burdensome, no doubt, and as you correctly point out, that's no excuse. On the other hand, their hands may be technologically tied. They may not have any software tools in place to easily produce all those emails in a form that can be handed to you, especially in electronic form, and no good attorney would want to hand over all those documents without subjecting them to a balancing test.
As a geek, I could put up a pretty good legal argument that electronic documents are not always easily redacted as-is in a secure fashion. Don't think that deleting something from a Word document really makes it go away, and some PDFs are not easily editable. So they'd want to print it all, and that'll cost you.
Want another goose chase? The Assembly and Senate don't adhere to the State's guidelines for document retention, either. They keep 30 days of backups, period. Zap something from your Outlook and it's really gone in 30 days.
Interesting stuff John. Thanks. I look forward to reading your piece - and may holler if I get stuck. JE
John Foust (Mon Mar 17 16:33:00 2008)
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