Request for email metadata (Office of the Governor - Alaska)

Matt Chapman filed this request with the Office of the Governor - Alaska of Alaska.
Multi Request Request for email metadata
Est. Completion None
Status
Fix Required

Communications

From: Matt Chapman

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Alaska Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:

For all non-personal emails accounts in use by the governor and its staff, please provide me the following information for all emails sent and received between March 5 2018 and March 9, 2018.

1. From address
2. To address
3. bcc addresses
4. cc addresses
5. Time
6. Date

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Matt Chapman

From: Office of the Governor - Alaska

Thank you for your inquiry. I need to speak to the requestor for clarification and to discuss associated fees. Please contact our office at the number below.

Angela Hull
Director of Correspondence and Constituent Services
Office of Governor Bill Walker
907-465-3500
angela.hull@alaska.gov
www.gov.alaska.gov<http://www.gov.alaska.gov/>

From: Matt Chapman

Hi -

Thank you again for spending the time discussing this request with me earlier. Over the call, you mentioned that no lists can be made, but that emails themselves can be made available upon narrowing of this request in PDF format.

While the records that I am requesting are discrete and electronically separated from their respective emails, it was mentioned that the historical process of extracting email information still requires the review from a security team, which complicates release determination. If possible, and following Alaska Open Records laws, I would like to ask that this request be sent to that team for further review. Should they need any technical documentation to show that each metadata record is a discrete record, please let me know.

That said, if after their review (or not), this request is still interpreted as a request for the creation of a list, I would like that my request be narrowed down to the following individuals (based on https://gov.alaska.gov/governor-home/governors-senior-staff/ + Bill Walker):

Bill Walker
Scott Kendall
John Hozey
Grace Jang
Claire Richardson
Barbara Blake
Nikoosh Carlo
Craig Fleener
Gerad Godfrey
John Hendrix
John Crowther
Sarah Heath
John-Henry Heckendorn
Angela Hull
Shelley James
Shirley Marquardt
Darwin Peterson
Pat Pitney
Melissa Stepovich

As discussed, the responsive records would then be sent as PDFs of the emails themselves, where the metadata that I am requesting is included as header information.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if anything is unclear.

Thank you in advance -
Matt Chapman

From: Matt Chapman

Hi - has there been any new progress on this request?

Thank you in advance -
Matt Chapman

From: Office of the Governor - Alaska

Thank you for your inquiry. I have not moved forward on this request because it was not clear to me that you were ready for a cost estimate to be produced. If you are ready for that, I would like to clarify your request, and then I will submit the cost estimate request to the State Security Office. Although I cannot easily predict the total, the hourly rate for Electronic Services and Products search by the SSO is approximately $99.

Some of the listed employees are no longer employed by the State, are you still interested in those previous employees emails.

Angela Hull
Director of Correspondence and Constituent Services
Office of Governor Bill Walker
907-465-3500
angela.hull@alaska.gov
www.gov.alaska.gov<http://www.gov.alaska.gov/>

From: Matt Chapman

Yes please. To reduce the efforts and costs of this request, please use the following steps, which have been useful for other departments that also use Office 365:

0. Username must have access to search and export eDiscovery reports. If not, your IT department should have access to either grant the required permissions, or run through these steps themselves.
1. From Internet Explorer, log into https://protection.office.com/.
2. Navigate to "Search & Investigation" -> "eDiscovery" and create a new case.
3. Open the case, then create a new search through "Search" -> "New search"
4. Add a "Type" condition and select, "E-mail messages".
5. Under "Locations" -> "Specific locations" -> "Modify...".
6. Toggle the location that includes "Exchange email" and click "Save".
7. Click "Save & run" and give the search a name.
8. Navigate to "More" -> "Export results", then select the following options:
-Output options: "All items, excluding [...]"
-Export Exchange content as: "Individual messages"
9. Navigate to Export -> "[Name of export]_Export".
10. Click "Download results" and launch the "Unified Export Tool".
11. Paste the export page's "Export key" into the tool's key field.
12. Choose a save location and click "Start"
13. Open "results.csv" from the saved location.
14. Delete all columns that are not the requested metadata and save.

(Please note that depending on the size of the csv files, this may need to be done in batches through the use of a date or sender/receiver conditional within the search query. Similar can be said about filtering down to just your office's department's email addresses.)

From: Office of the Governor - Alaska

Thank you for your contact. Although I appreciate your tutelage, we do not dictate to the State Security Office how searches are performed, that would be within their specific realm of expertise. In addition, we do not upload information to outside sites. You will receive the information electronically either on a CD or via email depending on the size of the pdf files produced. I will send over the request for search cost estimate to ascertain the price and relay that to you. Once we have received payment, the search can be completed. At that stage, depending on the volume of responsive records found, I will be in a better position to discuss how long legal review, redaction, and production will take.

Angela Hull
Director of Correspondence and Constituent Services
Office of Governor Bill Walker
907-465-3500
angela.hull@alaska.gov
www.gov.alaska.gov<http://www.gov.alaska.gov/>

From: Matt Chapman

Thank you!

I only recommend those steps, as they have been useful in cases where departments have insisted that the request is technically difficult. Specifically, they were written for a department that physically printed all of their emails and used a large paper cutter to cut out the email header and asked $1,400 for the work. This was in spite of having the tools available to fulfill my request, as does your department, if not through proxy through SSO. My hope is that the SSO does not do the same, nor similar, and may find my research useful.

It should also be noted that the steps I mentioned do not require the uploading of any files.

From: Matt Chapman

Angela - I have not received any followup information on this request. Could you please provide an update?

From: Office of the Governor - Alaska

This request is five years old and was resolved in our office at that time. The requestor was not satisfied with our standard processes and did not comply with requesting a cost estimate. They were very interested in telling us how to do what they wanted, but unfortunately, that is not how statute requires us to respond.

Angela Hull
Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff
Chief Public Records Officer
Office of Governor Mike Dunleavy
907-465-3500

Files