Babel Street (Baltimore Police Department)

Mr. Waltman,

You have made a request for public records pursuant to the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA), which is the General Provisions Article, § 4-101, et seq., of the Annotated Code of Maryland. You have requested.

Documents concerning contracts with the company Babel Street. I would also like any police reports and internal memos referencing Babel Street or their products, Babel X and Babel Sentry. Emails from and to the police chief, or coordinator of purchasing should also be searched. While I do not currently know their emails, I know that @BaltimorePolice.org is the domain of department email addresses, so I assume there is a standard way of formatting department emails with an individual's name, followed by the domain.

You request is actually several requests.

Document requests

· Contracts with Babel Street

· Police reports referencing Babel Street or their products

· Internal memos referencing Babel Street or their products

I anticipated your document requests to take well in excess of 2 hours to decipher, send to multiple custodians to gather, and process public for release. The staff time is billed at $50.00 per hour after the first two hours of staff time. Please note, pursuant to General Provisions Article, § 4-206 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, the official custodian of public records may charge an applicant a reasonable fee for the search, preparation, and reproduction of a public record. This provision reflects a legislative judgment that the taxpayers need not subsidize PIA requesters (except for the first two hours of search and preparation time, which are free to the requester under State Government Article, § 10- 621(c)), See 81Opinion of the Attorney General 154 (1996).

I anticipate that this request will have to go to at least 4 Custodians to search and compile records.
E-mail requests

· Emails using search terms Babel Street, Babel X and Babel Sentry.
I will caution you that using a BPD email address or domain such as [Chief of Homeland Security].baltimorepolice.org could bring up 1000's of email most having no connection with Babel Street. However, you would have to pay for the review of the emails at 50.00 per hour.

Running the "emails search program using the search terms "Babel Street, Babel X and Babel Sentry" includes:

Staff time and computer resources need to retrieve e-mails
*Acknowledgment correspondence back to the Petitioner;
*Document Compliance Unit's own analysis of the request from Petitioner;
* Document Compliance Unit's corresponding with the IT Division regarding the request;
*IT Personnel analyzing the parameters of the requested search;
*IT Personnel querying the requested search terms/parameters to the archived email system
*IT Personnel analyzing search results, corresponding back to Legal Affairs Division
*IT Personnel burning responsive communications onto CD, delivering same to Legal Affairs Division
*Legal Division downloading and uploading responsive correspondence to review platform
*Legal Division calculating the total pages of e-mails and attachments and estimating the final review costs.

Based on experience, this process takes about 3 hours of staff time. Two hours of this work is not charged.

Please advise if you are willing pay the reasonable cost of an e-mail search as allowed by the public information laws of Maryland.

The final cost for e-mail review is $50.00 per hour of legal review. Staff attorney can review approximately 30-60 pages of emails per hour.

If you want to narrow either your e-mail or document search please let me know.
Thank You

Wayne Brooks
Assistant to Legal Affairs
Baltimore Police Department
410 396 2395

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information contained in or attached to this e-mail message may be a privileged and confidential attorney/client communication, or otherwise confidential, and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are notified that any distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the Legal Affairs Division immediately by telephone at 410-396-2496 and DELETE the message from your system immediately. Thank you.

The materials in this e-mail are private and may contain sensitive law enforcement information. Please note that e-mail is not necessarily confidential or secure. Use of e-mail constitutes your acknowledgment of these confidentiality and security limitations. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited as covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2521. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the sender via telephone or return e-mail.

Mr. Waltman,

I reached out to custodians in Criminal Investigations Division, Homeland Security, Operations Intelligence Section, Homicide Section, I T Section, and Fiscal Section. No section has reported using Babel Street, Babel X and Babel Sentry or having records of purchasing records for the product.

The BPD has extended in excess of two hour communicating with and the search of the custodians' records. Please advise if you want the BPD's I T section to conduct am e-mail search for the search terms of Babel Street, Babel X and Babel Sentry. If so I will forward an estimate of the cost of an e-mail search.

Sincerely,

Wayne Brooks
Assistant to Legal Affairs
Baltimore Police Department
100 N Holiday St., Room 100,
Baltimore, Md. 21202
DCU@baltimorepolice.org<mailto:DCU@baltimorepolice.org>

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information contained in or attached to this e-mail message may be a privileged and confidential attorney/client communication, or otherwise confidential, and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are notified that any distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the Legal Affairs Division immediately by telephone at 410-396-2496 and DELETE the message from your system immediately. Thank you.

The materials in this e-mail are private and may contain sensitive law enforcement information. Please note that e-mail is not necessarily confidential or secure. Use of e-mail constitutes your acknowledgment of these confidentiality and security limitations. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited as covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2521. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the sender via telephone or return e-mail.

January 25, 2017
Baltimore Police Department
Baltimore Police Department
Attn: Office of Legal Affairs
100 Holiday St., room 100
Baltimore, MD 21202

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to Maryland's Public Information Act ("PIA"), I hereby request the following records:

Documents concerning contracts with the company Babel Street. I would also like any police reports and internal memos referencing Babel Street or their products, Babel X and Babel Sentry. Emails from and to the police chief, or coordinator of purchasing should also be searched. While I do not currently know their emails, I know that @BaltimorePolice.org is the domain of department email addresses, so I assume there is a standard way of formatting department emails with an individuals name, followed by the domain.

I would also like records searched regarding the use of Babel Street during the Freddie Gray protests from April 25th 2015 to May 3rd 2015. Specifically any memos, or reports that made use of Babel Street, or other documents referencing their involvement.

As a member of the news media working for MuckRock News I request that a fee waiver for my request be granted. My work has been published by national outlets. My work for Motherboard can be viewed at the following link: http://motherboard.vice.com/author/cwaltman

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,

Curtis Waltman

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Filed via MuckRock.com
E-mail (Preferred): requests@muckrock.com

For mailed responses, please address (see note):
MuckRock
DEPT MR 32503
411A Highland Ave
Somerville, MA 02144-2516

PLEASE NOTE: This request was filed by a MuckRock staff reporter. Also note that improperly addressed (i.e., with the requester's name rather than "MuckRock News" and the department number) requests might be returned as undeliverable.
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[Image removed by sender.]

Mr. Waltman,

I reached out to custodians in Criminal Investigations Division, Homeland Security, Operations Intelligence Section, Homicide Section, I T Section, and Fiscal Section. No section has reported using Babel Street, Babel X and Babel Sentry or having records of purchasing records for the product.

The BPD has extended in excess of two hour communicating with and the search of the custodians' records. Please advise if you want the BPD's I T section to conduct am e-mail search for the search terms of Babel Street, Babel X and Babel Sentry. If so I will forward an estimate of the cost of an e-mail search.

Sincerely,

Wayne Brooks
Assistant to Legal Affairs
Baltimore Police Department
100 N Holiday St., Room 100,
Baltimore, Md. 21202
DCU@baltimorepolice.org<mailto:DCU@baltimorepolice.org>

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information contained in or attached to this e-mail message may be a privileged and confidential attorney/client communication, or otherwise confidential, and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are notified that any distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the Legal Affairs Division immediately by telephone at 410-396-2496 and DELETE the message from your system immediately. Thank you.

The materials in this e-mail are private and may contain sensitive law enforcement information. Please note that e-mail is not necessarily confidential or secure. Use of e-mail constitutes your acknowledgment of these confidentiality and security limitations. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited as covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2521. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the sender via telephone or return e-mail.

January 25, 2017
Baltimore Police Department
Baltimore Police Department
Attn: Office of Legal Affairs
100 Holiday St., room 100
Baltimore, MD 21202

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to Maryland's Public Information Act ("PIA"), I hereby request the following records:

Documents concerning contracts with the company Babel Street. I would also like any police reports and internal memos referencing Babel Street or their products, Babel X and Babel Sentry. Emails from and to the police chief, or coordinator of purchasing should also be searched. While I do not currently know their emails, I know that @BaltimorePolice.org is the domain of department email addresses, so I assume there is a standard way of formatting department emails with an individuals name, followed by the domain.

I would also like records searched regarding the use of Babel Street during the Freddie Gray protests from April 25th 2015 to May 3rd 2015. Specifically any memos, or reports that made use of Babel Street, or other documents referencing their involvement.

As a member of the news media working for MuckRock News I request that a fee waiver for my request be granted. My work has been published by national outlets. My work for Motherboard can be viewed at the following link: http://motherboard.vice.com/author/cwaltman

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,

Curtis Waltman

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Filed via MuckRock.com
E-mail (Preferred): requests@muckrock.com<mailto:requests@muckrock.com>

For mailed responses, please address (see note):
MuckRock
DEPT MR 32503
411A Highland Ave
Somerville, MA 02144-2516

PLEASE NOTE: This request was filed by a MuckRock staff reporter. Also note that improperly addressed (i.e., with the requester's name rather than "MuckRock News" and the department number) requests might be returned as undeliverable.
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