Communications with Justice Department and Trump administration re: CPD consent decree (Chicago Law Department)
Submitted | June 9, 2017 |
Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Shawn Musgrave
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (5 ILCS 140/1 to 11), I hereby request the following records:
All communications (including emails, memos and other correspondence) between City Hall and the Justice Department, the Trump transition team, and/or representatives of the Trump administration from January 1 through the date this request is processed.
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 5 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Shawn Musgrave
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on June 9, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: McCaffrey, Bill
June 16, 2017
Shawn Musgrave
requests@muckrock.com<mailto:requests@muckrock.com>
Dear Mr. Musgrave,
On behalf of the City of Chicago Law Department, I am responding to your Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") received by our office on June 9, 2017.
All communications (including emails, memos and other correspondence) between City Hall and the Justice Department, the Trump transition team, and/or representatives of the Trump administration from January 1 through the date this request is processed.
Your FOIA request is unduly burdensome because it includes e-mails. In order to effectively run an email search, the Law Department needs the names or email accounts that you wish searched. Moreover, you have not provided the Law Department with any key words to search, so a City wide search for an unspecified period of time would produce a volume of emails that would be burdensome to produce. Parameters that would assist the Law Department in conducting an email search include: (1) the e-mail address of the Law Department account you wish searched; and (2) key words you wish to search for.
Without email addresses or search terms the Law Department would have to retrieve each and every email for every employee for a search year period of time, which is both unduly burdensome and costly. After retrieving these e-mails, each and every e-mail message a Law Department employee received or sent would have to be downloaded and reviewed to determine if it is responsive to your request or is exempt from disclosure. If any exemptions were to apply, the Law Department would need to redact such information. The entire process of retrieval of the emails, finding responsive records, reviewing for exempt information, and then redacting the materials would be onerous.
Therefore, it is necessary that your FOIA request seeking "All communications," be narrowed and clarified. If you would like assistance in narrowing your request, please contact me, and I will assist you. Otherwise, as explained above, as your FOIA request is currently drafted, the Law Department is unable to respond to the request.
If you agree to narrow your request, you must submit a revised written request to my attention. The Law Department will take no further action or send you any further correspondence unless and until your current request is narrowed in writing. If we do not receive your narrowed request within fourteen (14) calendar days of the date of this letter, your current request will be denied.
You have the right to have a denial reviewed by the Public Access Counselor (PAC) at the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, 500 S. 2nd Street, Springfield, Illinois 62706, (877) 299-3642. You also have the right to seek judicial review of your denial by filing a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court.
Sincerely,
[McCaffrey]
Bill McCaffrey
Department of Law
From: Shawn Musgrave
Hello -
Please modify my request as follows:
Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (5 ILCS 140/1 to 11), I hereby request the following records:
-Emails to and from the accounts listed below that contain any of the following keywords: "Civil Rights Division" ; "consent decree"
Please search for emails to or from the following accounts: accounts used by Mayor Rahm Emanuel; accounts used by Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson; accounts used by Robin Robinson, CPD Special Adviser of Community Affairs
Please search for emails sent or received between November 1, 2016 and the date this request is received and/or processed, whichever is later.
Best,
Shawn Musgrave
From: McCaffrey, Bill
July 7, 2017
Shawn Musgrave
requests@muckrock.com<mailto:requests@muckrock.com>
Dear Mr. Musgrave,
On behalf of the City of Chicago Law Department, I am responding to your Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") received by our office on June 30, 2017. You requested:
emails to or from the following accounts: accounts used by Mayor Rahm Emanuel; accounts used by Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson; accounts used by Robin Robinson, CPD Special Adviser of Community Affairs
The Law Department has no records responsive to your request.
Please note that each City department is a separate "public body" under Section 2 of FOIA. 5 ILCS 140/2(a); Duncan Publishing, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 304 Ill. App. 3d 778, 784 (1st Dist. 1999) A FOIA request must be directed to the Department that maintains the records you seek.
Sincerely,
[McCaffrey]
Bill McCaffrey
Department of Law
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