Complaint for Search records (Cook County State's Attorney's Office)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act., I hereby request the following records:

A copy of all records that would appear on a "Complaint for Search" sent to the Felony Review Unit.
A copy of all records that would appear on a "Complaint for Search" sent to the Narcotics Prosecution Bureau.

Search warrant information has been requested in the past by Lucy Parsons Labs in the past [1] and has most notably been found in the CLEAR database. I kindly ask that your agency expand the search beyond CLEAR, wherever relevant.

As the statute allows, please provide me with an excel spreadsheet of these records. As the records are going through two separate departments, please provide two separate excel spreadsheets.

The records responsive to this request will be used to build a greater public understanding of Chicago's decisions, policies, procedures, rules, standards, and other aspects of government activity that affect the conduct of government and the lives of any or all of the people. As such, I humbly ask that the unduly burdensome exemption be waived, as the public interest greatly outweighs the burden on the public body. Consider that the burden is placed on the public body to show that the burden on the public body is outweighed by the public's interest.

Please ensure that this request is also received and processed by R&D.

[1] https://www.muckrock.com/foi/chicago-169/search-warrant-log-chicago-police-department-73550/

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,

Matt Chapman

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act., I hereby request the following records:

A copy of all records that would appear on a "Complaint for Search" sent to the Felony Review Unit.
A copy of all records that would appear on a "Complaint for Search" sent to the Narcotics Prosecution Bureau.

Search warrant information has been requested in the past by Lucy Parsons Labs in the past [1] and has most notably been found in the CLEAR database. I kindly ask that your agency expand the search beyond CLEAR, wherever relevant.

As the statute allows, please provide me with an excel spreadsheet of these records. As the records are going through two separate departments, please provide two separate excel spreadsheets.

The records responsive to this request will be used to build a greater public understanding of Chicago's decisions, policies, procedures, rules, standards, and other aspects of government activity that affect the conduct of government and the lives of any or all of the people. As such, I humbly ask that the unduly burdensome exemption be waived, as the public interest greatly outweighs the burden on the public body. Consider that the burden is placed on the public body to show that the burden on the public body is outweighed by the public's interest.

Please ensure that this request is also received and processed by R&D.

[1] https://www.muckrock.com/foi/chicago-169/search-warrant-log-chicago-police-department-73550/

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,

Matt Chapman

Thanks - please provide me with the raw complaints for search records. No need for the information to be formatted as an excel spreadsheet. That said, if there's a method, or existing & fungible information elsewhere, please provide that instead.

No worries! I'm just happy you're asking instead of giving a blanket rejection!

By "raw" I meant "original".

What I'm looking for is described in some detail at:
http://directives.chicagopolice.org/directives/data/a7a57be2-12a76ce1-24512-a76c-e6f5e256f0ef4e84.html

The name of the complaint for search record itself is, "CCMC-1-219". The search warrants themselves are "CCMC-1-220".

Essentially, I am looking for information that shows the flow (in data terms) of how, where, why, when, etc, warrants are approved. If CCMC-1-219 is not the correct document class that contains that information, then I will submit another request for CCMC-1-220s. This same reques to CPD was rejected for being unduly burdensome, but CCSAO has directives-based requirements for records management that would make fulfilling this request much easier.

If there's any information that you can provide, it would be very helpful. I understand that FOIA doesn't obligate you to provide any information, but within the spirit of FOIA, I am humbly asking for anything that would make both of our lives easier here. For context, last time we requested search warrant data, it took about a year to go through the appeals process. We're hoping to avoid that, and so any information that you can provide to help us through this opaque process would go a very long way.

The requested records will be added to https://viz.mchap.io/search_warrants so that the public can have a better understanding of the search warrants' context. This app has drawn the attention of the public and the FOP, so the public's interest ought to be high enough to warrant a waive of the unduly burdensome rejection.

Has there been any progress on this request?

Hi Paul -

It's my understanding that all fields from those two forms are transcribed somehow into a database that's managed by CCSAO. That effectively makes it possible to run SQL queries against that database for the records from those field. I am looking for those records, to the extent that they exist. I'm not exactly expecting 100% of the information to exist in a digital form, but I would like to humbly request that a search be done anyway.

Let me know if this makes sense - I can hop on the phone with you and explain my request a bit better.

Thanks and regards,
Matt

Hi -- by your own admission this request was received on 7/21/2019 and was only responded to on 08/09/2019, making the original extension over two weeks late, passing the statutory time limits set by 3(g), and the cited exemptions and case law do not apply.

The suggestion to resubmit a ten month old, still-active request is beyond ridiculous, even considering the circumstances surrounding COVID-19. I will not submit a new request despite the recommendation, even in light of the pandemic.

That said, I am willing to at least have a discussion around narrowing this request. Please provide me with some information to help figure out how to narrow (eg, how long will each month/year worth of records require review, how many records require review, etc).

Yep, how about Monday afternoon?

I can do next Wednesday. The morning will be difficult, but I am free in the afternoon.