AG orgs - GA
| Submitted | Feb. 28, 2018 |
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Communications
From: Andrew Perez
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Georgia Open Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
Copies of all available emails, documents and email attachments exchanged, from August 1, 2017 and February 28, 2018, between officials at the Georgia Attorney General's Office and individuals affiliated with the following organizations and companies. I am providing email domains and email addresses as search terms.
- Judicial Crisis Network (“@judicialnetwork.com”)
- National Rifle Association (“@nrahq.org” ; “@nraila.org”)
- Koch Industries (“@kochind.com” ; “@kochps.com”)
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce (“@uschamber.com” ; “@instituteforlegalreform.com”)
- Federalist Society (“@fed-soc.org” ; “leonard.leo@hotmail.com”)
- Altria Client Services (“@altria.com”)
- Purdue Pharma (“@pharma.com”)
- Mallinckrodt (“@mallinckrodt.com”)
- Anthem, Inc. (“@anthem.com”)
- Southern Company (“@southernco.com”)
- Peabody Energy (“@peabodyenergy.com”)
- DTE Energy (“@dteenergy.com”)
- Community Choice Financial ("@ccfi.com")
- Advance America (“@advanceamerica.net”)
- American Chemistry Council (“@americanchemistry.com”)
- Monsanto (“@monsanto.com”)
- Hamilton Consulting Group (“@hamilton-consulting.com”)
- Michael Best Strategies, LLC (“@michaelbeststrategies.com”)
- Bruning Law Group (“@bruninglawgroup.com”)
- Cozen O’Connor P.C ("@cozen.com")
- Hunton & Williams (“@hunton.com”)
Please understand “officials” to include individuals holding the following titles: Attorney General; Chief of Staff; Chief Deputy Attorney General; and Executive Assistant to Attorney General.
Please note that we do not want copies of any newsletters you regularly receive from these organizations. We also do not want copies of any materials that specifically pertain to ongoing opioid litigation.
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 3 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Andrew Perez
MapLight
Political Reporter
c: (954) 410-4522
From: Office of the Attorney General - Georgia
March 2, 2018
Andrew Perez
MapLight
Political Reporter
c: (954) 410-4522
Re: Open records request
Dear Mr. Perez:
This is to acknowledge receipt of the attached open records request that we received on February 28, 2018. We have queried our system in search of documents responsive to this request and have come across hundreds of potentially responsive emails, not including attachments and other potentially responsive documents which we will look for as well.
Fees associated with this request are based on the time it takes to fulfill the request which includes, but is not limited to, the initial scan of the universe of documents contained within our different systems, eliminating unrelated documents, checking for work product or other privilege, combining responsive documents into a single electronic format that is easily readable and shareable, etc. The fee calculation is based on time and experience level of the administrative staff and attorneys doing the work. We will always opt for the lowest experience level required to adequately perform the work when fulfilling the request so as to keep costs as low as possible.
As you may know, it is very difficult to provide a cost estimate because of the differences and varying issues that may arise with different requests. That being said, I would estimate it may cost anywhere between $75 and $200, with the understanding that the cost could fall outside this range. I will make a conscious effort, however, to notify you if I feel that the cost is going to exceed the upper limit of the range as we continue working on this. In terms of timeframe, I hope to get you the responsive documents within the next few weeks.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns as we work to fulfill this request.
Thank you,
Travis
[Georgia Department of Law]<http://law.ga.gov/>
[Georgia AG Facebook]<http://www.facebook.com/GeorgiaAttorneyGeneral> [Georgia AG Twitter] <http://twitter.com/georgia_ag>
<http://>
Travis Johnson
Chief of Staff
Office of Attorney General Chris Carr
Executive Office
Tel: 404-651-6194
tjohnson@law.ga.gov<mailto:tjohnson@law.ga.gov>
Georgia Department of Law
40 Capitol Square SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
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This message is intended exclusively for the individual or entity to which it is addressed. This communication may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential or otherwise legally exempt from disclosure. If you are not the named addressee, you are not authorized to read, print, retain, copy or disseminate this message or any part of it. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail and delete all copies of the message.
From: Andrew Perez
Thank you for the update on this request. That all sounds good on our end.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Georgia Open Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on Feb. 28, 2018. 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: Office of the Attorney General - Georgia
Thank you for the follow up. I expect we will have the records for you by the end of this week. If you have any questions or concerns in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
[Georgia Department of Law]<http://law.ga.gov/>
[Georgia AG Facebook]<http://www.facebook.com/GeorgiaAttorneyGeneral> [Georgia AG Twitter] <http://twitter.com/georgia_ag>
<http://>
Travis Johnson
Chief of Staff
Office of Attorney General Chris Carr
Executive Office
Tel: 404-651-6194
tjohnson@law.ga.gov<mailto:tjohnson@law.ga.gov>
Georgia Department of Law
40 Capitol Square SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
From: Office of the Attorney General - Georgia
I wanted to provide you with an update to your open records request. We have collected the universe of potentially responsive documents, of which, there are thousands, and have organized them into a single PDF file. Included in the universe of potentially responsive documents are documents and records which are exempted from disclosure and content which requires redaction pursuant to Georgia law. Of note, pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(20)(A), personal email addresses and cellular telephone numbers shall be redacted prior to disclosure. We have come across thousands of instances where this type of information is revealed and will require redaction, which will take time. The cost so far has approached the $200 upper limit of my original estimate. At this point, I would estimate that we are probably around halfway complete, placing the updated cost estimate in the range of $400 - $500 and another 7-10 business days to complete. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me as we continue to work toward completion of your request.
[Georgia Department of Law]<http://law.ga.gov/>
[Georgia AG Facebook]<http://www.facebook.com/GeorgiaAttorneyGeneral> [Georgia AG Twitter] <http://twitter.com/georgia_ag>
<http://>
Travis Johnson
Chief of Staff
Office of Attorney General Chris Carr
Executive Office
Tel: 404-651-6194
tjohnson@law.ga.gov<mailto:tjohnson@law.ga.gov>
Georgia Department of Law
40 Capitol Square SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
From: Andrew Perez
Thank you Travis. I will call you tomorrow to try to limit the scope slightly to reduce costs and staff time.
From: Office of the Attorney General - Georgia
Andrew,
It was nice to speak with you today. After looking at options to cut down on costs and turnaround time, we are seeing a very large number of “southernco.com” email addresses and which are part of large, repetitive and duplicative email chains and that contain a high number of personal email addresses (which require individual redaction). These are likely unrelated to the types of documents you might be looking for, based on our conversations. Two ways to reduce costs and turnaround time would be to consider removing Southern Company “southernco.com” from your list of search terms, as well as shortening the timeframe for your responsive documents. If you are comfortable removing that particular search term, we can rerun the new search and provide the documents likely within the original cost estimate of $75 - $200 and within the next few weeks. Please let me know how you wish to proceed.
Thank you,
Travis
[Georgia Department of Law]<http://law.ga.gov/>
[Georgia AG Facebook]<http://www.facebook.com/GeorgiaAttorneyGeneral> [Georgia AG Twitter] <http://twitter.com/georgia_ag>
<http://>
Travis Johnson
Chief of Staff
Office of Attorney General Chris Carr
Executive Office
Tel: 404-651-6194
tjohnson@law.ga.gov<mailto:tjohnson@law.ga.gov>
Georgia Department of Law
40 Capitol Square SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
From: Andrew Perez
Thanks for speaking with me today. We would like to remove Southern Company from the search. I would prefer not to change the timeframe. Thank you!
From: Office of the Attorney General - Georgia
tjohnson@law.ga.gov has given you secure access to files in Andrew Perez Maplight 2.28.18 Responsive Documents
To begin using the system, please activate your account by creating a password.
(https://secure.law.ga.gov/register?vc=mVBvR6aKfZ0keGlJ4GkmvwSXT0an4ywxcUBgTnlz) ACTIVATE
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This message is intended exclusively for the individual or entity to which it is addressed. This communication may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential or otherwise legally exempt from disclosure. If you are not the named addressee, you are not authorized to read, print, retain, copy or disseminate this message or any part of it. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail and delete all copies of the message.
From: Office of the Attorney General - Georgia
March 29, 2018
Ms. Perez,
We have completed your open records request. We have compiled the documents into a single PDF file for your review and are sharing them with you via our secure file sharing system called Kiteworks. You should have received an email to the email address that you provided with a link and instructions on how to create an account and access the file. Not included in the file are those documents which contain communications subject to attorney client or work-product privileges pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(41) and (42). Pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50 18-72(a)(20)(A), we redacted personal e-mail addresses and cellular telephone numbers. We did not produce documents which were previously produced pursuant to a separate, unrelated open records request, but happy to provide that file if you would like. We also did not produce MSA payment notice correspondence and documents per our conversation and at your direction.
Pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50 18-71(c)(1), cost associated with this request totaled $94, which is based on 1.25 hours of administrative time at $20 per hour and 1.5 hours of administrative management time at $46 per hour. The first 15 minutes of this request are free. Please make out a check in the amount of $94 payable to the Georgia Department of Law and mailed to my attention to the following address:
Georgia Department of Law
40 Capitol Square SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
This completes your request. As always, please feel free to contact me should you have any questions or concerns, or if you have trouble accessing the documents.
Thank you,
Travis Johnson
[Georgia Department of Law]<http://law.ga.gov/>
[Georgia AG Facebook]<http://www.facebook.com/GeorgiaAttorneyGeneral> [Georgia AG Twitter] <http://twitter.com/georgia_ag>
<http://>
Travis Johnson
Chief of Staff
Office of Attorney General Chris Carr
Executive Office
Tel: 404-651-6194
tjohnson@law.ga.gov<mailto:tjohnson@law.ga.gov>
Georgia Department of Law
40 Capitol Square SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
From: Andrew Perez
Thank you! Would you mind sending the Kiteworks link to andrew@maplight.org?
From: Office of the Attorney General - Georgia
Mr. Perez,
I added your other email as well. Please let me know if you have any trouble accessing the documents.
[Georgia Department of Law]<http://law.ga.gov/>
[Georgia AG Facebook]<http://www.facebook.com/GeorgiaAttorneyGeneral> [Georgia AG Twitter] <http://twitter.com/georgia_ag>
<http://>
Travis Johnson
Chief of Staff
Office of Attorney General Chris Carr
Executive Office
Tel: 404-651-6194
tjohnson@law.ga.gov<mailto:tjohnson@law.ga.gov>
Georgia Department of Law
40 Capitol Square SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
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