Request for email metadata (Office of the Governor - Iowa)
| Multi Request | Request for email metadata |
| Submitted | March 14, 2018 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Matt Chapman
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Iowa Open Records Law, 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 - Iowa
Mr. Chapman,
Thanks for reaching out to the Governor's Office. It is my understanding
you are requesting the following:
1. From address
2. To address
3. bcc addresses
4. cc addresses
5. Time
6. Date
For each email sent to or from the Office of the Governor dated between
March 5, 2018 and March 9, 2018.
Please be advised that your request is not really an open records request,
rather it is a request for information. We could fulfill this request by
modifying your request to ask for a copy of each email during the relevant
period of time, which would likely include the information you are
seeking. Would you like to do that?
Our office charges for open records requests. Our office provides three
free hours of staff review time and ten hard copy pages without charge.
Above that, we charge $33/hour for additional staff review time and ten
cents per additional hard copy page.
Please confirm my understanding of your request is correct, and that you
understand and accept our office's records charging policy.
Thanks,
-Colin
*Colin C. Smith* | Legal Counsel
Office of the Governor, State of Iowa
Governor Kim K. Reynolds & Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg
From: Matt Chapman
Could you clarify what you mean by saying that it's not really an open records request? At a technical level (through how the data is stored at a database level), the metadata records themselves are stored in the same way that the contents of the emails are. As such, I am not sure why the records would be treated any differently.
It should be noted that the review and collection process for metadata is often significantly easier and by proxy, cheaper to fulfill. The cost of the request would reflect that. There are also many ways of reducing the burden of the request through systems such as excel and msaccess. Please let me know if you would like to discuss any of the technical options available.
Thank you and regards,
Matt Chapman
From: Matt Chapman
Could you clarify what you mean by saying that it's not really an open records request? At a technical level (through how the data is stored at a database level), the metadata records themselves are stored in the same way that the contents of the emails are. As such, I am not sure why the records would be treated any differently.
It should be noted that the review and collection process for metadata is often significantly easier and by proxy, cheaper to fulfill. The cost of the request would reflect that. There are also many ways of reducing the burden of the request through systems such as excel and msaccess. Please let me know if you would like to discuss any of the technical options available.
Thank you and regards,
Matt Chapman
From: Office of the Governor - Iowa
Matt,
Perhaps I was not as articulate as I could have been. It was my
understanding you were simply looking for a list of that information rather
than a singular document that might contain that information. The office
of the governor does not have custody or control over any database or
server, that would held by the technology folks (which are not part of the
governor's office). As such, I was suggesting that it might be easier to
fulfill your request in the form of simply requesting emails (the bodies of
which would contain the information you are seeking -- *i.e*., to, from,
cc, date, time, etc.). Maybe I am misunderstanding your request?
Does this clarification help? Please let me know.
Thanks,
-Colin
*Colin C. Smith* | Legal Counsel
Office of the Governor, State of Iowa
Governor Kim K. Reynolds & Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg
From: Matt Chapman
Thank you for the info! That is extremely helpful and honestly what I was expecting to have to do anyway. The line between what is considered a technical request that can be fulfilled by an IT department and what isn't is very easily blurred, so the explicit confirmation of that wrt this request is very helpful.
Cheers -
Matt Chapman
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Iowa Open Records Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on March 14, 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 Governor - Iowa
Matt,
Thanks for reaching out. Based upon your last message, it was not clear to
me whether or not you would like to move forward with the request for
emails or not. Is that what you want to do? If so, please let me know.
lf so, please confirm that you accept our office's records charging
policy.
Thanks,
-Colin
*Colin C. Smith* | Legal Counsel
Office of the Governor, State of Iowa
Governor Kim K. Reynolds & Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg
From: Matt Chapman
Er, sorry. Muckrock.com sends automated emails if you don't flag a request as completed.
(Disabling that feature for this request!)
Matt
Files
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