January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Matt Chapman filed this request with the City of Jacksonville of Jacksonville, FL.
Multi Request January 2017 Email Metadata
Submitted July 4, 2018
Est. Completion None
Status
Payment Required

Communications

From: Matt Chapman

Subject: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Portal


To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Florida Sunshine Law, I hereby request the following records:

For all accounts managed by your department, please provide me the following information for all emails sent during January, 2017:

1. From address
2. To address
3. bcc addresses
4. cc addresses
5. Time
6. Date

Please note that I am not requesting the contents of each email.

I am more than happy to provide documentation or tips for extracting this information from your mail server if needed. Documentation that I have available include methods using excel, powershell, msaccess, Office 365 eDiscovery tools, and the direct extraction from an exchange database using forensic analysis tools.

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.

Sincerely,

Matt Chapman

From: City of Jacksonville

Subject: FW: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Email

To Whom it May Concern,

The Office of the City Council is in receipt of your request. As an initial matter, please note that that City does not have to extract emails and then create a document, as Florida's Public Records law only requires the City to produce records as they currently exist.

If you are seeking all emails from this time period, that will likely produce a large amount of information and could be a costly request as all emails will have to be reviewed and redacted for possible exempt information. We would provide you with an invoice for charges before any review of emails. However, would you like to narrow or further clarify your request to possibly reduce the number of emails?

Thank you.

Paige H. Johnston
Chief of Legislative Affairs
Office of General Counsel
117 W. Duval Street, Suite 480
Jacksonville, FL 32202
(904) 630-3671 - direct
(904) 630-1731 - fax
E-mail - Pjohnston@coj.net<mailto:Pjohnston@coj.net>
http://generalcounsel.coj.com<http://generalcounsel.coj.com/>

From: Matt Chapman

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Email

Thank you for your response.

The requested information can be extracted from the email server directly. Within the email database itself, and for the same reason that an email body is considered public record, so are the metadata records that are responsive to this request. In other words, there is no need to extract the information from any emails to the extent that would create new records, as those records already exist.

Here are two methods using powershell which can be used to extract the information.

get-messagetrackinglog -Start "1/1/2017 00:00:00 AM" -End "2/1/2017 00:00:00 AM" | select timestamp, sender, {$_.recipients} | export-csv c:\results.csv`
- Should Transaction logs not go back to Jan 1 2017, the following can be used instead:
`Get-Mailbox | Search-Mailbox -SearchQuery "(received>=01/01/2017 AND received>=01/02/2017) OR (sent>=01/01/2017 AND sent>=01/02/2017)" -LogOnly -LogLevel Full`

If you would prefer a method of retrieving the records directly from within excel, I can provide documentation for that as well.

Regards -

From: City of Jacksonville

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Email

Thank you for your additional inquiry dated November 1, 2018.

Florida Public Records law does not require a local government to extract information from the email server, metadata or from an excel spreadsheet; the records are not manipulated and are produced in their original form.

If you are seeking all emails from the time period requested, it will likely produce a large amount of information and may be costly in that emails will have to be reviewed and redacted for possible exempt information. Would you like to narrow or further clarify your request to reduce the possible number of emails and costs related there?

Either way, we will provide you with an invoice for charges before any review of emails. Please advise how you would like to proceed.

Paige
Paige H. Johnston

From: Matt Chapman

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Email

Pardon my slow response. I would like to continue as-is with the request being for metadata. At a technical level, it should be noted that any request for emails requires the extraction of information from an email server. Whether the request is for metadata or emails themselves makes no difference. At the end of the day, an email client is connecting to a database server and requesting information from it. For example, consider how e-discovery and email litigation software would extract this information.

I would like a cost estimate before any work is done.

Thanks

From: City of Jacksonville

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Email

Craig::

Please see the attached correspondence for investigation and query. Open for thread and response from constituent via written communication with Paige.

Thank you

Cheryl

Dr. Cheryl L. Brown, Director
Jacksonville City Council
117 West Duval Street, Suite 425
Jacksonville, Florida 32202
CLBrown@coj.net<mailto:CLBrown@coj.net>

From: City of Jacksonville

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Email

We are in receipt of your request dated February 18, 2019 and are calculating the estimated costs to complete the request. When we have that figure, we will contact you.

Paige
Paige H. Johnston

From: City of Jacksonville

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Email

We are in receipt of your request dated February 1, 2019 and are calculating the estimated costs to complete the request. When we have that figure, we will contact you.

Paige
Paige H. Johnston

From: City of Jacksonville

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: January 2017 Email Metadata (Information Technology, Florida)

Email

You asked for an estimate of costs to run the search discussed below.

We have asked our ITD to run a preliminary search which yielded 204,889 hits based on the information requested.

In order to review and redact as necessary, the cost for such review is expected to be approximately $12,976. This is calculated by estimating that approximately 300 emails can be reviewed per hour at a cost of $19 per hour.

Please keep in mind that if you wish to pursue the request, it would roughly take around 683 hours to complete. This time to review will not necessarily include 683 hours of straight time to occur; it will have to occur during the reviewer's ordinary work hours and will be in addition to his other work. Therefore, the time it will take to complete the review and redaction would likely occur over several months. A review of the documents just based on the reviewer working on this matter alone would take approximately 17 weeks so completion of the original request would be well beyond 4 months- probably closer to 6-8 months to complete.

Please let us know how you would like to proceed.

Paige
Paige H. Johnston

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