Request for email metadata (Office of the Governor of Nevada)
| Multi Request | Request for email metadata |
| Submitted | March 14, 2018 |
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Communications
From: Matt Chapman
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Nevada Public Records Act, 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 5 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Matt Chapman
From: Office of the Governor of Nevada
Dear Mr. Chapman,
I am in receipt of your public records request of March 14, 2018, in which you request the "from" address, the "to" address, "bcc addresses," "cc addresses," "time," and "date" for all e-mails send and received by the Office of the Governor between March 5 and March 9, 2018.
To my knowledge, there is no single document or record that contains this information. Pursuant to NAC 239.867, an agency is not required to create a public record that does not exist. To the extent you would like a copy of all e-mail sent or received by the employees of the Office of the Governor, I will forward your request to our IT department for processing. There will be a $.50/page fee for every record produced. Alternately, if there is a specific search term or e-mail address you are looking for, I could also revise any search to include those terms.
Please let me know how you would like to proceed. If you have any questions, I can be reached at 775-684-5670.
Sincere regards,
Kathryn Reynolds
General Counsel
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval
From: Matt Chapman
Thank you - please let me know what any expected fees will be. The records that I am requesting should ideally be put into a spreadsheet. Hopefully the fees reflect the structure of an excel spreadsheet.
Please bear in mind that my request - as is, without the contents of the emails themselves - should be significantly easier (and cheaper) to fulfill.
From: Office of the Governor of Nevada
Mr. Chapman,
I have forwarded your request to our IT department for processing. I will notify you when I know the approximate number of pages your request has produced. In any event, I will update you regarding the status of your request within 30 days.
Sincere regards,
Kathryn Reynolds
General Counsel
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval
-
~WRD000
From: Office of the Governor of Nevada
Mr. Chapman,
I have received the results of your request for all e-mails sent or received from any member of the Governor's office between March 5 and March 9, 2018. During that time period, a total of 8,311 e-mails were sent or received.
Our office does not create records, such as the metadata spreadsheet you have requested, in response to a public records request. See NAC 239.867 (stating that an agency is not required to create a record that does not exist). I am able to print the outlook files I have received in two ways. First, I can print in "memo form," which shows who an e-mail is from, the subject, date received, and file size. I have attached a sample of what this looks like for your review. Printed as a memo, the total document length is 297 pages. Given our copying fee of $.50/page the total cost would be $148.50.
I am unsure of the total length of printing all e-mails, given that some documents may be withheld pursuant to executive privilege. The cost would likely be in excess of $4000.00.
Alternately, if there are any specific search terms you would like me to use to refine your request, I am happy to do so. Please let me know how you would like to proceed.
Sincere regards,
Kathryn Reynolds
General Counsel
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval
From: Matt Chapman
Hi -
I would like that this request be sent to your IT department, who should be able to fulfill this request in a way that provides the metadata that I am seeking.
Please understand that the "memo form" methodology that you mention is just one of many methods of exporting data from your email server. At a technical level, it should also be understood that the contents of emails - subject and body - are almost certainly stored in your email server's database in a near-identical method. Should you reach out to your IT department, they should be able to provide a methodology of exporting the data that I am seeking that - at a software/technical level - matches your methodology in a way that is still responsive to Nevada public records laws.
The sample page that you are providing is also not sufficient, as it cuts off the characters of email addresses. In other words, the email addresses in the memo are incomplete and do not fit the requirements of the records that I am requesting.
If you would like any technical documentation for you or your IT staff, please let me know.
Thanks -
Matt Chapman
From: Office of the Governor of Nevada
Dear Mr. Chapman,
The Office of the Governor is unable to accommodate your request for metadata. First, I note that the Nevada Public Records Act generally applies to "public books" or "records." NRS 239.001. Second, as I have noted previously, an agency is not required to create a public record that does not exist. NAC 239.867. Finally, I note that some communications involving the Office of the Governor may be confidential or privileged. For every records request received, any responding documents are reviewed for confidentiality, and some documents may be redacted either in whole or in part. Accordingly, I can respond to your request with either a pdf electronic file, or mailed documents.
As detailed in my previous response, I remain happy to further refine your search terms, or if you would like all of the requested e-mails, to establish a timetable for production.
Sincere regards,
Kathryn Reynolds
General Counsel
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval
-
~WRD000
From: Matt Chapman
I still respectfully disagree with the determination that the requested information are not records. The information that you provided clearly comes from a database (which is a store of records). I can provide to you the exact specifications for how the data is stored for the report that you have provided to me.
A request for user accounts in your department would include a responsive set of 'records' of user accounts. The information that I am requesting is stored identically (except for names of fields) to that of the database that manages user accounts. They both use the Extensible Storage Engine created by Microsoft. If you consider user account names to be records, then for all intents and purposes in the purpose of defining what a 'record' is here, the metadata that I am requesting is also a 'record'.
I understand why the requested information is not considered to be a record, but please understand that at a technical level, it IS a record in the fact that it is a unique field in a database.
From: Office of the Governor of Nevada
Dear Mr. Chapman,
For the reasons stated in my communication of March 27, 2018, the Office of the Governor is unable to accommodate your request.
Sincere regards,
Kathryn Reynolds
General Counsel
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval
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