Starship delivery robot reports (Oregon State University)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Oregon Public Records Law, I hereby request the following records:

Public reports show that the robotic delivery company Starship is operating at your university: https://www.starship.xyz/starship-food-delivery-app/

Therefore, I hereby request the following records:

1) All presentations and presentation materials (including recorded video and audio, PowerPoint files, prepared remarks, and slides formats), and other information presented to the university/University Police Department about Starship/Starship robots.

2) A copy of any incident reports relating to Starship delivery robots, including attachments and media.

3) Any emails between the university and other members of the University about or mentioning Starship delivery robots, including attachments and media.

4) Any emails between the university and employees of Starship.

5) Any resident /student complaints about Starship robots or other delivery robots.

6) Any requests for evidence, subpoenas, or other legal requests about Starship.

7) Any video footage or audio given to the university or university police department by Starship

Please search between August 1, 2022 and the time this request is processed.

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,

Jason Koebler

Hello,

Please include all communications about this event in particular: https://twitter.com/OregonState/status/1716897541080650171

I would request that this be completed on a rolling basis, with responsive documents provided as soon as they are releasable.

Hi Janet,

Thank you for the response, I appreciate it. I am writing to request a fee waiver pursuant to ORS 192.324(5), and to stress the urgency of this request. I am also writing to let you know what I am going to be writing a short article about the large fee requested in order to provide what I believe to be relatively basic documents that are extremely in the public interest, especially given the bomb threat from this week.

Last month, I wrote this article about food delivery robot footage being shared with the Los Angeles police department: https://www.404media.co/serve-food-delivery-robots-are-feeding-camera-footage-to-the-lapd-internal-emails-show/

After I wrote that article, the company vowed to stop doing this, a tangible impact of my reporting. I then filed a series of public records requests with public universities around the country about their relationships with Starship Robotics, including OSU.

This request became more urgent after the bomb threat against the robot earlier this week; I'm glad and thankful that it was a hoax. I followed up with your FOI office, which has been helpful through this process, and got a response yesterday that even basic documents about the university's relationship with Starship would cost $728.94, not including email communications about the robots.

This is a very large amount of money for basic documents that other universities and small and large governments around the country are able to often quickly provide me free of charge because they are a matter of public interest, often within a matter of a few days or weeks. Which part of my request is so burdensome (outside of the emails, which I would also argue is not burdensome?)

Contracts and official communications from Starship should be readily available, as should incident reports involving Starship. Other universities have been able to provide these within a matter of days. Video footage shared with the university either exists or it doesn't; if it does exist, that is a matter of extreme public interest and should be subject to a fee waiver.

Thank you,
Jason