Sheriff discussions of Iowa judicial branch employees

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a reporter for WIRED Magazine who covers cybersecurity. Under the Iowa Open Records Law § 22.1 et seq., I am requesting an opportunity to inspect or obtain copies of all communications among Polk County police officers and other employees of the Polk County Sheriff's office (including between the Polk County sheriff and any Polk County deputy sheriffs) regarding three employees of Iowa's state judicial system: Mark Headlee, IT Director (“Headlee”), John Hoover, IT Manager (“Hoover”), and Andrew Shirley, Information Security Officer (“Shirley”), during the first 15 days of November 2019. (November 1-15, 2019)


Due to the sometimes slow delivery of mail due to the Covid-19 pandemic, please provide the records to me in a digital form by email, if at all possible.

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, if they are more than $300. I would also like to request a waiver of all fees in that I am a journalist, and the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest and will contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of the arrest and criminal charges brought against Coalfire Labs penetration testers Gary DeMercurio and Justin Wynn, a significant and newsworthy story in the world of information security. 

If you deny any or all of this request, please cite each specific exemption you feel justifies the refusal to release the information and notify me of the appeal procedures available to me under the law.
 
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,

Andy Greenberg
Senior Writer
WIRED
458 Lincoln Place, Apt 4A
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(917) 348-5427

Hi Meghan,

Apologies to be so slow to get back to you, as I didn't see your response until now due to an unexpected lack of notification from the FOIA service I'm using. I would certainly appreciate whatever you can share from the search you did carry out of the sheriff's email account and accounts of command staff. But I wasn't aware that the sheriff's office would have so many employees, and I don't think a search of all 500 staffers is likely worth the cost, so I'll drop that part of my request.

I appreciate your attention to this and hope you can share the results of the more narrow search you've been able to carry out whenever you have a moment.

Thanks again,
Andy