Theranos/Attorney General Communications (Office of the Attorney General)

VIA EMAIL ONLY

requests@muckrock.com<mailto:dacastello@broscolaw.com>

Dear Ms. Beryl Lipton:

Your Access to Public Records Act (“APRA”) request dated July 2, 2015 has been forwarded to me for response. You seek:

“All contracts, memorandums of agreements, nondisclosure agreements, electronic communications, and any other materials exchanged or entered into with, regarding, or referencing Theranos [https://www.theranos.com/] or any representative thereof”

In reviewing a broad FOIA request, a federal district court judge noted that:

“‘it is the requester’s responsibility to frame requests with sufficient particularity to ensure that searches are not unreasonably burdensome, and to enable the searching agency to determine precisely what records are being requested.’ The rationale for this rule is that [the Freedom of Information Act] was not intended to reduce government agencies to full-time investigators on behalf of requesters. Therefore, agencies are not required to maintain their records or perform searches which are not compatible with their own document retrieval systems. ‘The linchpin inquiry is whether the agency is able to determine ‘precisely what records [are] being requested’.’” Assassination Archives and Research v. Central Intelligence Agency, 720 F.Supp. 217 (D. D.C. 1989)(citations omitted).

Here, your request is broad and provides no guidance concerning where or why this Department may maintain any responsive documents, nor does your request provide any guidance for this Department to direct our search. In responding to your request, this Department reviewed the website referenced in your request and contacted the Chief of the Civil Division, her administrative assistant, and the Health Care Advocate, all of whom reported having no responsive documents. For this reason, your request is denied and no documents can be provided. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-3(h). If you would like to submit another APRA request, indicating why (and where) you believe this Department would have responsive documents, or providing this Department with more direction, you may do so. The search and retrieval consisted of forty-five (45) minutes, and therefore, there is no cost for this request. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-4(b).

This decision can be appealed pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-8.

Very truly yours,

Lisa A. Pinsonneault
Special Assistant Attorney General
Department of Attorney General
150 South Main Street
Providence, RI 02903
Tel.: (401) 274-4400, Ext. 2297
Fax: (401) 222-3016

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