Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Suspicious Activity Reports
| Submitted | Aug. 28, 2013 |
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Communications
From: Kris Frye
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to Tennessee's Public Records Act, and as a resident of Tennessee, I hereby request the following records:
Copies of all suspicious activity reports received by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation from Jan 1, 2012 through the date of this request.
I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as I believe this request is in the public interest. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.
In the event that fees cannot be waived, 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 7 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Kris Frye
From: Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
A fix is required to perfect the requesfix is required to perfect the request.
From: MuckRock
Hello,
The requested photo identification has been sent. Please confirm receipt and begin processing this request.
Thank you.
From: Jeanne Broadwell
We received the proof of residency and are putting together an estimate.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Aug. 28, 2013. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thank you for your help.
From: Jeanne Broadwell
We are in still in the process of compiling the information necessary to provide you with a cost estimate. We are at the point of contacting the law enforcement agencies to whom each report was referred to see if they have an open case on the matter. If they do, then the report cannot be provided at this time. It is a very time consuming process.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Aug. 28, 2013. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thank you for your help.
From: Jeanne Broadwell
Today. Thanks for your patience.
From: Jeanne Broadwell
Mr. Frye,
We have a cost estimate for the records that you requested. The procedure for reaching the estimate was as follows:
We pulled 5% of the suspicious activity reports from the time frame in your request, which totaled 25 reports. Two employees spent 7 hours and 32 minutes printing and redacting those reports, which a supervisor then spent 1 hour and 9 minutes reviewing. Three employees then spent 6 hours and 30 minutes contacting the law enforcement agencies to whom each report was referred to determine whether the reports had generated cases that were still open and active.
Of those 25 reports there are 137 pages that can be produced; at the cost of 15 cents per page the printing cost would be $20.55. The labor cost would be $588.09. The total for the 25 reports would be $608.64. By extrapolation the estimated cost of all 100% of the reports would be $11,897.07, minus the one free hour of labor pursuant to state law, which would be $70.23, for a grand total of $11,897.07, the estimate for 100% of the reports that you requested.
Now maybe you see why it took us so long to put this together. We had employees working on this in addition to performing their primary job duties.
If you decide that you want the reports just let me know.
From: Carlton Purvis
Jeanne,
This is Carlton Purvis. I am working alongside Mr. Frye will this request and will also be communicating with you on it as I have made it to Tennessee now (please let me know if you need my proof of residency as well).
I thought I'd replied before but I just realized that I hadn't. The five percent of reports (137 pages) you've pulled would be helpful. You quoted the total for those 25 reports as $608.64, however the Tennessee Open Records Act allows "State departments and agencies and political subdivisions of the state may charge a reasonable fee (cost of reproduction only) for information requested by the news media for news gathering purposes (broadcast or publication)."
I am writing to ask that all fees except for the cost of reproduction be waived per the Tennessee Open Records Act as this information is being requested for news gathering purposes. I am an established journalist who has reported on security for years for multiple publications and these reports would not only be published online on Muckrock, a news website, but used for a reporting project I'm working on with Mr. Frye's assistance.
Thanks,
Carlton Purvis
From: Jeanne Broadwell
Mr. Purvis,
The redacted documents that you are requesting have been purged. When we did not hear back from you we destroyed them.
Jeanne Broadwell
TBI General Counsel
901 R. S. Gass Blvd.
Nashville, TN 37216
Phone (615) 744-4208
Fax (615) 744-4656
From: Carlton Purvis
Good afternoon Jeanne,
That is unfortunate. It seems we dropped the ball on communication on both sides, as I wouldn't have let your work go to waste if I knew you planned to destroy the documents. Here is a new request. The scope is much smaller. What I'm trying to do is get a small sample of Tennessee SARs for research and reporting purposes.
Pursuant to Tennessee's Public Records Act, and as a resident of Tennessee, I hereby request the following records:
Copies of all suspicious activity reports received by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation from December 31, 2013 - January 31, 2014.
I also request that all fees except for the cost of reproduction be waived per the Tennessee Open Records Act as this information is being requested for news gathering purposes. The requested documents will also be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.
In the event that fees cannot be waived, 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 7 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Carlton Purvis
From: Jeanne Broadwell
Mr. Purvis,
Please complete the attached form and send it back to me. It is a more efficient way for us to keep up with requests rather than looking back at emails.
Thank you.
Jeanne
From: Carlton Purvis
Please find the requested form completed and attached.
Best,
From: Jeanne Broadwell
Mr. Purvis,
Please provide your complete address, including city and state.
Thank you.
Jeanne Broadwell
From: Carlton Purvis
Jeanne,
City and state is Memphis, TN. It should match the same address on my driver's license -- the license number was also provided on this form.
Carlton
From: Jeanne Broadwell
I have given your request form to the supervisor in the Fusion Center. They will have to pull those reports and go through the whole exercise of contacting agencies to see if cases were opened as a result of the reports, and they have to do that in addition to their primary job duties as time permits. I will let you know when the estimate is available.
From: Jeanne Broadwell
Mr. Purvis,
There were three suspicious activity reports during that time frame. We referred them to the appropriate agencies, and all three have resulted in investigations that are ongoing. For that reason we are unable to provide the reports to you.
Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this matter.
Jeanne Broadwell
TBI General Counsel
901 R. S. Gass Blvd.
Nashville, TN 37216
Phone (615) 744-4208
Fax (615) 744-4656
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