FOIA March Madness 2018 - Agency Talking Points (November 8, 2016 - March 13, 2018) (Securities and Exchange Commission)

Dear Ms. Lipton,

We are in receipt of your request (copy attached) seeking records from 11/8/2016 through 3/13/2018 regarding how to handle the media. We have interpreted your request as asking for the following:

1. All documents generated or received by the SEC's Office of Public Affairs from 11/8/2016 through 3/13/2018 containing any of the following phrases:

* Talking Points

* STMT

* Statement

* Press Strategy

2. All emails to and from all SEC employees from 11/8/2016 through 3/13/2018 containing any of the following phrases:

* Talking Points

* STMT

* Statement

* Press Strategy

If our interpretation of your request is incorrect, please let us know.

We have some concerns with respect to the email portion of item 1 of your request seeking OPA emails and item 2 seeking agency-wide emails that we would like to address with you before commencing our search for those records. Specifically, a search for emails containing the phrases "Talking Points" and "Statement" will likely return a lot of false hits. For example, there may be emails discussing talking points for testimony on the Hill related to a proposed rule change, a new policy initiative, etc. Likewise, emails containing the phrase "statement" would not be limited just to emails regarding how to handle the media. Please let us know if there is a way to modify the phrases "Talking Points" and "Statement" with respect to emails to better home in on what it is you are looking for. For example, does it make sense to add another qualifying term such as "Press AND Talking Points" or "Media AND Statement" to help reduce the number of potential false hits?

Please contact me at your earliest convenience to discuss your request. I can be reached directly by phone at (202) 551-6249. I look forward to working with you on this request.
Regards,

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:Ovallj@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

Thank you for your email. As a starting point, we can certainly limit the search for part 1 of your request related to emails to/from OPA to just those emails that have the requested phrases in the subject line of the email. Do you want us to limit the agency-wide email search in the same manner for now?
Thanks,
Ray

Ms. Lipton,

Please see the attached interim response to your FOIA request. If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call me.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:Ovallj@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

Can I call you at 1:00pm this afternoon to discuss? Is 617-299-1832 the best number to reach you? Thanks.

Ray

Ms. Lipton,

I just tried calling the number in the email below and after a few rings I was prompted to leave a message by an automatic voice recording. Since I’m not sure if this is a MuckRock mailbox I didn’t leave a message. I am in the office this afternoon and would be happy to speak with you regarding your request. I can be reached by phone on 202-551-6249.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:Ovallj@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

I called and left a voicemail message for you this morning on telephone number 617-299-1832. If you have time today to discuss your request please feel free to call me on 202-551-6249. I look forward to speaking with you.
Thanks,
Ray

Ms. Lipton,

Thank you for your email. Hopefully we can touch base today.
Thanks,
Ray

Ms. Lipton,

I just left you a voicemail message. I spoke to our IT liaison and she confirmed that the 214,000+ emails that we identified through our agency-wide email search only include emails in which any of the requested phrases you provided in your request appear in just the subject line of the email. Therefore, your question as to whether we could provide the metadata instead of the actual emails would be equally problematic since the volume of emails is so large.

In light of this, would you be interested in any Boolean searches instead? I think if we can be creative in combining a few keywords it would go a long way toward eliminating a lot of extraneous and/or duplicate emails.

Please call me to discuss this when you have a free moment.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:Ovallj@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

I called your office this morning and left a message with Michael. I’m available today to discuss your request if you have time. Thanks.

Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:Ovallj@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

I’m here today and I look forward to talking to you. Thanks.

Ray

Ms. Lipton,

It was a pleasure speaking with you this afternoon. We appreciate your willingness to be flexible as we continue to work together to make sure that you get the most useful response to your request, and also that you get it in a timely manner. If there is anything more that we can do to improve the level of customer service that we are providing to you, please do not hesitate to tell me.

As we discussed, the SEC typically performs email searches in one of two ways. We either search the entire agency as a whole, or we search the emails of individual SEC employees. In the latter scenario, we usually ask the requester to provide a list of employee names and/or email addresses to search. However, since part 1 of your request specifically asks for OPA emails we have taken it upon ourselves to compile a list of all OPA employees during the requested time frame. We expect to have the results for the email portion of part 1 of your request shortly.

We previously informed you that part 2 of your request, seeking all SEC emails in which any of the requested phrases you provided in your request (i.e., “Talking Points”, “STMT”, “Statement” and/or “Press Strategy”) appear in just the subject line of the email, resulted in 214,000+ emails. You indicated that you would like us to conduct a new agency-wide search to identify all emails to and from all SEC employees from November 8, 2016 through March 13, 2018 that have the phrase “Talking Points” in the subject line of the email only. We have initiated this search and will advise you of the results as soon as we have them.

If I have misrepresented anything that we talked about, please let me know.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov

Thanks, and same to you. Talk to you soon.

Ray

Ms. Lipton,

I just wanted to touch base to let you know that we’re diligently working on this request. We expect to receive the search results for the OPA and agency-wide email searches very soon, and, at a minimum, provide you with another interim response shortly thereafter. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I receive any additional information.
Thanks,
Ray

Ms. Lipton,

I hope you had a good weekend. We’re still waiting on the results for the OPA email search, but we did receive the results for the modified agency-wide email search.

We previously informed you that part 2 of your request, seeking all SEC emails in which any of the four requested phrases you provided in your request (i.e., “Talking Points”, “STMT”, “Statement” and/or “Press Strategy”) appear in just the subject line of the email, resulted in 214,000+ emails. When we spoke on the phone on March 23rd regarding those preliminary search results, you indicated that you would like us to conduct a new agency-wide search to identify all emails to and from all SEC employees from November 8, 2016 through March 13, 2018 that have the phrase “Talking Points” in the subject line of the email only. There are 28,737 emails to/from SEC staff from November 8, 2016 through March 13, 2018 that contain the phrase “Talking Points” in the subject line.

In light of this, would you like to set up a time to talk by phone about possible ways to further narrow the agency-wide email search results? I think combining another qualifying keyword like “Media” or “Press” with the phrase “Talking Points” would help bring the number of responsive emails down, and/or using less commonly used keywords/phrases. We can share ideas with one another when we talk.

Please let me know when you’re available for a quick phone call. Or, feel free to call me on 202-551-6249 when you have a free moment. I look forward to talking to you.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:Ovallj@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

Thank you for your email and for taking my call just now. Per your request, we will be conducting a new agency-wide email search to identify all emails to and from all SEC employees from November 8, 2016 through March 13, 2018 that have the word “Press” and the phrase “Talking Points” (Press + Talking Points) in the subject line of the email. We will contact you again as soon as we receive the search results.
Thanks,
Ray

Ms. Lipton,

I just wanted to give you a quick update on the status of your request. I’m expecting the results of the OPA and agency-wide email searches either today or tomorrow. As soon as I receive the search results I will contact you. I don’t anticipate any setbacks, but if there is an unexpected delay for some reason I will communicate that to you and provide you with a new time frame. I apologize that this is taking a bit longer than both of us would like, but please know that we are doing everything in our power to provide you with a complete and satisfactory response to your request as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this process. I will be back in touch tomorrow.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:Ovallj@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

I have received the search results for part 2 of your request, as amended. There are a total of 254 emails to and from all SEC employees from November 8, 2016 through March 13, 2018 that have the word “Press” and the phrase “Talking Points” (Press + Talking Points) in the subject line of the email. We are currently in the process of converting the 254 emails into PDF documents in order to get an accurate count on the total number of pages involved. If the number of pages is not too voluminous we will immediately begin processing the records for release.

We are still waiting on the search results for the email portion of part 1 of your request, asking for all emails to and from OPA staff from November 8, 2016 through March 13, 2018 that have any of the four requested phrases (i.e., “Talking Points”, “STMT”, “Statement” and/or “Press Strategy”) in the subject line of the email. As soon as we know the volume of responsive OPA emails we will contact you.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact me at McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:McInerneyR@sec.gov> or (202) 551-6249.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:McInerneyR@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

This email is to memorialize our telephone conversation from this afternoon. I informed you that after reviewing the 254 agency-wide emails that we received yesterday, only 180 of them (consisting of 701 pages, including attachments) have the word “Press” and the phrase “Talking Points” in the subject line of the email. I also advised you that it would take some time to review, redact, and coordinate the release of these emails since they contain equities concerning multiple SEC division and offices. To speed the process up, you suggested that we only provide you with the following six fields from the 180 emails: From, Sent, To, Cc, Subject and Attachments. Using these parameters, the body of the emails and any attachments to the emails will be considered non-responsive.

With respect to part 1 of your request asking for emails to and from OPA staff with the phrases “Talking Points”, “STMT”, “Statement” and/or “Press Strategy” in the subject line, I informed you that there are 3,061 potentially responsive emails. We will first have to review them like we did with the agency-wide emails to make sure that one or more of the requested phrases appear in the subject line of each email. Once that is done, you requested that we provide you with a sampling of the responsive emails (the first 100 pages including attachments), and for the remaining emails you asked us to provide the same six fields that you requested for the agency-wide emails (i.e., From, Sent, To, Cc, Subject and Attachments). Again, the body of the emails and any attachments to the emails will be considered non-responsive.

We have begun processing the agency-wide and OPA emails as described above. If I misrepresented anything that we talked about with regard to how we are going to proceed with your request please let me know. I will contact you if any problems arise on our end in terms of processing the records in the manner that we talked about.

Also, I wanted to let you know that I will be out of the office next week (April 16-20), so my colleague Jeff Ovall may be contacting you regarding this request while I’m out. I’ve cc’d Jeff on this email, and his phone extension is 1-6376. Please include Jeff on any communications next week regarding this request. I will return to the office on April 23.
Thanks,
Ray

Ms. Lipton,

Please see the attached second interim response to your FOIA request. If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call me.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:McInerneyR@sec.gov>

Good afternoon, Ms. Lipton. As Ray mentioned below, he’s out of the office this week so I’ll be communicating with you concerning your FOIA request in the meantime.

In reviewing the 3,061 emails to and from OPA staff that Ray mentioned below, we located 302 emails that contain the phrase “statement” in the subject line that can be processed fairly quickly. Please let me know if you would like us to complete the processing of these 302 emails as we continue processing the remainder of your FOIA request, or if you would rather we wait until we are completely finished before sending any additional records.
Thanks!
Jeff

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Good morning, Ms. Lipton.

Please see the attached third interim response to your FOIA request. If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email me.

Thanks!

Jeff

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Ms. Lipton,

I hope you had a nice weekend.

The vast majority of the 3,061 emails to and from OPA staff that we identified as being potentially responsive to the email portion of part 1 of your request, as amended, contain one or more of the four requested phrases in the subject line of the email. However, as you probably saw from the 302 pages of emails that we provided to you on April 19th, a lot of the emails are totally unrelated to agency talking points and the like. Moreover, it would take a considerable amount of time for us to review the approximately 20,000 pages of OPA emails in order to provide you with the same six email fields (i.e., From, Sent, To, Cc, Subject and Attachments) that we released to you for the smaller set (262 pages) of agency-wide emails responsive to part 2 of your request, as amended.

The phrase “Statement” appears to have produced the largest number of hits, which include many extraneous emails like those concerning medical insurance statements, etc. Therefore, I think combining another qualifying keyword like “Media” or “Press” with the phrase “Statement” would help bring the number of responsive OPA emails down considerably. Do you have time today to discuss possible ways to further narrow the scope of the portion of part 1 of your request seeking OPA emails? I look forward to speaking with you.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:Ovallj@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

Please see the attached fourth interim response to your FOIA request. If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call me.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:McInerneyR@sec.gov>

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Ms. Lipton,

Please see the attached fifth interim response to your FOIA request. If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call me.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:McInerneyR@sec.gov>

Ms. Lipton,

Please see the attached final response to your FOIA request. The CY2017 file is large so I had to split it up into three (3) separate emails. If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call me.
Thanks,
Ray

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:McInerneyR@sec.gov>

See attached. Thanks.

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:McInerneyR@sec.gov>

See attached. Thanks.

Ray McInerney
FOIA Branch Chief
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA Services
Office: 202-551-6249
Mobile: 202-304-6638
Email: McInerneyR@sec.gov<mailto:McInerneyR@sec.gov>

You’re welcome. I look forward to talking to you.

Ray

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