Hugh Hurwitz Emails

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

I would like to obtain all emails sent to, from, or copied to Hugh Hurwitz, from August 1, 2019 to Present Day containing any of the following non-case-sensitive key-string: "Epstein", "suicide", "whistleblower", or "POTUS"

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 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Taylor Amarel Scott

To Whom This May Concern,

I wish to appeal this determination on the following grounds:

1.) There is a requirement to search for the records contrary to the statement that "this Office is not required to conduct a search for the requested records." Indeed, the exemptions stated, if followed, do not exempt the Bureau of Prisons from conducting a search. Exemptions, if used correctly, can only be used to redact or withhold documents. The Bureau of Prisons makes the false assumption that if an exemption is applied, the office is "not required to conduct a search for the requested records." Again, redactions and withholding only limit the release of information - not the search for such information;

2.) Worse, if the Bureau of Prisons does not search for the records, there is no logical or reasonable manner in which the Bureau of Prisons could apply exemptions. Because exemptions apply to the content of the documents - not the fact that they meet a provided search term in the initial request. Indeed, there are likely news articles sent, received, or copied to Hugh Hurwitz that match the request descriptions but with utmost certainty would not be subject to exemptions - prominently because news articles are already in the public domain and would not contain any sensitive information.

As a matter of policy, if the Bureau of Prisons is allowed to deny a request without even conducting a search, what is preventing the Bureau of Prisons of other federal agencies from denying document unilaterally without conducting a search to see if the requested documents are sensitive or not. The stance taken by the Bureau of Prisons in this instance is one of a 'scorched earth' policy that runs contrary to the guidelines and laws of FOIA.

3.) In order to further understand how the Bureau of Prisons has processed my request, I would like to inquire about the following:

A.) A full copy of the FOIA log, including emails chains or others that were generated in response to or relating to this FOI request;
B.) Clarification over whether any search was conducted by the Bureau of Prisons, and if so, how many records (or pages) were determined to be exempt from disclosure?
C.) Clarification over whether the Bureau of Prisons followed any standard procedure for searching for the documents then giving them to an exemption/review team before disclosure - or was the request denied in full simply because of the key-strings mentioned?

Thank you for your time and consideration of these matters. As I am sure you know, this request is of significant public interest and the denial of records without reviewing such records (or even searching for them) is highly concerning.