by government* employees during the transaction of public business (restrictions apply). ✤ Regardless of format ✤ Regardless of medium (email, word docs, text message etc) ✤ Regardless of device
different, and often agencies don’t know the law. If you do, you have a competitive advantage ✤ Illinois has an attorney fee reimbursement ✤ Pay careful attention to deadlines (5 days, unduly burdensome) ✤ You can specify how you want your records ✤ You can request records any way you want, usually
to answer your questions Compare: “How many brown people sued you last year?” Contrast: “Documents sufficient to show the number of lawsuits …” ✤ Use broad* language (What does “documents” mean?) ✤ Offer to explain or describe what documents you want ✤ Link to news stories, other public documents etc
sue over this one but does the trade secret out weigh public needs to know ✤ Cross reference patents which are all public ✤ Public interest can override trade secret ✤ This one is common because corporations will often be a proxy for responses
a.k.a the fuck off exemption ✤ Often times the data is all there but they don’t want to sort it (request it all) ✤ Remember: You can specify how you want your records ✤ Ask for electronic searches within named databases ✤ Send a separate FOIA to find out how records are stored. Sometimes this info is already available. “Systems of Records”
to find out how records are stored ✤ Ask for electronic searches ✤ Automate your requests and ask for the same records every week until you get them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They didn’t actually say “no.” ✤ “Sure we can search, but it’ll cost you $6,000 and we can’t promise that once we find the records they won’t be withheld under some exemption anyway.” ✤ “No responsive records” (where did they search?) ✤ Challenge the sufficiency of the search, or the potential costs involved.
Counselor Office of the Attorney General 500 S. 2nd Street Springfield, Illinois 62701 ✤ You can always sue and it’s to lawyers ✤ FOIA for processing notes of your FOIAs ✤ Use community resources