“Request Denied”
Tuesday, Apr 24, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
If you are interested at all in the citizenry’s right to obtain documents from its government, then you have to check out the State Journal-Register’s newest series of stories. Entitled “Request Denied,” the series is a must-read.
A few exerpts…
* ‘We just want to know what happened to our son‘
A review of Freedom of Information Act requests made to Illinois State Police in 2005 and 2006 shows that most questions go unanswered. Insurance companies seeking information on traffic accidents or thefts are told records can’t be released because doing so would be a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.†Crime victims and their loved ones are told the same thing – even though criminals can get files on their cases. Lawyers are denied reports that concern their clients, even when the clients sign waivers authorizing the release of documents.
The zest for secrecy is evident at the bottom of blank forms used to chronicle crimes, traffic accidents and other incidents. Even before anything is written down, the forms show that police have already decided the information is secret, despite state law that says all government records are presumed open.
“The contents of this document are not to be distributed outside the Illinois State Police,†says a statement on field report forms used by troopers. Forms used by investigators charged with conducting follow-up interviews and in-depth investigations say the same thing: “This document contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the Illinois State Police. It and its contents are not to be disseminated outside your agency.â€
Besides withholding documents, state police are keeping poor track of FOIA requests, contrary to agency policy that says responses to each inquiry are supposed to be documented. In hundreds of cases, ISP files don’t show how a request was handled.
* ‘I felt like they blew me off totally‘
Elizabeth Flaherty’s request was polite.
“I am writing to you today, in hopes that you will send me a copy of your reports on the incident,†Elizabeth Flaherty wrote in a February 2004 letter to a state trooper who had investigated the beating of her father at a nursing home owned by Bureau County, about two hours north of Springfield. “It has taken me this long to come to the point in my life that I still feel the need to seek out the truth.â€
The death certificate says congestive heart failure, but Flaherty says her 76-year-old father was never the same after he was assaulted by another nursing home resident in May 2001. He died two weeks later. […]
In a form letter, the state police told Flaherty that releasing the report “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.†When Flaherty appealed the decision, sending the state police paperwork verifying that she had power of attorney for her deceased father, she got no response.
* Not just crimes and crashes that are kept secret
Crimes and traffic accidents aren’t the only things Illinois police keep secret.
Police are also slow to say how taxpayer money is spent. Just ask John Baker, a Springfield attorney who successfully sued the Illinois State Police for employment discrimination on behalf of a former state police officer.
Baker first asked in June 2000 how much money had been spent on defense attorneys in his client’s case. Police didn’t respond to his request, so he wrote again. And again. And again.
All told, it took five months before police finally revealed that more than $685,000 in public money had been spent on lawyers. Besides sending requests to Bridget DePriest, freedom of information officer for the state police, Baker said he sent five queries to Keith Jensen, chief legal counsel for the agency.
- Way Northsider - Tuesday, Apr 24, 07 @ 10:03 am:
This is really sick stuff. Surely the Better Government folks or someone can bring attention to some of this stuff. There is no reason public information should not be public other than inertia. Maybe 100’s of high schoolers could do projects that involve asking for this kind of information and wear them down?
- PalosParkBob - Tuesday, Apr 24, 07 @ 10:21 am:
Schools are perhaps becoming the biggest abusers of the “request denied” approach to dealing with FOIAs.
After the inconsistent and fluctuating ISAT test results were released this year, I filed a FOIA at my local school to get our district Iowa test results to see if our students were performing better or worse. The Superintendent, with a PHD in Education and a Law degree, couldn’t quite figure out what document the district Iowa test results would be found in,so he refused to provide any documents because the FOIA “did not name a specific document”. When I called the district to find the name of the docuement, I was told that they were under no obligation to provided me with the bname of the document.
Catch 22, if don’t give the specific name of a document,they won’t provide it. They won’t let you see the document to get the precise name.
Schools now have found a way to prevent anyone from seeing their contracts. apparently all it takes is filing the contract in the “personnel” file.
I guess this only goes to show that every process of accountability can be circumvented, if there’s something that a governmental body wants hidden badly enough.
- Truthful James - Tuesday, Apr 24, 07 @ 10:25 am:
Perhaps the light of day would induce a greater amount of due diligence in the investigators and obtain a better result.
Like to see a one year limit on classifying investigative reports and an official designated to be the official declassifier.
- Sick Of It! - Tuesday, Apr 24, 07 @ 12:39 pm:
Was this occuring under previous administrations as well and to the same extent I wonder?
- anon2 - Tuesday, Apr 24, 07 @ 12:48 pm:
great work rushton and JR—-excellent work
- JW - Tuesday, Apr 24, 07 @ 3:46 pm:
A Springfield City Councilman tried to get a copy of State Police investigation report of the Springfield Police Department and even he could not get a copy as a councilman that’s how bad ISP is in honoring FOI requests.
- Jake from Elwood - Tuesday, Apr 24, 07 @ 3:51 pm:
I am not shocked. I am not surprised. Unfortunately, this type of noncompliance occurs all of the time. Some municipalities act with impugnity baiting the person with the FOIA request to sue them. The FOIA statute should be strengthened to provide that successful challenges to wrongfully withheld public records
be automatically awarded reasonable attorneys fees & costs.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Apr 24, 07 @ 4:24 pm:
Jake, I couldn’t agree more. How do we go about getting this done?
- DevilsAdvocat - Wednesday, Apr 25, 07 @ 1:05 am:
I doubt you will see this addressed in the SJ-R series, b/c they are going to simply act righteous because ‘the law says they are entitled’; but nowhere in FOIA is the actual cost of providing information such as this addressed. It can cost a lot more than ‘copy cost of a page’ to properly answer a FOIA. Someone has to coordinate it, find documents that may cross several different filing systems in various locations, paper, carbon copies, computer records, imaged docs, etc. and compile them. There is a cost to all of that.
And if faced between the choice of a trooper (or 2 clericals) doing ‘desk duty’ responding to FOIA and a trooper fighting crime, most people would prefer the crime fighting option.
I’m not saying that noone has a right to government information at all, just that the true costs of FOIA aren’t covered in the law.
And suggesting, as the first poster did, that people flood agencies with requests DOESN’T HELP. That just means people who really want and need info are more likely to be ignored or delayed.
- extrawise - Wednesday, Apr 25, 07 @ 8:55 am:
Devilsadvocate,
There ought not be any cost to posting information that belongs to us, not them.
One way to stop people from flooding these entities with requests would be to do away with the entire FOIA scheme and merely mandate everything be on-line within 24 hours of occurance.
As for privacy, it wouldn’t be hard to isolate some types of information where redaction is allowed (and can THEN STILL BE REQUESTED).
FOIA was a canard in that it actually created a curtain to hide information behind. Notice that in operation, it actually protect wrong doers even further in that the requested information tips off wrong doers as to exactly what to shred and who to corroborate with.
Thanks to Rich for posting this. Just another example of Illinois corruption (much of which is legal) and yet another reason for a Constitutional Convention.
- DevilsAdvocat - Thursday, Apr 26, 07 @ 12:29 am:
“There ought not be any cost to posting information that belongs to us, not them.”
Well…..huh?
FOIA is a government service, just like roads, police/fire protection, etc. in that it doesn’t happen without being paid for. So yes, it’s our data, but yes, it’s also our tax dollars funding the procurement of FOIA requests. 10 minutes here, 23 minutes there, spread over an entire organization - pretty soon we’re talking about a couple people’s salaries.
Or ‘posted online’ as you suggest - there’s definitely a cost to that: staff to run it, electronic document productions, imaging, filing systems, not to mention servers and other EXPENSIVE pieces of info-structure.
Ever used the Legislature’s system to look up bills and laws? How was that experience? Did you find what you wanted? Was it easy???
That’s a small system….now imagine that as an imaging mess for billions of hand-written forms.
Yup, that’ll happen about the time the world goes to totally paperless office…..
So my point is, who should pay for it - the interested party requesting the data as a user fee, or all taxpayers? Which sounds fairer?
- DevilsAdvocat - Thursday, Apr 26, 07 @ 1:01 am:
I was wrong - they did address the government’s side of costs in their IML interviews on 4/25.
And the concept crept into some other pieces, too, like ISP request for 67,000 pages of FOIA requests…