FOIA - Chicago - SafeGraph COVID-19 Tracking (Mayor's Office)

April 24, 2020

J Ader

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Ader,

On behalf of the City of Chicago Office of the Mayor, I am responding to your Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request which was dated April 17, 2020 and received in our office on the same day. At this time, the Mayor’s Office is seeking an extension of five additional working days to respond to the request for one or more of the following reasons identified in 5 ILCS 140/3(e) of FOIA:
( ) the requested records are stored in whole or in part at other locations than the office having charge of the requested records;
( ) the request requires the collection of a substantial number of specified records;
( ) the request is couched in categorical terms and requires an extensive search for the records responsive to it;
( ) the requested records have not been located in the course of routine search and additional efforts are being made to locate them;
(xx) the requested records require examination and evaluation by personnel having the necessary competence and discretion to determine if they are exempt from disclosure under Section 7 of the FOIA or should be revealed only with appropriate deletions;
(xx) the request for records cannot be complied with by the public body within the time limits prescribed by 5 ILCS 140/3(d) without unduly burdening or interfering with the operations of the public body;

(xx) there is need for consultation, which shall be conducted with all practicable speed, with another public body or among two or more components of a public body having a substantial interest in the determination or in the subject matter of the request.

Sincerely,

Tom Skelton

FOIA Officer – Office of the Mayor

May 1, 2020

J Ader

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Ader,

On behalf of the City of Chicago Office of the Mayor (“Mayor’s Office”), I am responding to your Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request which was dated April 17, 2020 and received in our offices on the same day. The Mayor’s Office took a 5-day extension to your request on April 24, 2020. You requested:

Requesting all documents pertaining to SafeGraph (https://www.safegraph.com/). Documents being requested include - but are not limited to - the following:

- Invoices, receipts, and/or requests for the purchase of any SafeGraph product/service

- MOUs from SafeGraph

- Brochures or product/service specifications regarding SafeGraph

- Privacy and/or retention policies regarding SafeGraph product/services

- Any/all manuals regarding SafeGraph product/services

- Any presentations (PowerPoint documents, slides, and/or video/audio presentations) regarding SafeGraph product/services

- Guidelines mentioning SafeGraph product/services

- Bulletins mentioning SafeGraph product/services

- Briefings mentioning SafeGraph product/services

- Memos mentioning SafeGraph product/services

- Any/all digitally disseminated publications from your agency mentioning SafeGraph product/services

The Mayor’s Office does not have responsive records for the documents described in your list in your FOIA request.

To the extent your request seeks emails, your request is unduly burdensome. Section 3(g) of FOIA provides that “requests for all records falling within a category shall be complied with unless compliance with the request would be unduly burdensome for the complying public body and there is no way to narrow the request and the burden on the public body outweighs the public interest in the information.”

In order to effectively run an email search, the Mayor’s Office needs the following search parameters: (1) the e-mail address(es) or employee name(s) of the account(s) you wish searched; (2) key words you wish to search for; and (3) the timeframe to be searched. Without search parameters, the Mayor’s Office would need to review all department emails to determine whether any are responsive to your request. Such an undertaking would pose an immense burden on the department. Additionally, it is not possible for the Mayor’s Office to run an email search without the parameters listed above.

It is necessary that your FOIA request be narrowed and clarified. If you would like assistance in narrowing your request, please contact me, and I will assist you. Otherwise, for the reasons provided above, the Mayor’s Office is unable to respond to your FOIA request as currently drafted.

If you agree to narrow your request, you must submit a revised written request to my attention. The Mayor’s Office will take no further action or send you any further correspondence unless and until your current request is narrowed in writing. If we do not receive your narrowed request within fourteen calendar days of the date of this letter, your current request will be denied.

In the event that we do not receive a narrowed request and your current FOIA request is therefore denied, you have the right to have a denial reviewed by the Public Access Counselor (PAC) at the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, 500 S. 2nd Street, Springfield, Illinois 62706, (877) 299-3642. You also have the right to seek judicial review of your denial by filing a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court.

Sincerely,

Tom Skelton
FOIA Officer – Mayor’s Office

May 11, 2020

J Ader

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Ader,

On behalf of the City of Chicago Office of the Mayor, I am responding to your Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request which was dated May 4, 2020 and received in our office on the same day. At this time, the Mayor’s Office is seeking an extension of five additional working days to respond to the request for one or more of the following reasons identified in 5 ILCS 140/3(e) of FOIA:
( ) the requested records are stored in whole or in part at other locations than the office having charge of the requested records;
( ) the request requires the collection of a substantial number of specified records;
( ) the request is couched in categorical terms and requires an extensive search for the records responsive to it;
( ) the requested records have not been located in the course of routine search and additional efforts are being made to locate them;
(xx) the requested records require examination and evaluation by personnel having the necessary competence and discretion to determine if they are exempt from disclosure under Section 7 of the FOIA or should be revealed only with appropriate deletions;
(xx) the request for records cannot be complied with by the public body within the time limits prescribed by 5 ILCS 140/3(d) without unduly burdening or interfering with the operations of the public body;

(xx) there is need for consultation, which shall be conducted with all practicable speed, with another public body or among two or more components of a public body having a substantial interest in the determination or in the subject matter of the request.

Sincerely,

Tom Skelton

FOIA Officer – Office of the Mayor

June 24, 2020

J Ader

Via email at requests@muckrock.com

Dear Mr. Ader,

On behalf of the City of Chicago Office of the Mayor (“Mayor’s Office”), I am responding to your two Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests which was dated May 4, 2020 and received in our offices on the same day. The Mayor’s Office took a 5-day extension to your request on May 11, 2020. You requested:

Requesting a search for the terms "SafeGraph" and "Safe Graph" within all emails sent/received during this same time-frame March 27th, 2020 to April 17th, 2020 by/to any of the following Office employees:

- LORI E LIGHTFOOT - JENNIE HUANG BENNETT - MARGARET DECKER - RACHEL LEE LEVEN - TAYLOR DANIELLE LEWIS - NICHOLAS J LUCIUS - DANIEL BERMAN LURIE - SAMIR S MAYEKAR - CELIA MEZA - MICHAEL DAVID MILSTEIN - HAN DINH NGYUEN - MANUEL PEREZ - ERIKA SHANELLE POWELL - YASMIN M RIVERA - ANEL RUIZ CAMPOS - PATRICK R SCHWESKA - WILLIAM SHIH - TIFFANY S SOSTRIN - JILL WINEMAN STONE

You also requested:

Requesting search for the term "BlueDot" within all emails sent/received during this same time-frame March 27th, 2020 to April 17th, 2020 by/to any of the following Office employees:

- LORI E LIGHTFOOT - JENNIE HUANG BENNETT - MARGARET DECKER - RACHEL LEE LEVEN - TAYLOR DANIELLE LEWIS - NICHOLAS J LUCIUS

- DANIEL BERMAN LURIE - SAMIR S MAYEKAR - CELIA MEZA - MICHAEL DAVID MILSTEIN - HAN DINH NGYUEN - MANUEL PEREZ - ERIKA SHANELLE POWELL - YASMIN M RIVERA - ANEL RUIZ CAMPOS - PATRICK R SCHWESKA - WILLIAM SHIH - TIFFANY S SOSTRIN - JILL WINEMAN STONE

Please find the attached records responsive to your request.

We have redacted certain material pursuant to Section 7(1)(b) of FOIA. That section exempts “private information, unless disclosure is required by another provision of this Act, a State or federal law or a court order.” 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(b). Section 2(c-5) defines “private information" as:

unique identifiers, including a person's social security number, driver's license number, employee identification number, biometric identifiers, personal financial information, passwords or other access codes, medical records, home or personal telephone numbers, and personal email addresses. Private information also includes home address and personal license plates, except as otherwise provided by law or when compiled without possibility of attribution to any person.

5 ILCS 140/2(c-5). The material we have redacted under this section is cell phone numbers, conference call information, and personal email addresses. Because these items are specifically exempted under Section 7(1)(b), they have been properly redacted.

We have redacted certain material pursuant to Section 7(1)(c) of FOIA. That section exempts:

[p]ersonal information contained within public records, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, unless the disclosure is consented to in writing by the individual subjects of the information. ‘Unwarranted invasion of personal privacy’ means the disclosure of information that is highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and in in which the subject’s right of privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information. The disclosure of information that bears on the public duties of public employees and officials shall not be considered an invasion of personal privacy.

We have redacted under Section 7(1)(c) city issued cell phone numbers and conference call numbers. As publicly-available cell phone numbers and conference call numbers would subject these employees to invasive and unsolicited phone calls, the disclosure of the cell phone numbers and conference call numbers would burden employees’ privacy interest. Additionally, the access to this information would not advance the public interest in understanding “the affairs of government and the official acts and policies of those who represent them[.]” 5 ILCS 140/1. Further, the landline numbers for these employees is available to the public, which further limits the de minimis public interest in the contact information of the requested employees. See Shurtleff v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, 991 F. Supp. 2d 1, 18 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2013) (“The EPA has proferred a substantial privacy interest at stake in disclosing the official internal email address of the EPA Administrator and the work email address of employees at the EOP: these few individuals have ‘a significant personal interest in preventing the burden of unsolicited emails and harassment.’”); Buckovetz v. U.S. Department of the Navy, Case No. 14-cv-2115-BEN, 2016 WL 4801335 at *2-3 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 7, 2016) (affirming the redaction of an employee’s cell phone number, because “the [employee’s] privacy rights in this information outweigh the public’s interest in disclosure”).”

We have redacted and withheld certain material pursuant to Section 7(1)(f) of FOIA. That section exempts:

Preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated, except that a specific record or relevant portion of a record shall not be exempt when the record is publicly cited and identified by the head of the public body.

5 ILCS 140/7(1)(f). The U.S. Supreme Court has determined that the deliberative process exemption under FOIA focuses on documents that reflect “advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising part of a process by which governmental decisions and policies are formulated.” NLRB v. Sears and Roebuck, 421 U.S. 132, 150-151 (1975). The purpose is to encourage “frank discussion of legal or policy matters” such that employees in government feel free to express their opinions before a final legal or policy decision is made. “Deliberative” has been found to mean being a direct part of the process where recommendations and opinions are expressed. Vaughn v. Rosen, 523 F.2d 1136, 1143-44 (D.C. Cir. 1975). Records where preliminary opinions are expressed and policies and actions are formulated are therefore exempt from production under Section 7(1)(f) of the Illinois FOIA, and have been properly withheld.

We have redacted certain material pursuant to Section 7(1)(m) of FOIA. That section exempts:

Communications between a public body and an attorney or auditor representing the public body that would not be subject to discovery in litigation, and materials prepared or compiled by or for a public body in anticipation of a criminal, civil or administrative proceeding upon the request of an attorney advising the public body, and materials prepared or compiled with respect to internal audits of public bodies.

5 ILCS 140/7(1)(m). Because the withheld and redacted records constituted privileged communications between an attorney and clients, they have been properly withheld and redacted under this section.

We have also redacted information under Section 7(1)(m) and the work product doctrine. “The work product doctrine applies to documents prepared by either client or attorney in anticipation of litigation or trial.” Dalen v. Ozite Corp., 230 Ill. App. 3d, 18, 27 (2d Dist. 1992); see also Mattenson v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 438 F.3d 763, 767-68 (7th Cir. 2006). Under this doctrine, such material “‘is subject to discovery only if it does not contain or disclose the theories, mental impressions, or litigation plans of the party’s attorney.’” Center Partners, Ltd. v. Growth Head GP, LLC, 2012 IL 113107, ¶ 29 (quoting Ill. S. Ct. R. 201(b)(2)). Because the redacted and withheld material would reveal the mental impressions or litigation plans of City attorneys, the material has been properly redacted and withheld under Section 7(1)(m) and the work product doctrine.

You have the right to have a denial reviewed by the Public Access Counselor (PAC) at the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, 500 S. 2nd Street, Springfield, Illinois 62706, (877) 299-3642. You also have the right to seek judicial review of your denial by filing a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court.

Sincerely,

Tom Skelton
FOIA Officer – Mayor’s Office