Records related to the email address supersat@cs.washington.edu

Karl Koscher filed this request with the United States Customs and Border Protection of the United States of America.
Tracking #

CBP-FO-2025-068694
Submitted Feb. 19, 2025
Due March 19, 2025
Est. Completion None
Status
Awaiting Response

From: Karl Koscher

Subject: Freedom of Information Act Request: Records related to the email address supersat@cs.washington.edu

Portal

To Whom It May Concern:

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

Any and all emails, documents, or other records about, or sent to, supersat@cs.washington.edu.

Personal and Washington State government records suggest that the supersat@cs.washington.edu email address was included in the Department of Homeland Security's internal "address book." Several emails, including one with sensitive PII, were sent to this address over the course of about a year and a half. Please redact FOIA-exempt PII in the records provided.

I am seeking to understand how this email address was added to DHS's "address book" and how it lead to CBP/DHS inadvertently leaking sensitive PII to a state government email address with less exemptions than FOIA. I am making this request in the public interest to understand how CBP/DHS policy led to this issue, how CBP/DHS responded, any lessons CBP/DHS learned, and how Americans may protect themselves.

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,

Karl Koscher

From: United States Customs and Border Protection

Subject: CBP FOIA - CBP-FO-2025-068694

Portal

Karl Koscher
n/a
MuckRock News, DEPT MR181672
263 Huntington Ave
Boston, Massachusetts 02115

02/20/2025

CBP-FO-2025-068694

Dear Karl Koscher:

Pursuant to 6 C.F.R. Part 5 § 5.3(b) of the DHS FOIA regulations, you must describe the records you are seeking with as much information as possible to ensure that our search of appropriate systems of records can find them with a reasonable amount of effort. Your FOIA request has been closed as insufficient because you did not include a clear and detailed description of the records being requested. Please be advised that the FOIA does not require federal agencies to answer inquiries or create records in response to a FOIA request, but rather is limited to requiring agencies to provide access to reasonably described, nonexempt records. As you have failed to reasonably describe the records you are seeking, your request is not a perfected request, and we are unable to initiate a search for responsive records.

You failed to provide a date range for a valid search to be conducted, as well as no email domains in which you determined the emails were sent from. Your description appears to CBP that the records would most likely fall within DHS HQ FOIA division and we suggest you would be better served file a FOIA with them. Their information can be found at https://www.dhs.gov/foia-contact-information and selecting the first option of the listed departments.

Please be advised that this action is not a denial of your request and will not preclude you from filing other requests in the future. Please resubmit your FOIA request, along with the required information, by logging into your existing SecureRelease account.

Please note that this message has been sent from an unmonitored e-mail account. Any messages sent to this account will not be read.

Sincerely,

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

From: Karl Koscher

Subject: RE: Freedom of Information Act Request #CBP-FO-2025-068694

Portal

I am re-requesting, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, the following records:

Any and all emails, documents, or other records about, or sent to, supersat@cs.washington.edu, or to the person/entity "Karl Koscher" or any other person/entity with the family name "Koscher", or documents or memos related to these emails. This includes any text or metadata. A FOIA-compliant system should easily be able to search agency records for certain keywords, including the responsive email address and recipient name. I am seeking records beginning Jun 2, 2020, through Jan 1, 2022.

The records I am requesting relate to emails sent by Trent R. McGlasson (<TRENT.R.MCGLASSON@cbp.dhs.gov>). I avoided specifying this in my original request to avoid identifying federal employees who may have made an innocent mistake--however, the initial FOIA response indicates that I need to be more precise in my requests for disclosure. I believe the following message IDs, and any documents/records/memos related to these messages, are responsive:

MN2PR09MB58504492DCC8DC6CC9BEA9B6E48B0@MN2PR09MB5850.namprd09.prod.outlook.com (June 2, 2020)
MN2PR09MB3967E650FF863AE97D2C96F6E49F0@MN2PR09MB3967.namprd09.prod.outlook.com (June 14, 2020)
BL0PR0901MB29627EAD54A1747115619054E4400@BL0PR0901MB2962.namprd09.prod.outlook.com (August 14, 2020)
SJ0PR09MB61268A7FA20AFDF2714F8453E4DE0@SJ0PR09MB6126.namprd09.prod.outlook.com (Dec 23, 2020)
SJ0PR09MB612631B1B398ED1303927064E4DE0@SJ0PR09MB6126.namprd09.prod.outlook.com (Dec 23, 2020)
SJ0PR09MB6126A53C31FFFB617C3D961CE48F9@SJ0PR09MB6126.namprd09.prod.outlook.com (Feb 8, 2021)
BLAPR09MB6962CDC8273D682D3A291EA7E4689@BLAPR09MB6962.namprd09.prod.outlook.com (Feb 8, 2021. This message contains PII which should be redacted from public disclosure under FOIA, but may still be available under Washington State's Public Records Act. Redaction of sensitive PII from this message is expected.)

The last email with extremely sensitive PII leads me to believe there were conversations between CBP and its parent department, DHS. These likely occurred between March 19, 2021, and January 1, 2022. Please send any responsive records. If responsive records contain information exempt from FOIA, please redact but still send me these records.

The previous request stipulations still apply:

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.