| Michael A. Sims 738 E. 6th St. Apt 1C New York, NY 10009 (212) 529-2748 jellicle@inch.com Jannette Goodall Executive Secretary State Records Committee Utah State Archives PO Box 141021 Salt Lake City, UT 84114 May 23, 1998 Appeal of a decision made under the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act, to the State Records Committee Dear Utah State Records Committee, Pursuant to the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act (title 63 section 2 of the Utah Code), I have requested copies of records maintained by the Utah Education Network. My original request was sent on April 20, and received by them on April 23. A response from UEN was received by email on May 11. A copy of my request and a printout of UEN's response are attached. I would like to appeal their decision in several areas. My comments below refer to the points outlined in my initial letter and in the UEN response letter. 1) I consider my request fulfilled by the provision of the URL to access the requested documents. No appeal. 2) "primarily verbal in nature" indicates a written portion. I request the release of all written portions of the above-mentioned report made to the state Board of Education and mentioned in a recent Associated Press story. Indeed, the AP story "quotes" from the report, suggesting that the report was not "primarily verbal" but indeed issued in written form - otherwise the AP would have quoted the individual speaker rather than the report. It is highly likely that the AP writer was in possession of a written copy of that report, and it is this document that I seek. I believe that there is no legal ground on which to justify withholding a report made to a public entity, by a public entity, on a matter of significant public interest. 3) I do not accept the UEN argument that they are custodians of data for the school districts. It is self-evident that the state Board of Education treats the UEN as custodian of the log files and goes to them for reports and analyses of this data. The individual school districts likely have no knowledge of or concern for the log files maintained by UEN, on UEN-administered computers, by UEN employees. This tactic seems designed to force the public to request documents from dozens of individual school districts who have no connection with the records desired, and who would then have to direct the UEN to release the files anyway. Common sense, at the minimum, suggests that the UEN be the central site for matters related to these log files. I also deny the UEN's assertion that these logs would be considered protected by statute. The log files probably consist of files which contain many thousands of lines such as this (this is an actual example of a line from another filtering program, but the program employed by the UEN will likely generate very similar files). 04/25/1998,10:30:47,"Prevented","209.153.133.62","208.28.152.88","www. botcw.com","HTTP","Multiple",0,0,"" One line such as this will be generated for each access to a site on the filtering program's blacklist. The log includes a number of fields of data separated by commas, which in this case are: a) date and time of the attempted access b) a word which describes the result of the operation. "Prevented" means the user was prevented from accessing the site. c) The IP (internet protocol) address of the computer attempting to access the site. d) The IP address of the computer which hosted the banned site. e) The domain name of the banned site. f) The method of access to the banned site (HTTP = Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which is the standard means for accessing sites on the World Wide Web). g) The remaining information indicates the categories under which the given site was banned. The only information which could possibly be personally identifiable is c). This information, coupled with a detailed knowledge of the Utah school system's internal network (which only a few people, all employed by UEN, would have) may allow this record of a site block to be connected with a specific computer at a specific school. For instance, the UEN's technical personnel may be able to say that 209.153.133.62 in the above example is the number 2 computer in the school library at school XXXX. People outside the UEN's technical administrators (which includes me) will have no idea which computers and which IP addresses go together, and the firewall technology employed will make it impossible to identify the computer from the outside. Even if the specific computer is identified, however, it is not possible to identify who was using the computer at the time. Any student, employee, or faculty member could have been using the computer at that time. This log data thus does NOT personally identify or violate the privacy of any individual, especially any student, at any Utah school. (Although it does not identify anyone, records which relate to staff or faculty accesses should probably be releasable anyway - the public has a right to know what paid public employees are doing with their time.) And finally, even if the Committee disagrees with me regarding the personally identifiable information contained in the log files, at MOST only one field of the data, the IP address of the originating computer, contains anything which even remotely identifies the user involved. That field can be excised from each line of the log files and the rest of the log files provided. I request that the UEN be ordered to search for and disclose all releasable sections of the log files requested in my original request. 4) My argument for 4) is much the same as that for 3) above. I request that the UEN be ordered to search for and disclose all releasable sections of the log files requested in my original request. 5) My argument for 5) is much the same as that for 3) above. I request that the UEN be ordered to search for and disclose all releasable sections of the log files requested in my original request. Obviously the files requested in 3), 4) and 5) may overlap to some extent. 6) UEN's response to this request is completely non-responsive. No indication is provided that a search has been made to locate documents which may fulfill my request. Although the policies of the state Board of Education are interesting, they are not a valid answer to my request, which specifically seeks information pertaining to the filtering policies now in force at Utah schools and enforced by the UEN. UEN must have information on this subject, since they are the implementors/enforcers of such policies. The website referenced does not fulfill the request. I reiterate my request, and request that the UEN be ordered to act on it. There is no legal basis for withholding information about the policies in effect at Utah public schools. 7) Technical background: In general, for a user who is receiving filtered access at a Utah school or other entity to "override" the filtering and be allowed access to the website (for instance, if the filter is found to be blocking a site useful for schoolwork or other reasons) will require the cooperation of the people administering the network and proxy server, the UEN. Therefore, I assume that they will know what procedures are in place to implement such overrides, and possess documents related to them. There is no indication that UEN has made any search for documents related to my request. I request that UEN be ordered to act upon my request. 8) There is no indication that UEN has made any search for documents related to my request. While the documents they referenced at the given URL are a report on the effectiveness and outcome of the use of filtering software, there is no reason to believe it is the only one, especially given the apparent reporting to the state Board of Education. I consider the request fulfilled in part, but request that the Committee order the UEN to undertake a search of its records for other documents which may fulfill the request and to disclose them to me. 9) The response given somehow assumes that filtering is a free service. There are many costs involved, from the cost of the filtering program, to the costs of the proxy servers to implement the filtering, etc. The AP story suggests that these costs may have been tallied in the report to the state Board of Education, and they are certainly tallied somewhere, since it is not the standard practice of any governmental agency to take public money for services without an accounting of it. I request that UEN be ordered to search for and disclose records which fulfill my request. 10) The UEN did not undertake to filter the internet access at Utah schools completely of their own accord. Although my request was less than perfectly clear, I am seeking any document which either requires or authorizes the UEN to do so. The response may take the form of public legislation, a mandate from the state Board of Education, or other form. I request that the UEN be ordered to search for and disclose any such documents in their possession. As in my original request, I agree to pay reasonable duplication fees for the processing of this request in an amount not to exceed $50.00. Please notify me prior to incurring any expenses in excess of that amount. As in my original request, I understand that some or all of these files may be maintained in an electronic format. The same formats will be acceptable for fulfillment of this appeal. For any files which exist in electronic formats, no duplication/conversion of the file(s) to a paper format is necessary or desired. Due to the nature of the response received from the UEN which indicates a certain lack of familiarity with these types of requests, I request that if the Committee finds for me in whole or in part, that they provide specific instructions and/or guidance to the UEN regarding the proper means of fulfilling a request under GRAMA, and provide any assistance required to the UEN personnel tasked with fulfilling it. If my request is denied in whole or in part, I ask that the Committee justify all deletions by specific reference to the Utah Code. I will also expect the release of all segregable portions of otherwise exempt material. For the Committee's information, I am making this request as part of a group which examines and reports upon software filtering programs and the uses made of them in public institutions. Some of our work is available on-line at: http://www.spectacle.org/cwp/ We are an all-volunteer group which intends to stimulate a national debate on the proper and Constitutional uses of filtering software in the nation's schools, libraries, and other institutions. We believe accurate information on what filters do and do not block is of considerable importance to this ongoing debate and we will undertake to perform that analysis on the data sought in this request. All of our work has been and will be made freely available to the public, including the Utah Board of Education, who may find it of interest and more detailed than any reports provided by the UEN. Nor do we make any profit whatsoever off of our work, and indeed it has been costly both in time and money. Both the public and public officials should be cognizant of what sites, both appropriate and inappropriate, are banned by a particular software filter being used - otherwise no rational decisions about its use can be made. Currently the state of Utah is taking the software vendor's word for what sites are sexually explicit, obscene, etc, and the encryption present on the program's lists of banned sites prevents any reasonable review. An open review of the results of such filtering will be extremely beneficial to every member of the public and every parent of a schoolchild in Utah state and elsewhere, and justifies releasing all of the sought information. I appreciate the Committee taking the time to hear my appeal, and the latitude it has given me to "appear" via telephone rather than in person. Thank you for your assistance. Michael Sims on behalf of The Censorware Project: Seth Finkelstein Bennett Haselton Jamie McCarthy James S. Tyre, Esq. Jonathan Wallace, Esq. and David Smith encl: 1) printout of response emailed to me by the Utah Education Network on May 11, 1998. 2) my original request letter sent to UEN and received on April 23, 1998. 3) Cable News Network story (from the Associated Press) dated April 17, 1998, "Logs show student access to prohibited sites blocked by filters" | |
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