A Freedom of Information Request was made to New York Senate asking for e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers of the Senators and their employees, and for legislative history of certain statutes

A couple of days ago I wrote about the potential violations of Freedom of Information Law by New York State Senate in how it either seeks information from FOIL inquirers it is not entitled to seek, or how it restricts the means of making FOIL requests to such formats which do not allow to the inquirer to get proof that a FOIL request was made to the NYS Senate, or what was the request's contents.

Today I practically checked out the run-around system of how to file FOIL request with New York State Senate, found a way to preserve evidence of the filing and the contents of the FOIL request - and am sharing this information with my readers.

I've just filed a Freedom of Information Request with New York State Senate for the following public records:

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1) State-assigned E-mail addresses and cell phone numbers of all Senators and all of the Senate's employees and officers;  copies of the latest telephone cell phone bills of all Senators and Senate's employees and officers;
2) All records pertaining to any legislation, enacted or discussed, for authority of the New York State Courts or its judges to participate in or appoint officers to the New York State-Federal Judicial Council;
3) The entire legislative history and history of enactment and amendments, including correspondence, transcripts of floor speeches, video and audio recordings of debates, for the following New York Statutes:

a) County Law 400
b) Public Officers Law 15 and 17
c) Judiciary Law 14
d) Judiciary Law 90
e) Judiciary Law 478
f) Judiciary Law 479
g) Judiciary Law 484
h) Judiciary Law 486
i) Judiciary Law 487
j) Judiciary Law 499
k) Civil Practice Law and Rules 2103
l) Civil Practice Law and Rules 5601

4) financial disclosures and disclosures of conflicts of interest by all Senators for the past 10 years.

I demand that the above records are e-mailed to me to my e-mail address at tatiana.neroni@gmail.com in scanned or print-to-PDF format, or, in case such medium is denied to me, the NYS Senate provides to me, as a response to an additional FOIL request, inventory of its printing, scanning equipment and software indicating that the requested records (i) cannot be scanned as easily as printed, and that (iii) the requested records do not exist on computers, and that (iii) NYS Senate does not possess software for printing into PDF format.

In case of denial of information in electronic format, I also request copies of all equipment sold by NYS Senate as obsolete or redundant, specifically, all scanning, printing and computer equipment, with a list of software contained on the sold computer, including, but not limited to:

1) inventory information on the equipment sold;
2) purchase value of the equipment sold;
3) documents proving title of NYS Senate to equipment sold and its value/cost at purchase;
4) selling price;
5) identity of buyer;
6) date of sale;
7) any records proving that sales of scanning/printing/computer equipment and/or software were put up on public auction.

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NYS Senate does not allow to preserve evidence that you've sent a FOIL request in any format:

1) there is no e-mail confirmation sent to you after you click the "Submit" button, this is the only evidence I submitted the above FOIL request:

2) if you try to print-to-PDF your FOIL request, you cannot do it, the window assigned for entering your actual FOIL request is not big enough to show your entire FOIL request to be printed.

Therefore, 

before I clicked the "submit" button, 

I copied-and-pasted my FOIL request into this blog, and 

after I clicked the "submit" button, 

I've posted this blog and attempted to post it on the NYS Senate's Facebook page.

The attempt did not go through well.

Here is what I attempted to post on the "wall" of the Facebook (public) page of the New York State Senate:

Here is the response I received when I was tried to post - and my post was rejected:

But, oh the wonder of Mark Zuckerberg - I still was able to get proof that New York State Senate got my FOIL request, no matter how hard New York State Senate tried to duck it.

I (1) "liked" the New York State Senate Facebook page, and then

(2) I posted my FOIL request put into a blog onto my own Facebook page - and "tagged" New York State Senate in the post, and, of course

(3) I preserved the snapshot of evidence that NYS Senate was "tagged" with the post.

Here:

So, now I do have proof that the New York State Senate did receive my FOIL request - and it MUST answer it within 5 business days, as required by law, and 

the New York State Senate cannot get out of its obligation to fully comply with my FOIL request by claiming that it did not receive the request at all, nor can it contest what was in it, because the electronic evidence (that New York State Senate was trying so hard not to create) is right there.

So, now the run-around-of filing the FOIL request is complete, the ball is in NYS Senate's proverbial hands, and we will sit back and wait as to the Senate's responses.

I will keep my readers informed as to how New York State, the enactor of the Freedom of Information Law, complied with my FOIL request. 

Stay tuned.