New York Senate does have a (no longer secret) contact e-mail address for Freedom of Information Requests!

I wrote on this blog previously about the run-around people are put through when they are making FOIL requests with New York Senate.

I also analyzed, in detail, the illegality of certain restrictions or demands by New York State Senate as a condition to file a FOIL request with the Senate.

Also, I blogged about my own attempts to file a FOIL request with New York Senate - the lack of confirmation e-mail, my attempts to secure that confirmation through NYS Senate's Facebook page etc.

Yesterday - lo and behold - I received a response from NYS Senate to my FOIL request.

And, I am happily informing my readers that they now have an e-mail to use to file their FOIL requests, instead of the Senate's run-around "fill-in" page that provides you no means of confirmation and improperly restricts you in how you can file your FOIL requests, what kind of information you "must" provide about yourself as a condition of filing such FOIL request, and what you can ask.

Here is the FOIL e-mail of the NYS Senate:  foil@nysenate.gov.

Here is the full response by the NYS Senate to my FOIL request - which I am going to appeal, of course.

I will fully analyze the response in a separate blog, but the key preliminary points are that the NYS Senate:

1) claimed a fee from me when I asked to provide to me the records I requested in digital format, or, if the request is denied, an inventory of the Senate's scanning equipment - the Senate provided no inventory, but denied provision of records in digital format and attempted to charge me a fee;

2) denied me records that I clearly identified - financial disclosures of NYS Senators and enactment/amendment history of several statutes, and

3) asked me practically for the purpose of my FOIL request - by requesting to narrow down my request from ALL records of enactment/amendment history to SOME records that I am looking for.

In any event, you now have the e-mail address to file your FOIL requests, instead of the Senate's imposed online "form".

Once again, foil@nysenate.gov.

Enjoy and use!