Essays and ephemera
Redacting the obvious or the near obvious begs the question: why bother? One of my first FOIA requests was pertaining to a fundraising event Donald Trump held in Bolingbrook, Illinois last year. The Bolingbrook Police Department however felt it necessary to redact things that border on common sense. Let’s explore this closer.
Continue reading “Fun With FOIA: Trump in Bolingbrook and the Silliness of Redactions”
Intrigued by my initial request for FOIA logs at my local library, I wanted to see how other libraries in the area would handle an identical request. I submitted a request for FOIA logs from 2012 to the present to libraries in Woodridge, Lisle, Lombard, Westmont, Bolingbrook, Aurora, and Naperville.
If you’re a college student and want to know who is collecting your personal contact information, there’s no better way to find out than a Freedom of Information Act request.
A review of all FOIA requests from my alma mater, Illinois State University, reveals that individuals and companies can obtain students’ contact information without a student’s consent. This is possible because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Continue reading “Illinois State University is Giving Away Students’ Contact Information for Free”
To The Democratic Party of DuPage County,
I am done with your emails. I am tired of the ugly fonts. I am tired of the long-winded emails where things are randomly capitalized, bolded, or italicized, causing me to lose the message in the sea of text. It’s 2017, not 1997. If you want people to be involved, then clean up and fix your communications.
Continue reading “Letter to the Democratic Party of DuPage County”
Note: In this occasional series, I’ll tell tales from my youth. Some will be about me, others about my friends. In this example, it’s the latter.
In high school I worked at the local Jewel grocery store. It was a pretty decent job; the hours were flexible and the pay we good. I never saw myself as a model employee, but compared to my coworkers I could be seen that way.
Continue reading “Tales from Adolescence: Kill Bill and Jewel”