The Outlook Archive of John McTernan, currently held by the ABC
Dear Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
I write in regards to the email archive of John McTernan that has recently been given to the ABC. The ABC has published several stories based on emails contained within the leaked archive and I assume will continue to publish stories. Given that the content is emails between individuals who are in the public employ and who are working on behalf of the public, I ask for the ABC to make a copy of the PST file (an Outlook archive) or some other digital version of the emails available for public consumption.
The reasons for this are twofold, the first is that the information pertains to the actions of public servants performing the duties of government - these actions are acutely relevant to the interests of the Australian public. The nature of how the actions and agendas of government are spun or manipulated in a manner that is more palatable to the public is highly relevant to all Australians, particularly given the highly politicised and high-energy nature of relations between the media and the Australian government over the last few years. The second is that this information will be incredibly beneficial to media students and academics that study the manners and mechanisms of how government functions internally.
Yours faithfully,
Daniel Nolan
Dear Mr Nolan
Please see the attached in relation to your recent FOI request.
Regards
[1]ABC Judith Maude
Head Corporate Governance
P +61 2 8333 5316 E [email address]
M +61 0412 898 657 F +61 2 8333 5305
[2]http://www.abc.net.au/corp/enter/img/bra...
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Andrew Donnellan left an annotation ()
I expect that they'll invoke the ABC-specific "program material" exemption (Sch 2, Part II, Division 1 of the FOI Act).
Dear Mr Nolan
I am writing to seek your agreement pursuant to s15AA of the Freedom of
Information Act to extend the period for dealing with your request under
the FOI Act by a further 30 days. Unfortunately the Christmas/New Year
period has delayed the processing of the request, and I am unlikely to
have finalised a decision in this matter by the 15 January 2014 deadline.
If you agree to the extension, I will notify the Information Commissioner
of that agreement in accordance with s15AA(b), and finalise my decision as
soon as possible.
You are not obliged to agree to extending the period. If a decision is not
given to you within the required timeframe, this is called a ‘deemed
refusal’. You then have the right to ask for a review. Information about
review rights is available on the OAIC website:
[1]http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-inform...
I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards
[2]ABC Judith Maude
Head Corporate Governance
P +61 2 8333 5316 E [email address]
M +61 0412 898 657 F +61 2 8333 5305
[3]http://www.abc.net.au/corp/enter/img/bra...
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or copy this email or any attachments. If you have received this message
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2. http://www.abc.net.au/
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Dear Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Australian Broadcasting Corporation's handling of my FOI request 'The Outlook Archive of John McTernan, currently held by the ABC'.
I have not received any information in the 30 day extension period. This content is long overdue.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/t...
Yours faithfully,
Daniel Nolan
Dear Mr Nolan
Please see attached.
In accordance with the request in your email of 19 February 2014, this
matter has been referred for internal review.
Regards
[1]ABC Judith Maude
Head Corporate Governance
P +61 2 8333 5316 E [email address]
M +61 0412 898 657 F +61 2 8333 5305
[2]http://www.abc.net.au/corp/enter/img/bra...
-
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
The information contained in this email and any attachment is confidential
and may contain legally privileged or copyright material. It is intended
only for the use of the addressee(s). If you are not the intended
recipient of this email, you are not permitted to disseminate, distribute
or copy this email or any attachments. If you have received this message
in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email from
your system. The ABC does not represent or warrant that this transmission
is secure or virus free. Before opening any attachment you should check
for viruses. The ABC's liability is limited to resupplying any email and
attachments.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.abc.net.au/
2. http://www.abc.net.au/corp/enter/emailsi...
Dear Mr Daniel Nolan
I refer to your request for internal review of the ABC’s refusal to grant
you access under the FOI Act to Mr John McTernan’s email correspondence.
My decision is attached.
Yours sincerely,
Michelle Fisher
FOI Internal Reviewer, authorised under s 23 FOI Act
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or copy this email or any attachments. If you have received this message
in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email from
your system. The ABC does not represent or warrant that this transmission
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Locutus Sum left an annotation ()
I think that this is a very fascinating requests for two reasons. Reason one is only the content of the archive; that is naturally the reason for the request from the applicant. Reason two for why it is ; it is because of an FOI perspective. How will the ABC deal with the request?
Will they release the archive (I think not so), or will the ABC try to claim exemption. About the content of the archive, one cannot imagine that it is relevant to the operations of the ABC, so many exemption possibilities will not be valid. But privacy will still be important because the emails might be between private persons and not about any government issue.
Also, one can expect that the archive is very large. This means the first step from the ABC is probably to say that there exists a "practical refusal reason". If this happens then the applicant can make some interesting choices. First, applicant can request emails only between two dates, maybe May 2013 to June 2013 and so make the request not so large. Another applicant can ask for emails from April 2012 to May 2013. The applicant could search for requests on Right to Know with the words "detail incident report" or "incident details report" (in quotations) to see a similar strategy at work with Department of Immigration. An example is here (https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/f...). The series also is a good example for bad behavior from a department.
It is a rather crude method but it can work. I have some other ideas also. If the applicant gets a response of "practical refusal reason" I can give other advice.