Donât worry guys, I got this. Iâll do it for free.
Edit: Oh, my goodness. I went trying to find contact information for the cityâs IT department. The CIO doesnât list his email, but his personal website misspells âexperienceâ: http://chrischiancone.com/
I think Iâll talk to human resources instead.
Apparently, grep is hard.
- Thawing Neanderthal: 8 hours
- Physical Therapy: 320 hours
- Counseling: 400 hours
- Remedial English Classes: 800 hours
- Conditioning subject not to hurl spears at people making records requests: 8 hours
- Overcoming fear of magical light-box device: 20 hours
- Learning to execute a simple text search: 1 hour
Total: 1557 hours
Yeah, I think they may be padding those numbers a bit.
Apparently, Iâm in the wrong business. Look at me over here charging for actual hours worked, like a chump. </eyeroll>
Holy Un-Retreivable Emails Batman!
That old Commodore 64 theyâre going to use to run the program isnât the fastest machine out there.
But itâs probably the fastest one in their IT department.
Incorrect. It is a âpay my brother-in-law âprogrammerâ $79,000â response. Commonly referred to as a âshakedownâ.
What people fail to understand, is that the entire McKinney Police IT Department is being run on a Timex Sinclair 1000.
Grep? Dude, you just click the little magnifying glass.
Itâs funny in its audaciousness, but Jesus, I hope the public officials pulling this shit arenât just reprimandedâthis is intentional and knowing violation of open records laws and really should be grounds for dismissal at the very least.
Depends on the state law. Some are better than others.
Hereâs the Texas statute:
http://www.holaw.net/Documents/Paper%20-%20Texas%20Open%20Records%20Act.pdf
However, regardless of the exact law, the most effective levers here are probably soft power (ie shame from the governorâs office) backed by a hint of âReal nice police force, weâd hate for the Federal DOJ to take it over for a while on account a violation of Constitutional rights.â
Putting on my Imaginary Lawyer Hat, a thing I made up that qualifies me to pretend to practice law on the Internet:
My first response would be a response letter stating that the figures are hilariously bogus, that Gawker demands they come back with a much, much lower cost estimate ($50 sounds reasonable), that Iâm documenting their obstruction.
Iâd state that further obstruction will be referred to the State Attorney General, and will also trigger a flurry of requests regarding the email system upgrade itself, so Iâll have more concrete grounds for disputing their figures.
Then Iâd start firing off those requests (not even waiting for their reply) to suggest that business is meant. Information to look at:
- Records relating to the old systemâs status back when it was working (hardware, software)
- Records related to the current status of the system. Where itâs boxed up, what format the old data is in, etc.
- The name of the IT personnel or contract company which performed the upgrade.
- Any contracts relating to the email upgrade. How much was paid for the work, what requirements were stipulated, communications regarding the progress of the upgrade as work was done.
- Any emails related to the upgrade (chicken, meet egg). Itâd be hilarious if they just blithely fulfilled that request.
Presumably, Gawker already has lawyers handling this, so this is just me puzzling through hypotheticals. But itâs fun.
Actually, it could be more than fun. If journalists start digging in to see how much was paid for this supposedly botched upgrade, I suspect theyâd find graft aplenty.
Itâs Texas, theyâll get a medal for holding back the âliberalâ media.
I suspect theyâd take re some story about some âbig miscommunicationâ between the IT department and the law firm. Another great reason to outsource records requests to a third party who doesnât understand the day-to-day workings of the department.
Perhaps a misplaced decimal or two?
Not related to the IT shakedown⌠I just realized why the name âEric Caseboltâ sounds so creepy to me, every time I hear it: itâs like a mash-up of âEric Harrisâ and âDylan Kleboldâ.
/shudder
edit: fixed spelling
I figure itâs just putting the retrieval into process that buys time for the department to figure out how to soften the blow that will come after releasing them. âTime is of the essenceâ cuts both ways. Itâs a strategy, and after all, theyâre cops and bureaucrats, they can just play dumb through the whole thing and experience absolutely zero repercussions for it.
âThese people are the glue that holds together the gears of our society.â --Homer Simpson
