Saturday’s Hartford Courant has an article about a complaint that Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz used public data for private use. After a brief investigation, I find that The Friends of Susan 2010 has used public data as part of their campaign. In fact, just about every campaign legally uses public data in their campaigns. What is different about The Friends of Susan 2010 is that they used public data in a creative and innovative way.

On February 2, 2009, Jason Doucette, Treasurer of Friends of Susan 2010 filed a freedom of information request per the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act of 2008 (Connecticut General Statues Chapter 14, Section 1-211) requesting an electronic copy of the Secretary of State’s constituent database. This public information was provided to the campaign and the campaign then used it to contact various people.

Based upon a letter from Joan Andrews, director of legal affairs and enforcement for the State Election Enforcement Commission (SEEC) to a Geoffrey Griswold Fisher of Litchfield, CT, it appears that over eight months later, Mr. Fisher filed an affidavit of compliant with the SEEC on October 26, 2009. The response sates that “This matter will not be docketed for an investigation as it does not allege facts, which if proven true, would constitute a violation of any law within the Commission’s jurisdiction.” It goes on to state that Connecticut General Statutes 5-266 et seq, commonly known as the State Hatch Act is administered by the Department of Administrative Services as a personnel matter. Ms. Andrews accordingly referred the complaint to the “Commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services and the Auditors of Public Accounts.”

The Secretary of State’s office keeps many different databases of public information. One is the voter registration database which is often purchased by campaigns for their voter outreach programs. Another database is the list of Notaries of the Public, which vendors sometime request in an effort to do business with Notaries. There are also databases about companies registered in the State of Connecticut and their agents. Often, the Secretary of State’s office has been criticized for not having systems that make this data more easily accessible.

In this case, the Friends of Susan 2010 have requested and received public information that they have used in a creative, innovative and as far as I can tell, perfectly legal manner. To test this, I have sent a Freedom of Information Request to each of the Constitutional Offices as well as the Governor’s and the Lt. Governor’s office.

Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara has informed me that the IT staff in the Secretary of State’s office will fulfill my request in the same manner as it did for the Friends of Susan 2010 and will be providing details soon on exactly when I can retrieve this data.

As of the time that this article is being written, I have also received several replies from other agencies. Anna Ficeto, Legal Counsel for the Office of Governor M. Jodi Rell responded:

This email will acknowledge receipt of your FOI request. We have not had a similar request and will need to research this with our IT staff. We will be in touch. Feel free to email me with any questions or concerns.

Catherine LaMarr, General Counsel to the Treasurer’s office replied:

I am in receipt of your email addressed to the Office of the Treasurer dated the 8th of February 2010, requesting that this office furnish you with copies of certain documents in accordance with the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”).

By copy of this message, I am asking the Treasurer’s Senior Executive Assistant for External Relations to furnish me with a copy of any constituent database she may employ. Additionally, I am checking with each Treasury Division to determine whether such divisions maintain constituent databases. Once I have determined whether the Office of the Treasurer has databases responsive to your request, we will determine the cost of compiling and copying any such database.

It is the standard practice of this office to charge $0.25 per page for copies of documents or the actual cost in employee time and state resources to produce electronic copies of records requested under the Connecticut FOIA. Once we have identified documents responsive to your request and calculated the costs associated with your request, we will contact you.

Should you have any questions regarding this matter or should you wish to modify your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Steve Jensen, Press Director for the Comptroller’s office replied:

I'm Nancy's press director. I assume your request is in the context of the story regarding the Sec. of State's constituent database. The short answer is we do not compile such a database here - we have a monthly mail log that records constituent inquiries and contains copies of their correspondence and to whom it was assigned internally for action, but we do not compile the names in a list or use the info for any other purpose. Let me know if that satisfies your request or not...

So far, there has not yet been a response by the Lt. Governor’s Office or the Attorney General’s office.

There is a lot of valuable information that our State Government collects and makes available to all the people of the state. The Secretary of State’s office has done a good addressing these requests. The Friends of Susan 2010 has been creative and innovative in their use of public data and others would be wise to follow suit. Others in politics do not yet appear to have learned the value of openness and public information.

By looking more closely at Mr. Fisher’s apparently meritless complaint we can find two different paths. Mr. Fisher seems to want to use the State Hatch laws to prevent people from gaining access to public information. On the other hand, we can take the course of the Secretary of State’s Office in their reply to the Friends of Susan 2010 request to promote the use of public information and move towards a more open government that is, in fact, of, by and for the people.