Prairie State Wire

The Illinois State Board of Education has declined to provide the email addresses of its employees pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request by claiming that disclosing the email addresses of its employees (who presumably actually use the email addresses to conduct public business) would jeopardize the security of its system or its data, Section 7(1)(o) of the FOI Act.

Imagine if public bodies across this state started hiding all of their email addresses from the public.

Obviously, we disagree, and the Attorney General has in numerous Opinions mandated the disclosure of both public body email addresses and private business email addresses. We even prevailed in the disclosure of student email addresses at the College of DuPage several years ago (See Student Press Law Center article here).

We filed a Request for Review with the AG’s Public Access Counselor and fully expect a determination in our favor and disclosure of all ISBE employee email addresses.

Read the Request for Review at the original source.

This story was originally published by Edgar County Watchdogs. Read the original HERE.