No matter how straightforward the language of your FOIA request, some Connecticut FOIA officials will come back and tell you that it’s too vague to understand. That seems to be particularly true of requests for “all records” pertaining to a particular subject or category of information.

Now, sometimes that’s valid feedback, but there’s an inherent information imbalance in FOIA requests. Agency employees are much more familiar with their non-public-facing records than the public. When there are no public-facing references to particular types of records, the request language must be broad to ensure as much information as possible is being caught in a search.

It’s the responsibility of public records staff at public agencies to follow up with requesters and ask, for example, if a particular type of record they know exists fits the bill of what is being sought, and whether a request can be narrowed along those lines.

But too often, agency officials who aren’t really interested in transparency abuse a lack of specificity in language to delay a response. If, for example, you ask for “all disciplinary records” for certain agency employees, rather than a document by the internal name or reference number used by the agency, you might be told your request is too vague to be understood.

When agency officials don’t want to respond to requests, the public faces a catch-22: Use language that’s too narrow and you may not receive the records you’re looking for. Request “all records” or other broader language, and you may be told an agency can’t understand your request.

It can feel Orwellian to be told that plain English words aren’t comprehensible or, as in a complaint Inside Investigator is currently adjudicating before the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC), that they don’t mean what they plainly do.

Inside Investigator submitted a request for “all records” pertaining to investigations into complaints of sexual misconduct involving faculty, as well as disciplinary records, to the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities (CSCU) system. CSCU officials took over a year to send an initial batch of records.

Inside Investigator identified a number of records we believed should have been responsive to the request, given we asked for “all records.” CSCU did eventually provide them, but they have been the subject of discussion during hearings in our FOIC complaint.

During a hearing, a CSCU official testified that they interpreted the language of the request, and specifically the word ‘pertaining,’ to mean we were seeking only investigation records and documents created by them, not any underlying documents that led to the investigation. Some of the underlying documents we did receive, including a previous incident that led to certain CSCU employees losing their jobs for violating a stipulated agreement due to past misconduct, came because of the other portion of our request for disciplinary files. But had we not asked for those files separately, we would not have received them.

A CSCU official also testified that had we used the phrase “related to” instead of “pertaining to,” CSCU may have interpreted the request differently and included those underlying records.

Listen to the 9.23.25 FOIC hearing:

It’s clearly absurd that whether documents that are unquestionably related to the subject of our request are considered responsive should hinge on one word. CSCU did provide some attachments to investigation reports after we asked, so they obviously didn’t think they were far enough outside the scope of the request to object to turning them over.

CSCU officials could have asked whether we wanted the underlying documents. But they didn’t. The documents we received came because we undertook the burden of combing through the documents for references to attachments and other documents to check whether CSCU’s response was comprehensive.

There’s a certain amount of due diligence requesters should expect to do after they receive requests, to check for completeness and gauge whether the language they used produced the documents they were seeking. But as we asked during the hearing: is the burden of identifying specific documents that are responsive to a request on the requester?

CSCU indicated it wasn’t, though their behavior tends to belie that response.

Language is imprecise, and agencies inevitably have to do some interpreting of requests. But if they’re making judgments about what should and shouldn’t be included, they can and should be reaching out to requesters to verify that those judgments aren’t excluding records a requester is expecting to be included.

Expecting requesters to identify responsive documents would make FOIA unworkable. There are huge swathes of public documents, which public agencies are compelled to provide under FOIA, that are not public-facing. The public cannot possibly be expected to have knowledge of all of them and identify them by name in a request.

In addition, CSCU at one point during the hearing told Inside Investigator that it had not actually meant what they plainly said when we inquired about the status of the requests.

CSCU turned over three batches of records, including a second batch that responded to questions we asked about missing documents and inappropriate redactions. They also turned over a third batch of records unprompted. These actions highlight why we’re pursuing our complaint. While CSCU says they’ve turned over all documents and redacted properly, they have previously said this, and then made changes to the records they provide.

And that makes it a little difficult to take their word at face value.

After CSCU turned over a second round of documents, Inside Investigator asked whether the request was fulfilled or if we could expect any more documents. CSCU said no.

But they later turned over more documents. According to a CSCU official who testified at the hearing, this was not them contradicting their word. When they told us they wouldn’t be turning over more documents, that didn’t mean the request was complete; it meant they had no more documents to turn over that day.

Just as CSCU could have asked whether we wanted the underlying documents, they could have clarified that their response was complete only for that afternoon. Because in plain English, the obvious interpretation of their response is that they had no more responsive records to turn over.

This kind of language parsing, particularly when it only comes out during a legal process that an agency is not attending voluntarily, does them no favors. FOIA’s lack of a time limit enables public agencies to use semantics to delay responding to requests.

As long as FOIA doesn’t place a time limit on how long public agencies have to respond to requests, there will always be suspicion that they are using semantics to delay responding to requests, even when requests are genuinely unclear. Agencies can dispel this suspicion by being proactive in communicating with requesters and clarifying issues with requests.

CSCU did not do this with this request, but they did testify during the hearing that they have used it as a learning experience and are refining their policies, rewriting a handbook, and will be requiring additional FOIA policies for their staff. And that’s a good first step.

We will be watching to ensure they follow through.

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