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FYI to University and other State employees - be 'ware of how you
use your work e-mail.<br>
<br>
Yesterday I received a Freedom-of-Information-Act request, which an
"opposition research" company had sent to the University FOIA
office. It asked whether Stuart Levy had sent any e-mails related
to Ilhan Omar between Feb 1st and mid-July.<br>
<br>
With my UIUC e-mail, I hadn't sent any, and likewise for the (very
few) work-related e-mails I'd sent using my personal gmail -- so the
answer was No.<br>
<br>
I've asked my coworkers - none of them has received such a FOIA
request. If you hear from anyone else who got a similar req,
please let us all know. It'd be interesting if we can guess how
they're singling out particular people.<br>
<br>
The people making the request were from America Rising, which
Wikipedia describes as an opposition research group against Dems.
They've also dug for dirt on USEPA employees who don't toe the Trump
line. Presumably here they are looking for academics supporting
the best members of Congress - maybe for the purposes of
discrediting academia. In short I assume they're trying to
intimidate us into shutting ourselves up.<br>
<br>
(The guy who wrote to the UIUC FOIA office was one Allan Blutstein,
their "Senior VP for FOIA operations" -- they make an industry of
these requests.)<br>
<br>
Stuart<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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