The 2020 Foilies Awards: Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency

By Electronic Frontier Foundation

Jul 8, 2020 at 1:00 am

Image: The 2020 Foilies Awards: Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency

Caitlyn Crites

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The Hardest Department to FOIA Award

Chicago Police Department

In 2019, the Chicago Police Department was in the news multiple times for its inability to respond to even the most straightforward public records requests.

After members of CPD raided the wrong home and traumatized a family, the family sought to get the body camera footage of the raid. The family believed that, in addition to showing the mistaken raid, it would also show police misconduct. Unfortunately, the CPD refused to turn over the footage.

In July, the CPD was forced to turn over documents after 14 months of stalling over a FOIA request for files on officers. After a legal opinion from the Illinois Attorney General, the CPD turned over a spreadsheet with more than 33,000 names dating back to the 1940s.

Does the Chicago Police Department use search warrants? Of course it does, but you wouldn't know it by its FOIA responses. Also in July, the CPD told Lucy Parsons Labs that it did not have any responsive documents for a request for all executed search warrants. After several months of fighting, the department finally released records about 11,000 search warrants issued over a five-year period.