In a blatant ignorance of Missouri’s Sunshine Laws and their “commitment to openness in government“, Chief of Staff in the Office of the President at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) Chris Martin denied two Missouri Sunshine law requests submitted by Founding Member Monica Hanson on behalf of the Open Information Collective about blocked network traffic that had been discovered via daily usage and manual enumeration. The first of two Sunshine requests was sent on December 7th, 2022 requesting a comprehensive list of blocked services, the reason why they are blocked, and any data that was being logged on users. This initial request led to no documents being provided. After manual enumeration using an open source tool called Port Knocker, it was discovered that 69 outbound TCP ports had been blocked.
After manual enumeration and rewording the request to follow the suggested records request form by the Missouri Attorney General, an additional email was sent with a formal Sunshine request on February 27th, 2023. This request had been effectively evaded as well, citing sections 610.021(18) “…that pertains to operational guidelines, policies and specific response plans developed, adopted, or maintained by a public agency…”, 610.021(21) “…that pertains to records that identify the configuration of components or the operation of a computer, computer system, computer network or telecommunications network…”, and 610.021(22) of the Revised Statutes of Missouri “…that pertains to digital certificates, physical and virtual keys, access codes or authorization codes that are used to protect the security of electronic transactions.” in addition to Jones v. Jackson County Circuit Court, claiming that “…the plain language of the Sunshine Law does not require a public governmental body to create a new records upon request, but only to provide access to existing records…”. Responding to this evasion, Founding Member Amy Parker wrote a letter to be sent on FM Monica’s behalf countering the provided reasons and giving a second chance to provide the requested documentation. After a follow up email two weeks later, SEMO stood firm on their refusal to provide the documents. A request for a meeting was sent by Monica to clarify the request on March 13th with no response since, likely due to it being on the school’s spring break and the email being sent after hours.
This investigation is still developing; please continue to check the Open Information Collective website for the most recent details. As per usual for the Open Information Collective, emails and attachments pertaining to this article will be supplied on the Southeast Missouri State University records page.
Amy Parker
[…] At this point, I escalate it to a Missouri Sunshine request. You can read some more information on my post on the Open Information Committee for more details on that, as that is outside the scope of this post. However, in spite of raising […]