Dear Robert Samuel White:

Thank you for your interest in public records of the Oregon Secretary of State. Your request has been received and is being processed in accordance with the Oregon Public Records Law. Your request was received on 10/31/2026 and given the reference number R000692-110126 for tracking purposes.

Records Requested: To the Public Records Officer, Secretary of State:
Under ORS 192.314, I request the following public records of the Secretary of State. It concerns how the Secretary of

State communicates with the Oregon State Police about other members of the public.

Records requested. All communications sent to or received from either of these Oregon State Police accounts,

through any channel the agency uses: emails, Microsoft Teams chat and channel messages, text messages, and

voicemail, including attachments and replies:
Captain Kyle Kennedy, Government and Media Relations ([email])
OSP Public Information Officer ([email])
that contain any of these terms:
“threat assessment”
“situational awareness”
“welfare check”
“knock and talk”
“grievance”
Date range: January 1, 2023, to the date of search. This request excludes any record concerning me.
Custody. Records sent from or received by Secretary of State accounts are records of the Secretary of State,
wherever they are stored, including systems maintained by DAS Enterprise Information Services, including the

records of any search that office conducts. If you believe another public body is the custodian of any responsive

record, please identify that custodian and the basis for the determination in writing, rather than closing the request

(ORS 192.311).
The search. This request also includes the records of the search conducted to answer it: each search as saved by the

system that ran it (for example, a Microsoft Purview Content Search or eDiscovery search), with its query, terms, date

range, accounts and locations searched, and result counts, and any export or search report it produced. Those records

exist once the search is run, and they are public records of the Secretary of State like any other. A response is

complete only when it provides all requested records in your possession (ORS 192.329(2)(a)). That includes these. If

there are no responsive records, the search records show it.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Public Records Request — Communications with OSP Government and Media Relations 1 / 3

Format and correspondence. Under ORS 192.324(3), please provide records in the form requested, native

electronic format with metadata intact: emails as .eml or .msg with headers and attachments, Teams and text

messages as exported by the system that holds them, voicemail as the audio file, and search records as saved or

exported by the system that ran them, by email or secure link. Please conduct all correspondence about this request

by email, including acknowledgments, estimates, waiver decisions, and payment instructions. Under ORS

192.324(1), this letter is a complete written request, and it includes a complete fee waiver request. It does not need to

be resubmitted on a form.
Redaction. Please redact the names, home addresses, personal phone numbers, and personal email addresses of

private individuals. No other redaction is requested for privacy. In any fee estimate, please list redaction time

separately from search and production time, with the hours and the hourly rate of the employee performing it. Under 

ORS 192.324(4)(b), a fee may not include attorney time spent determining the application of the public records law.

Exemptions. For any record or portion withheld, please identify the record (date, sender, recipients, and general

subject), the specific exemption claimed, and how it applies to that record (ORS 192.329, 192.338). Please segregate

and release nonexempt portions. A fee estimate is not an exemption assertion.

Criminal investigatory information (ORS 192.345(3)): This exemption is conditional, applies only to

information compiled for criminal law purposes, and yields where the public interest requires disclosure. A

state agency’s correspondence with OSP about a member of the public is not, in that agency’s hands,

information compiled for criminal law purposes. If you claim it, please state which criminal investigation each

record was compiled for, and why the public interest does not require disclosure.

Attorney-client privilege: A communication between the Secretary of State and OSP is not privileged because a

DOJ attorney is copied. If you claim privilege, please identify the attorney and the legal advice sought for each

record.
Fee waiver. I request a waiver of all fees under ORS 192.324(5). Disclosure primarily benefits the general public:
Requester’s identity. I study how Oregon’s public records law is applied, and I publish what I find at 
openrecordsoregon.org. The site publishes every records request I make to a state agency, every reply, and
every record produced, in full, beside the text of the law, so the public can see how each agency applies it.

Purpose. To educate the public about the public records law and to make its practice legible: what an agency is

asked, how it searches, what it produces, what it withholds and on what ground, and what it charges. The

records from this request will be published beside the request and every reply to it, so any reader can see how

the law was applied to it. They will also show the public whether and how state agencies refer members of the

public to the state police through its Government and Media Relations section.

Character of the information. The records show whether state agencies use the Government and Media

Relations section of the state police to handle members of the public who contact them. A member of the public

who writes to a state agency is speaking and petitioning the government, under Article I, sections 8 and 26 of

the Oregon Constitution and the First Amendment. A referral of that person to the police concerns the use of

police power against that speech and petition. It also concerns compliance with ORS 181A.250, which bars

police from collecting information about a person’s political or social views or activities without reasonable

suspicion of criminal involvement.
Public domain. No public record shows how often state agencies write to the state police public relations office

about a member of the public, or how often that office orders detectives to investigate the person they wrote

about. On March 3, 2026, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department forwarded a citizen’s public archive to

the captain of Government and Media Relations. It alleged no crime and no threat. On March 4, the captain

ordered detectives to conduct a “threat assessment.” The detectives investigated for three weeks. Then three

• 
• 
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
Public Records Request — Communications with OSP Government and Media Relations 2 / 3

men drove sixty-eight minutes to conduct a “knock and talk” at the citizen’s door, behind a locked gate, at a

restricted federal facility, posted against public access, to tell him he was “not in trouble.” Those records were 

produced under PR27478.
Ability to disseminate. As of the date of this letter, openrecordsoregon.org has published every request, reply,

and production in its three public questions: 379 filings and 591 documents. They include public records

productions from the Oregon State Police, the Department of Administrative Services, the Oregon Parks and

Recreation Department, and the Office of the Public Records Advocate, each with its original files and email

headers, free to read and download. Records from this request will be published the same way. I have no

commercial interest in them.
I request a waiver of all fees under ORS 192.324(5). If a full waiver is denied, I request a reduction of fees under the

same provision. If the waiver is denied or a reduction is granted in part, please give the reasons in writing for each

factor, state the amount or percentage of any reduction and its basis, and provide an itemized estimate before any

work begins, showing the tasks, the hours for each, and the hourly rate of the employee performing each. 

Timeline. Please acknowledge this request within five business days and give an estimated completion date as

required by ORS 192.324 and 192.329.
Preservation. Please preserve all records responsive to this request while it and any petition for review are pending.

Thank you for your public service.
Respectfully,
Robert Samuel Whit

Your request will be forwarded to the relevant division(s) to locate the information you seek and to determine the volume and any costs associated with satisfying your request. You will be notified when your records are available or if we need further information from you. PLEASE NOTE: The Oregon Public Records Law does not require a governmental body to create new information, to do legal research, or to answer questions.

You can monitor the progress of your request at the link below and you'll receive an email when your request has been completed. Again, thank you for using the Public Records Request Center.

Oregon Secretary of State
To monitor the progress or update this request please log into the Public Records Request Center