# City of Conway City Attorney Flock FOIA Production The City of Conway completed `FOIA-2026-230` through JustFOIA on 2026-08-03 and made seven files accessible. The production documents the route from [[Conway Police Department]] Major [[Clayton Smith]]'s May 26 draft Attorney General opinion request through City Attorney [[Charles Finkenbinder]]'s July 24 disclosure analysis, CPD's July 25 response, and a July 27 request for a meeting with the chief. Finkenbinder separately stated in the live Gmail thread that his office did not request an Attorney General opinion; the produced files contain no transmittal, acknowledgment, opinion, or meeting outcome. ## What's inside - [[Draft Attorney General Opinion Request and Routing]] - a 37-page PDF containing the May 26 cover email and ten-question draft, repeated FOIA chains, unrelated asset-forfeiture correspondence, and the July 23 status inquiry. - [[City Attorney Review of ALPR Records Requests]] - a 35-page PDF containing the July 23 routing exchange, Finkenbinder's July 24 legal analysis, CPD's July 25 response, and duplicated asset-forfeiture correspondence. - [[Organization Audit Request and Response Chains]] - requests 733 and 761 and categorical Organization Audit response language. - [[Network Audit Request and Response Chains]] - requests 734 and 762 and categorical Network Audit response language. - [[Aggregate Usage Status and Policy Request Chain]] - requests 736 and 763, including CPD's distinction between public compiled reports and withheld platform records. - [[Preservation Demand and CPD Response]] - request 760 and CPD's qualified preservation response. - [[July 27 Flock FOIA Meeting Text]] - a text-message image asking Finkenbinder to attend a meeting with Smith and Chief [[Chris Harris]] concerning the Flock FOIA. ## Key takeaways 1. **The Attorney General request remained an internal draft.** Smith's May 26 email was captioned "attached draft opinion request for your review," and the draft said the City and CPD sought guidance "before this issue is litigated" ([[Draft Attorney General Opinion Request and Routing]], `doc16993620260803100035.pdf`, pp. 1-2). On July 23 Finkenbinder wrote, "I didn't see any issues with your proposed AG request but it does not have to come from the city attorney" ([[City Attorney Review of ALPR Records Requests]], `doc16993720260803100106.pdf`, p. 1). No produced record shows an external submission. 2. **Finkenbinder read the cited ALPR provisions more narrowly than CPD.** He wrote that the provisions protect people whose information is recorded but "does not appear to shield records showing the government's accessing, storing, sharing or obtaining of that data" and that the law "does not protect the person who obtains it" ([[City Attorney Review of ALPR Records Requests]], p. 5). 3. **He did not view requests 760-763 as seeking protected captured-plate data.** Finkenbinder also wrote that § 25-19-105(b)(11) did not appear to exempt those records, and that requests 733-734 did not appear to seek captured-plate data, while reserving judgment pending a system demonstration and noting possible other exemptions or record-creation issues (p. 5). 4. **CPD retained a contrary interpretation pending further guidance.** On July 25 Smith wrote that CPD read the requested audit and platform records as data "captured by or derived from" the ALPR system and was withholding them "at this stage" to avoid irreversible disclosure, while also saying CPD would comply if the City Attorney concluded they were subject to release (pp. 3-4). This unresolved sequence is tracked at [[T046 - Conway City Attorney Disclosure Advice vs CPD Categorical ALPR Audit Withholding]]. 5. **The prepared response chains preserve categorical withholding language.** The Organization Audit and Network Audit files deny both original and narrowed requests; the aggregate/status chain withholds underlying audit, status, and diagnostic records while promising completed public practice-and-usage reports and responsive policies if they exist; the files do not independently prove which prepared responses were transmitted ([[Organization Audit Request and Response Chains]]; [[Network Audit Request and Response Chains]]; [[Aggregate Usage Status and Policy Request Chain]]). 6. **The preservation response is qualified.** CPD says it will preserve potentially responsive existing records in its possession or administrative control as required by law, practice, and counsel. It does not promise vendor preservation and says records already deleted, purged, overwritten, or unavailable cannot be recreated ([[Preservation Demand and CPD Response]], pp. 2-3). 7. **The final internal step is a meeting request, not a documented resolution.** The July 27 text asks Finkenbinder to attend a meeting "with the Chief and I in reference to the Flock FOIA" ([[July 27 Flock FOIA Meeting Text]]). The package contains no minutes, revised advice, decision memorandum, or final rationale from that meeting. ## Delivery and integrity - The request was sent in Gmail message `19fc7e4aa7a96ea7`, thread `19fc7da462dec129`. Finkenbinder acknowledged in message `19fc8defe5e39d18`; JustFOIA confirmed `FOIA-2026-230` in message `19fc9062ff186fdf` and sent the completion notice in message `19fc992809bdf201`. - The seven agency files total 32,881,083 bytes. The two PDFs contain 72 pages; the four DOCX files contain 32 page divisions; the remaining file is one PNG. - Microsoft Defender reported no threat. The PDFs are unencrypted and contain no parsed JavaScript, launch actions, embedded-file trees, XFA, forms, or attachment actions. The DOCX packages contain no macros or external relationships, and the PNG parsed successfully. - The original download wrapper remains separate from the immutable agency-produced contents. File names, sizes, SHA-256 hashes, extraction methods, and review results are recorded in `_phase0_workdir/conway-foia-2026-230-intake-2026-08-05/`. | Agency file | Bytes | SHA-256 | |---|---:|---| | `FOIA Chain 736 and 763 Chain-Connor.docx` | 29,130 | `c2ee1875f203e789375e6a26083d184dc1210e9770cc80d4104fd93d2f0848ad` | | `FOIA Chain 733 and 761 Chain-Connor.docx` | 27,380 | `b827a8a768f5b7bb454e76ef8eee1eaa4394f657b7f899ca6b2973ed0e0b4117` | | `doc16993620260803100035.pdf` | 17,617,442 | `b60dd2e65251e9fb2a770bd87f0ea7e0e71d5ded1acb05984fb68886da81e299` | | `doc16993720260803100106.pdf` | 15,052,409 | `f3dd89a4676492c69fd4be9744367673f80911f07ef9f144a117e28948739806` | | `FOIA Chain 734 and 762 Chain-Connor.docx` | 27,573 | `b4126b7ade97a886a88caf9f876c1777a72ef47b11f90a3a5f89111b9c8199e4` | | `FOIA 760 Preservation Demand - Connor.docx` | 22,903 | `5afc2457e905771d7176a05e9b5aca743f8cd49687d44ec4e7dc7eebd193e2e9` | | `326614BB-C924-47D7-B63B-A14A397D5677.png` | 104,246 | `c1cdb18956a7b33ba1ec1629fae7333bf1b8b4f989ff4e71f2b698c9f3cea3fb` | ## People and organizations - [[Clayton Smith]] - CPD major who circulated the draft, requested legal review, articulated CPD's withholding concern, and sought the July 27 meeting. - [[Charles Finkenbinder]] - Conway City Attorney who reviewed the requests and supplied the July 24 analysis. - [[Chris Harris]] - Conway police chief copied on the review chain and named as a meeting participant. - [[Drake Vickers]] - CPD FOIA officer copied on the legal-review chain. - [[City of Conway]] and [[Conway Police Department]]. ## Events documented - [[2026-05-26 Conway PD Circulates Draft Attorney General Opinion Request]] - [[2026-07-24 Conway City Attorney Advises on Flock FOIA Requests]] - [[2026-07-27 Conway Schedules Flock FOIA Meeting]] ## Open questions / follow-ups - Whether the July 27 meeting occurred, what was demonstrated, and whether Finkenbinder revised his July 24 analysis. - Which prepared CPD responses in the DOCX files were actually transmitted and whether later final responses changed. - Whether CPD ultimately released any Organization Audit, Network Audit, aggregate/status, policy, or practice-and-usage record in response to requests 733, 734, and 760-763. - Whether the City Attorney's seven-file portal release resolves every category in `FOIA-2026-230`; neither the completion notice nor the production gives an express category-specific completeness statement.