RETRIEVING DOCUMENT
The FOIA response arrived on July 23rd.
I had submitted the request on June 26th. The request asked for all records relating to Global Defense Agency deployment activities at or near the intersection of Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue on the date of the Viltrumite incident. I attached a time range. I attached GPS coordinates. I cited the specific unit identification codes visible in my footage from that morning.
The response was dated July 21st. It arrived in my inbox at 4:47 p.m. on July 23rd.
The GDA invoked Exemption 1 under the Freedom of Information Act: the requested records have been classified in the interest of national security. The GDA also invoked Exemption 7(A): the records relate to an active law enforcement proceeding, and disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement activities.
The GDA released zero pages.
I want to be precise about what this means. Exemption 1 does not apply to records that do not exist. Exemption 7(A) does not apply to records that do not exist. The GDA has confirmed, in writing, on official letterhead with a reference number I have now saved in three separate locations, that responsive records exist. They are classified. They are part of an active investigation.
Someone deployed to Wacker and Michigan that morning. The GDA has paperwork on it. That paperwork is now formally, officially unavailable to me.
I noted this. I have now made twenty-three notes.
The Committee
The City of Chicago Emergency Displacement Assistance Review Committee met on July 16th.
The meeting was not publicly announced. It was not livestreamed. The public comment period referenced in the committee's own charter was not held.
I learned the outcome two days later from a contact in a building adjacent to the meeting room. The committee approved nine emergency placement vouchers.
There were forty-three households in the displacement pool from the Wacker-Michigan incident. There were additional households displaced by secondary structural damage in the surrounding blocks. I do not have that number. I have requested it.
Nine vouchers from forty-three households.
The selection criteria have not been published. The committee's charter references "documented need, proximity to original displacement, and available placement stock." I have submitted a public records request for the scoring rubric used on July 16th.
Mrs. Adaeze Mbeki was not among the nine.
I called her this morning. She answered on the fourth ring. She apologized — her daughter had the phone.
I told her about the nine vouchers. She was quiet for a moment. Then she asked me what the criteria were.
I told her I didn't know yet.
She said: "So they decided and they didn't say why."
I said: "Yes."
She said her sister's building has a broken elevator. Her sister's apartment is on the fifth floor. Her daughter is six years old and has not asked about the elevator once, which Mrs. Mbeki said was the part that worried her.
What I Am Still Waiting On
The SIGINT source who identified the equipment in Darius's footage as consistent with forward signal collection has not returned three calls. That source ended the call when I asked who they thought had placed the equipment. Day eleven of silence when I wrote my last dispatch. Today is day thirty-three.
The man who presented himself as a Chicago Housing Transition Office representative and visited Mrs. Mbeki on June 11th has not reappeared. Day forty-four since he disappeared.
The Wilmington law firm has not responded to two letters. Terri Walcott in Columbus has not responded. My Baltimore contact for CRIF has not responded.
The GDA has responsive records it has classified.
The committee approved nine of forty-three.
Darius's audio drive is still in my bag. I opened it once. I looked at the file directory. I closed it. I am thinking about who I trust to analyze it now that my source has gone dark.
Fifty-eight days since the shockwave at Wacker and Michigan.
The GDA has an active investigation.
Mrs. Mbeki is on the fifth floor.
I am still counting.