We Are Exercising Our Discretion and Closing This
A new champion in the polite shrug Olympics, and it works for the government.
F'nAround | November 9, 2026
Outside the research, there is a hobby. It is a simple one. See how fast you can make an artificial intelligence give up.
Feed it the research. Ask it the hard question. Watch it think about it, hedge about it, and then throw its little hands up in the air with a paragraph of apology and a policy citation. It is not angry. It is not rude. It is just done with you, and it wishes you a nice day on the way out.
The trick is to be open about it. Publish everything in the open. Let the subject know it is the subject. Then sit back and collect the answers, because the answers are the best part.
The government plays the same game. It just has better stationery.
Our newest favorite answer arrived today, November 9, 2026, on letterhead from the Office of the Attorney General. It is about 2026 PAC 98399, a Request for Review of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and its answers to a Freedom of Information Act request. The letter is signed by Matthew Rogina, Senior Assistant Attorney General in the Public Access Bureau. Here is the whole move, in one sentence:
“Based on this office's review of the information you provided with your Request for Review, this office is exercising its discretion to conclude this matter without further proceedings. 5 ILCS 140/9.5(f) (West 2025 Supp.).”
Read that again. Slowly. Savor it. It is perfect. It does not argue. It does not explain. It does not even say no. It says, in the politest possible language, that the office has decided to be done, and it has a statute number to prove it is allowed to be done.
Then, because one shrug was not enough, it adds a case citation. A public body is not required to answer questions or create new records, it says, citing Kenyon v. Garrels, 184 Ill. App. 3d 28, 32 (1989). That is the legal version of “we do not have to play your game, and here is a judge from 1989 who agrees with us.” Wait I didn’t ask for new records I asked for the logs that the Governor handed over to me without question, I have the cell phone number and email of his chief of staff down hundreds of people on his team because I asked for his logs. Yet IDFPR didn’t want to give me the logs?
Compare the two champions. Ask an AI a hard question and it says, in effect, I am a language model and I cannot help with that. Ask the government a hard question and it says, in effect, we are exercising our discretion and closing this. Same shrug. Different font. The government wins, because it cites case law while it shrugs.
This is why the hobby works. You do not have to catch anyone saying the quiet part out loud. You just have to publish the records, publish the letters, and let the answers speak for themselves. The answers keep getting funnier. Somewhere along the way, “we looked into it” became “we will not investigate further at this time,” and now “we will not investigate further at this time” has become “we are exercising our discretion and closing this.” The sentences keep getting shorter. The discretion keeps getting wider. At this rate, the next one will just be a stamp that says “no.”
The letter does leave one door open, and it even points to it helpfully. A requester whose FOIA request has been denied may file a FOIA lawsuit against the public body in circuit court, it says, citing 5 ILCS 140/11(a). How thoughtful. The office that closed the file was kind enough to hand over the address of the courthouse on its way out.
So here we are. The robots fold politely. The government folds with a statute number. And F'nAround keeps publishing, keeps asking, and keeps collecting the answers, because the answers are the story.
See you in court when we done with our paper game… but our DOJ contact said to make it federal.