FBI drone PIA and supporting documentation (OPCL)

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

-All privacy impact assessments submitted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding its use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or "drones"
-All materials submitted by the FBI as part of the Initial Privacy Assessment process regarding its use of UAV/UAS, as well as the OPCL determination regarding the need for a PIA
-All supporting documentation submitted along with the above PIA(s), particularly the separate application(s) for proposed redactions required to be submitted under the 2012 OPCL PIA guidance.

I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as I believe this request is in the public interest. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.

In the event that fees cannot be waived, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Shawn Musgrave

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on July 23, 2014. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on July 23, 2014. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

Director, Office of Information Policy (OIP)
US. Department of Justice
1425 New York Ave., NW, Suite 11050
Washington, DC. 20530-0001

October 16, 2014

To Whom It May Concern:

This is an appeal of adequacy of search for FOIA DAG/14-03924 (F).

In the attached letter, OIP FOIA staff indicate that they were unable to locate documents pertaining the FBI's privacy impact assessment (PIA) process around the agency's unmanned aerial systems. Documents released as part of FOIA request 1243153-0, submitted by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, clearly refer to the FBI's PIA process for UAS. Furthermore, in a DOJ Inspector General report from September 2013 (available online: http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2013/a1337.pdf), a footnote on page 6 clearly indicates the FBI’s Office of General Counsel was "conducting a privacy review of the use of UAS" as of June 2013.

Per the DOJ PIA manual, "The PIA process requires that candid and forthcoming communications occur among the system manager/owner, component privacy officials, and OPCL, to make the PIA comprehensive and meaningful and to ensure appropriate and timely handling of privacy concerns."

If the FBI is conducting a Privacy Impact Assessment as required under Justice Department policy, the above provision requires the Bureau to communicate with OPCL throughout the process. Therefore, it is incredibly unlikely that no documents can be found within OPCL.

For this and any other reasons deemed applicable by the Office of Information Policy, I request that you remand this FOIA back to OPCL for good faith search and release of documents.

Respectfully,

Shawn Musgrave
MuckRock