1993 Navy ROTC Northwestern University court martial of midshipman
| Tracking # |
14-416 |
| Submitted | April 30, 2015 |
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Communications
From: Jens Porup
To Whom It May Concern:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:
A copy of any and all Navy and/or Department of Defense records or files pertaining to the court martial of a midshipman belonging to the US Navy ROTC battalion at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1993.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, and is not being made 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,
Jens Porup
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 30, 2015. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thank you for your help.
From: Gauzer, Thomas J CIV OJAG, CODE 20
Mr. Porup,
We have processed your request, and I am currently waiting on a signature on your final letter. This should be completed an in the mail first thing tomorrow morning.
V/r
Thomas Gauzer
Office of the Judge Advocate General
Criminal Law Division, Code 20
1254 Charles Morris ST, SE, Suite B-01
Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5124
Ph.: (202) 685-6965
F: (202) 685-7084
thomas.gauzer@navy.mil
From: Navy
A fix is required to perfect the request.
From: Jens Porup
Commander Lawrence,
Courts martial of midshipmen, as you are no doubt aware, are uncommon to say the least.
I know for a fact that the court martial at Northwestern in 1993 was the ONLY court martial of a midshipman that year.
Any sufficiently competent database admin should have no difficulty locating the records in question. I do not know the name of the midshipman in question, but this information should not be necessary to locate the records requested.
Regards
JMP
From: Gauzer, Thomas J CIV OJAG, CODE 20
Mr. Porup,
Good morning, I am the one that handled your request, as I do with every requestor that is asking for information. I am more than competent to run this program and conduct searches. There is no way to complete a search of our database for a court-martial record from 1986 to current without having the name or social security number of the individual that went to court-martial.
Since, you have clearly stated in the e-mail below you do not know the name of the midshipman, and therefore your request will remain closed. If you find out the name of the individual who went to court-martial then you are more than welcome to submit another FOIA request.
If you have any further questions, please let me know.
V/r
Tom Gauzer
From: Jens Porup
Please amend this FOIA request to include the names of all Navy ROTC midshipmen court-martialed from 1986 to present, with their names, date of court martial, and battalion in question.
regards
JMP
From: Gauzer, Thomas J CIV OJAG, CODE 20
Mr. Porup,
Good morning, as explained in our final letter to you. Without the exact name or social security number there will be no way for us to conduct a database search. We cannot conduct searches by "ROTC Midshipmen." If order for us to conduct any type of database searches, you must provide us with the name or social security number, again you have not done this in either of your requests. Therefore, we will not be amending your original request.
If you can provide exact name(s), social security number, then we will conduct a new search. Until you are able to provide us with this information, we are considering your request closed. Further, if you are able to obtain the name(s) then we are more than willing to conduct additional services.
If you have any further questions, please let me know.
V/r
Thomas Gauzer
Office of the Judge Advocate General
Criminal Law Division, Code 20
1254 Charles Morris ST, SE, Suite B-01
Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5124
Ph.: (202) 685-6965
F: (202) 685-7084
thomas.gauzer@navy.mil
From: Jens Porup
JAG is stonewalling. Appeal.
From: Navy
A letter stating that the request appeal has been received and is being processed.
From: Dembo, Zachary D LT OJAG, Code 14
Good morning Mr. Porup,
I am reviewing your appeal from Code 20's response to your FOIA request for the court martial of a Northwestern ROTC midshipman in 1993. Just to clarify, I assume you do not have the name or Social Security numbewr of the midshipman as they requested or any other additional information. It's fine if not and we will review the adequacy of search based on that, but given that you never explicitly stated you did not have any other information I wanted to confirm that fact before we adjudicate your FOIA appeal.
Very respectfully,
Zach
Zach Dembo
LT, JAGC, USN
Office of the Judge Advocate General
General Litigation Division (Code 14)
1322 Patterson Avenue, SE, STE 3000
Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374
TEL: (202)685-4596
DSN: 325-4596
From: Jens Porup
The number of midshipmen court-martialled at Northwestern University ROTC in 1993 was one (1). This information should not be difficult to locate, given its unique nature.
Please process this FOIA request in a timely manner.
Regards
JMP
From: Dembo, Zachary D LT OJAG, Code 14
Mr. Porup,
I understand from your earlier correspondence that you believe this case was unique and feel it should be easily searchable; I can't respond to that assertion yet because we have not issued a final appeal response yet. But just to make sure everything possible is being done to locate these records for you, I wanted to confirm before we do that you did not have any other identifying information regarding the court-martial or the midshipman.
V/r,
LT Dembo
From: Jens Porup
Please process this FOIA request in a timely manner using the information already provided.
Regards
JMP
From: Navy
A letter stating that the request appeal has been rejected.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 30, 2015. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #DON-NAVY-2015-008380.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Dembo, Zachary D LT OJAG, Code 14
Good morning Mr. Porup,
A signed decision on your appeal was completed September 11, 2015 and was mailed either that day or the following business day, September 14, to the below address:
Mr. Jens Porup
Muckrock
DEPT MR 17623
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819
Please let me know if you fail to receive it.
V/r,
LT Dembo
From: Jens Porup
I did not receive it, please send again.
From: Dembo, Zachary D LT OJAG, Code 14
Good morning Mr. Porup,
It appears that someone in your organization did receive it as it was posted on your website on September 16th and remains publicly available:
Hopefully this helps.
V/r,
LT Dembo
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