DEA call log PIA and supporting documentation

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 DEA regarding the call database revealed by DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge Robert Pattinson in USA v. HASSANSHAHI et al
-All materials submitted by the DEA as part of the Initial Privacy Assessment process regarding the call database 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,

William Green

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Feb. 13, 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 #15-00341-F.

Thank you for your help.

I am appealing the rejection of my request on multiple grounds.

I am not seeking information on an "alleged NSA intelligence program," as the rejection to my request suggested. I am seeking information on a program that was clearly described as a "federal law enforcement database" under the purview of the DEA by DEA Assistant Special Agent Robert Patterson in his publicly released testimony in the case of U.S. v. Hassanshahi in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. I am taking the testimony at face value and to be an official statement from the DEA generally on the nature of the database. Agent Patterson repeatedly and explicitly characterized the database as a "federal law enforcement database" and did not once mention the NSA. Nor did he suggest that the NSA had any involvement in the establishment or handling of the database. The involvement of the NSA, given its mission and activities, would substantively change the database from that of one that could be described as being only under the purview of federal law enforcement. If the rejection to my request constituted an official admission by the DEA that the NSA was involved with the database described in Agent Patterson's testimony, then it would seem to suggest that his testimony did not fully satisfy the Court's order to "summarize the contours" of the database, as Patterson described the order.

Given Agent Patterson's comprehensive and public explanation of the basic facts of the database, the more comprehensive journalistic reporting on it that followed in multiple nationally prominent media outlets, including USA Today, and the fact that Patterson publicly admitted that the database is not even in service anymore by the DEA, I contest that the type of privacy documentation I initially requested would still be subject to statutory or executive ordered classification. I also contest that release of such documents would “disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions.” Agent Patterson already explicitly publicly described the techniques deployed to build the database.