Ebola mission to Liberia (U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

1 - Any photos taken during the mission to transport Ebola blood samples from Liberia to the US towards the end of 2016. This includes photos by employees as part of their work on this official mission, or photos by third party contractors.

2 - Any contracts or agreements with Phoenix Air to supply their services for the mission to transport Ebola blood samples from Liberia to the US towards the end of 2016 (signed by any institution such as CDC, DTRA, NIH, etc). I'm sure you'll have a copy of that.

3 - Any contracts or agreements with Sandia that you have at hand from 01 July 2013 and today regarding their work in Liberia (signed by any institution such as CDC, DTRA, NIH, etc). I'm sure you'll have a copy of that.

4 - Any Chain of Custody documents signed for the shipping of any Ebola blood samples from Liberia to the USA between 01/01/16 and 31 December 17. The staff responsible for the sample management at the CDC and NIH will have a copy of that.

5 - Any documents with information linked to blood samples that were transported from Liberia to the US from 01/01/17 to 01/11/17 (e.g. the name of the patient, their origin, their gender, their clinical signs etc). I do not require individual documents as I understand that the private information of patients cannot be disclosed. Please feel free to redact that personal information from any documents that contain lists. In case there are many documents that pertain to single individuals with the sample templates, then please provide one of each of the types of documents as a template.

6 - The agreement between Liberia and the US (signed by the Ambassador of the US in Liberia) signed around September 2016 for the transport of Ebola blood samples from Liberia to the US.

7 - Any inventory of Ebola blood samples held by the US that were brought from Liberia, including samples held at Fort Detrick and Rocky Mountain Lab.

This request should be properly classified as a media request. I am a freelance investigative reporter covering covering East and Central Africa, with a particular focus on business, corruption, natural resources, land and social issues.

I have a strong likelihood of publishing news articles based on information released in response to this request. I have previously been published in Le Monde Afrique, IRIN News, Sydney Morning Herald, African Arguments and others. If you have questions about my media classification, please let me know and I'm happy to address them.

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 filed electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not, and I would like text-searchable documents.

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.

Best regards,
Emmanuel Freudenthal