Expedited processing request: @NPSBadlands tweets

Mr. Cameron,

Your request has been assigned tracking number NPS-2017-00368. All future
correspondence relating to this request should reference this tracking
number. Your request has been placed into the expedited processing track.
At this time we are estimating that the fees to process this request will
not exceed our $50 threshold for charging fees, therefore your fee waiver
request is moot. You should expect our response by February 22, 2017. In
the meantime, please feel free to contact me with any questions you may
have regarding the processing of your request.

Sincerely,

C

____________________

Ms. Charis Wilson, PhD, CRM
NPS FOIA Officer
12795 W. Alameda Parkway
PO Box 25287
Denver, CO 80225-0287
303-969-2959
Fax: 303-969-2557
1-855-NPS-FOIA
npsfoia@nps.gov <charis_wilson@nps.gov>

Mr. Cameron,

In accordance with 43 CFR 2.19, we are notifying you that we have
determined that we will need to extend the basic 20 workday time limit, in
order to respond to your request. This extension is needed due to the need
to search for, collect, and review potentially responsive records from
multiple locations.

We expect to issue our determination response to you by, to you by March 8,
2017. If you do not receive our response by that date, you may consider
your request administratively denied and may file an appeal. You may file
an appeal by writing to:

Freedom of Information Act Appeals Officer
Office of the Solicitor
U.S. Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, NW
MS-6556-MIB,
Washington, D.C. 20240
foia.appeals@sol.doi.gov

The appeal should be marked, both on the envelope and the face of the
appeal letter, with the legend "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION APPEAL." Your appeal
should be accompanied by a copy of your original request and copies of all
correspondence between yourself and the National Park Service related to
this request. Please note appeals received after 5 p.m. EST will be
considered to have been received as of the following day.

Additionally, you have the right to limit the scope of your request so that
it may be processed within the time limit or an opportunity to arrange an
alternative time frame for processing the request. Please feel free to
contact me, both as the FOIA Liaison and the person who is processing your
request, to discuss the processing of your request.

You may also contact the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS)
at the National Archives and Records Administration to inquire about the
FOIA mediation services they offer. You can contact OGIS at:

Office of Government Information Services
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road-OGIS
College Park, MD 20740-6001
ogis@nara.gov
1-877-684-6448
Fax: 202-741-5769

Sincerely,

C.

____________________

Ms. Charis Wilson, PhD, CRM
NPS FOIA Officer
12795 W. Alameda Parkway
PO Box 25287
Denver, CO 80225-0287
303-969-2959
Fax: 303-969-2557
1-855-NPS-FOIA
npsfoia@nps.gov <charis_wilson@nps.gov>

United States Department of the Interior

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

12795 W. Alameda Parkway

P.O. Box 25287

Denver, Colorado 80225-0287

April 14, 2017

A7221 (2550)

Dell Cameron

Daily Dot

MuckRock

Department MR 32454

411A Highland Ave.

Somerville, MA 02144-2516

Dear Mr. Cameron:

Reference: Badlands National Park

Subject: Response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request NPS-2017-00368

This letter is in response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated January 24, 2017, in which you requested:

…all records — including memos, electronic or otherwise, as well as emails sent or received by the National Park Service — created on Tuesday, January 24, 2017, concerning the use of official NPS Twitter accounts. Please include, but do not limit your search for responsive records, to information related to the Badlands National Park (@BadlandsNPS).

Upon further review, your request is granted in part and denied in part. On March 22, 2017, 995 pages of responsive materials relating to the @NatlParkService Twitter account and social media for the period of January 20 – 23, 2017, were made available on our Frequently Requested Documents website ( <https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/foia-frd.htm> https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/foia-frd.htm). Today we are notifying you that an additional 1,448 pages relating to the @BadlandsNPS Twitter account and social media policies have also been made available on that site. However, portions of approximately 849 pages are being withheld under Exemptions 5 and 6.

Exemption 5 allows an agency to withhold “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party... in litigation with the agency.” <http://www.justice.gov/oip/amended-foia-redlined.pdf> 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5); see Nat’l Labor Relations Bd. v. Sears Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 149 (1975). Exemption 5 therefore incorporates the privileges that protect materials from discovery in litigation, including the deliberative process, attorney work-product, attorney-client, and commercial information privileges. We are withholding this information because it qualifies to be withheld under the following privilege:

Deliberative Process Privilege

The deliberative process privilege protects the decision-making process of government agencies and encourages the “frank exchange of ideas on legal or policy matters” by ensuring agencies are not “forced to operate in a fish bowl.” Mead Data Cent., Inc. v. United States Dep’t of the Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 256 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (internal citations omitted). A number of policy purposes have been attributed to the deliberative process privilege. Among the most important are to: (1) “assure that subordinates . . . will feel free to provide the decisionmaker with their uninhibited opinions and recommendations”; (2) “protect against premature disclosure of proposed policies”; and (3) “protect against confusing the issues and misleading the public.” Coastal States Gas Corp. v. United States Dep’t of Energy, 617 F.2d 854, 866 (D.C. Cir. 1980).

The deliberative process privilege protects materials that are both predecisional and deliberative. The privilege covers records that “reflect the give-and-take of the consultative process” and may include “recommendations, draft documents, proposals, suggestions, and other subjective documents which reflect the personal opinions of the writer rather than the policy of the agency.” Id.

The conference call numbers being withheld constitute “intra-agency” documents because they are only shared with members of the Department or their consultants for the purpose of conducting official government business, including holding discussions that are deliberative and pre-decisional. In addition to qualifying as “intra-agency” documents, it has been determined that the conference call numbers qualify as “confidential commercial information”, which also protectable by Exemption 5.

In this case, the government entered the marketplace as an ordinary commercial buyer of private conference call numbers and pass codes. If the conference call numbers and/or pass codes were released, the government’s financial interest would be significantly harmed. The conference calls would no longer be private since unknown, non-governmental parties would have the ability to listen in to the calls. The funds spent on purchasing the call-in numbers and pass codes would therefore have been wasted, and the conference call numbers and pass codes would be of no use.

Because the release of the conference call numbers would significantly harm both the government’s financial interest and the deliberative process, the National Park Service is withholding the conference call numbers in accordance with Exemption 5 of the FOIA.

Exemption 6 allows an agency to withhold “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” The courts have held that the phrase “similar files” involves all information that applies to a particular person. Hertzberg v. Veneman, 273 F. Supp. 2d 67, 85 n.11 (D.D.C. 2003).

To determine whether releasing requested information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, we are required to perform a “balancing test.” This means that we must weigh the individual’s right to privacy against the public’s right to disclosure.

(1) First, we must determine whether the individual has a discernable privacy interest in the information that has been requested.

(2) Next, we must determine whether release of this information would serve “the public interest generally” (i.e., would “shed light on the performance of the agency's statutory duties”).

(3) Finally, we must determine whether the public interest in disclosure is greater than the privacy interest of the individual in withholding.

The information that we are withholding consists of names, personal cell phone numbers, and home addresses and we have determined that the individuals to whom this information pertains have a substantial privacy interest in it. Additionally, we have determined that the disclosure of this information would shed little or no light on the performance of the agency’s statutory duties and that, on balance, the public interest to be served by its disclosure does not outweigh the privacy interest of the individuals in question, in withholding it. Nat’l Ass’n of Retired Fed. Employees v. Horner, 879 F.2d 873, 879 (D.C. Cir. 1989).

In summation, we have determined that release of the information that we have withheld would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of the privacy of these individuals. We have therefore withheld this information pursuant to Exemption 6.

Pursuant to regulation, 43 CFR 2.24(b) the following person is responsible for this denial:

Charis Wilson

NPS FOIA Officer

Additionally the following attorney was consulted during the preparation of this response:

Brett Myrick, Office of the Solicitor

U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.

You have the right to appeal this denial of your request. You may file an appeal by writing to:

Freedom of Information Act Appeals Officer

Office of the Solicitor

U.S. Department of the Interior

1849 C Street, NW

MS-6556-MIB,

Washington, D.C. 20240

foia.appeals@sol.doi.gov

Your appeal must be received no later than 90 workdays after the date of this final response. The appeal should be marked, both on the envelope and the face of the appeal letter, with the legend "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION APPEAL." Your appeal should be accompanied by a copy of your original request and copies of all correspondence between yourself and the National Park Service related to this request, along with any information you have which leads you to believe the records are available, including where they might be found, if the location is known to you. Please note, appeals received after 5 p.m. EST will be considered to have been received as of the following day.

Also as part of the 2007 OPEN Government Act FOIA amendments, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) was created to offer mediation services to resolve disputes between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies as a nonexclusive alternative to litigation. Using OGIS services does not affect your right to pursue litigation.

You may contact OGIS in any of the following ways:

Office of Government Information Services (OGIS)

National Archives and Records Administration

Room 2510

8601 Adelphi Road

College Park, MD 20740-6001

E-mail: ogis@nara.gov

Phone: 301-837-1996

Fax: 301-837-0348

Toll-free: 1-877-684-6448

Additionally, because the National Park Service creates and maintains law enforcement records, we are required by the Department of Justice to provide the following information, even though it may or may not apply to your specific request. Congress excluded three discrete categories of law enforcement and national security records from the requirements of the FOIA. See 5 U.S.C. 552(c) (2006 & Supp. IV 2010). This response is limited to those records that are subject to the requirements of the FOIA. This is a standard notification that we are required to give all our requesters and should not be taken as an indication that excluded records do, or do not, exist.

Department of the Interior (DOI) guidance on social media, which may be responsive to your request, can be found online here https://www.doi.gov/notices/Social-Media-Policy and here https://www.doi.gov/employees/dmguide/website-and-social-media-basics#Mishaps <https://www.doi.gov/employees/dmguide/website-and-social-media-basics%23Mishaps> . Please do not hesitate to contact me, both as the NPS FOIA Liaison and the person who processed your request, with any further questions or concerns. I can be reached at the address above or by phone at 303-969-2959. I can also be reached via e-mail at charis_wilson@nps.gov.

Sincerely,

C.

___________________________

Ms. Charis Wilson, PhD, CRM
NPS FOIA Officer
12795 W. Alameda Parkway
PO Box 25287
Denver, CO 80225-0287
303-969-2959
Fax: 303-969-2557
1-855-NPS-FOIA
<mailto:charis_wilson@nps.gov> npsfoia@nps.gov