Expense Reports for All employees or contractors (OIA)

Good afternoon Mr. Smathers,

Please find attached an acknowledgment of your September 18, 2013 FOIA request to DHS I&A.

V/r,

Priscilla Waters, J.D.
FOIA Officer
Department of Homeland Security
Office of Intelligence and Analysis
UNCLASS: Priscilla.Waters@hq.dhs.gov<mailto:Priscilla.Waters@hq.dhs.gov>
UNCLAS Phone: (202) 447-4883
BB: (202) 809-1598

October 27, 2013
Department of Homeland Security, Under Secretary Office of Intelligence & Analysis
Under Secretary Office of Intelligence & Analysis
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

This is a follow up to request number 2013-IAFO-00109:

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Sept. 17, 2013. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #2013-IAFO-00109.

Thank you for your help.

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On Sept. 20, 2013:

Good afternoon Mr. Smathers,

Please find attached an acknowledgment of your September 18, 2013 FOIA request to DHS I&A.

V/r,

Priscilla Waters, J.D.
FOIA Officer
Department of Homeland Security
Office of Intelligence and Analysis
UNCLASS: Priscilla.Waters@hq.dhs.gov<mailto:Priscilla.Waters@hq.dhs.gov>
UNCLAS Phone: (202) 447-4883
BB: (202) 809-1598

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On Sept. 17, 2013:

To Whom It May Concern:

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

The most recent expense reports, going back for the past 12 months, for all employees or contractors, who works for Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

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.

Mr. Smathers:

On behalf of the I&A FOIA Officer, I am following up on your request for all "expense reports" for the last 12 months for I&A employees and contractors. In order to determine if we have records, we need further clarification from you as to how you are defining "expense reports."

For I&A employees, reimbursable expenses that may be incurred as part of the job consist primarily of travel and training. Because of sequestration, only critical, non-discretionary travel, conference attendance, and training have been approved over the last year. While we do not know if travel and training information is available for each I&A employee without entailing a significant case-by-case search of their personnel records, we have not even attempted such a search yet because we are unsure whether this is what you are seeking. With respect to contractors, typically a contract award includes an amount sufficient to cover contractor expenses, to the extent that they may be reimbursed, so it is doubtful that we can search for "expense reports" in contracts.

We will hold further work on your request in abeyance pending clarification from you what type of "expense reports" you have in mind. If we do not hear from you within 30 days of the date of this message, we will close your request administratively.

If you construe this action to be a denial of access, you may seek an administrative appeal pursuant to the provisions found in 6 C.F.R. section 5.9, available at www.dhs.gov/foia.

Elizabeth Withnell for Priscilla Waters
FOIA Office
Office of Intelligence and Analysis
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
202-447-3328

Mr. Smathers,

I&A is currently working on gathering the data for your request and the I&A FOIA office will contact you once we have received all documentation for processing.

Respectfully,

I&A FOIA Office

Good afternoon Mr. Smathers,

Please find attached the final response to your FOIA request.

V/r,

Priscilla Waters
Office of Intelligence and Analysis
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Officer
Unclass: (202) 447-4883
Unclass: Priscilla.Waters@hq.dhs.gov