FOIA - OSTP - COVID-19 Internal OSTP Memos
It is a clone of this request.
Submitted | May 8, 2020 |
Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: J Ader
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:
A copy of each OSTP memo on the subject of COVID-19 ("Coronavirus").
I would like to limit the scope of this request to records dated between February 24th, 2020 to the date of this request (May 8th, 2020), and to records that have NOT been published on the OSTP official website.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, 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,
J Ader
From: Office of Science and Technology Policy (Executive Office of the President)
Dear J. Ader,
Thank you for submitting the request below.
We submitted your request to the e-discovery component and the initial result was over 137 thousand records.
Under long established FOIA precedents, "broad, sweeping requests lacking specificity are not permissible." Marks v. United States (Dep't of Justice), 578 F.2d 261, 263 (9 Cir. 1978), see also, ("Request is too broad which seeks 'all unpublished manuscripts decisions of the Patent Office, together with such indices as are available." Irons v. Schuyler, 151 U.S App. D.C 23(1972)).
The FOIA requires OSTP to make records available only upon a request which "reasonably describes" the records sought. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A). "A description 'would be sufficient if it enabled a professional employee of the agency who was familiar with the subject area of the request to locate the record with a reasonable amount of effort." Marks v. United States, 578 F.2d at 263.
As stated above, "broad, sweeping requests lacking specificity are not permissible," thus we are reaching out to you about narrowing the scope of the request. The request needs to be more specific about the particular area of COVID-19 you are interested in. A general reference to memos regarding COVID-19, as shown by the search results, will generate voluminous records containing the word COVID-19, but are not responsive to the request.
One way to narrow this request is to seek communications to or from Dr. Droegemeier or Michael Kratsios (or any other named OSTP official) regarding COVID-19. You can then list the date range for the request. But as written, the request is overly broad, which is impermissible under the FOIA.
If you would like to discuss this matter, please let us know if you're available on Friday as well as the timeframe for your availability.
Thank you.
OSTP-FOIA
From: Office of Science and Technology Policy (Executive Office of the President)
Good morning J Ader,
I read your recent email regarding the status of your request. The email below was sent to you on the 11th of May, but we haven't received a response. Please respond to the email below.
Regards,
OSTP-FOIA
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 8, 2020. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Office of Science and Technology Policy (Executive Office of the President)
Good morning J. Ader,
OSTP has made multiple attempts to contact you regarding your requests— this correspondence contains those attempts: if you scroll down, you will see emails from our Office dated June 8, 2020 and May 11, 2020 about contacting us to discuss the scope of these requests.
You can respond by email or provide a date, time and phone number for us to call, so these issues can be addressed.
It is imperative that you contact us within 30 days. If we do not receive a response, these requests will be administratively closed.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
OSTP FOIA
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