Responses to Congressional Committees (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Dear Mr. Morisy,

This email is regarding your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request below. It has been assigned case number 13-F-0774 and we ask that you use that number when referring to your request.

Please know that we cannot conduct a search by Congressional Committee. If you wish to process your request, please provide the names of Chairmen for each committee of interest. If you do not respond by June 7, 2013, I will assume you are no longer interested and administratively close your request.

Respectfully,

A search is conducted by keywords, such as a person's name or subject. Congressional Committee is too broad, in addition, documents are address the committee head. Please narrow your scope to the committee heads of interest.

Dear Mr. Morisy,

After discussion, your request has been amended and currently in the search process. Because of the amount of names you provided, the search process will be longer than our average search, which could be very costly because your request has been placed in the "other" category.

Our suggestion, as stated before, you may find it more helpful if you to conduct your own search on the Congressional correspondence logs located in our reading room. Currently the logs cover January 2007 - March 2011. By conducting your own search, you may submit a new FOIA request for the specific correspondence document(s) of interest by citing the OSD control number and subject. The link to our reading room is provided below:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/foiaLibrary.html

The purpose of this suggestion is that a significant amount of time and cost can be saved by eliminating the search and review of documents that are of no interest, and process the specific documents of most interest to you. Please note that your request has been amended, so this is only a suggestion.

With regard to your request for a waiver of any applicable fees, a fee waiver is appropriate when “disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(iii) In making a determination, six factors are considered as to whether your request satisfies this statutory standard: (1) whether the subject of the requested records concerns the operations or activities of the government; (2) whether the disclosure is likely to contribute to an understanding of government operations or activities; (3) whether disclosure of the requested information will contribute to the understanding of the general public; (4) whether the disclosure is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of government operations and activities; (5) whether the requester has a commercial interest that would be furthered by the requested disclosure; and, (6) whether any such commercial interest outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

While the requested information does concern the operations and activities of the government and does not appear to be intended for a commercial interest, it is not clear how the responsive documents - should they exist - would significantly contribute to the public understanding of the operations and activities of the government. After carefully reviewing your request I am denying your fee waiver request because the information stated does not support how the documents will significantly contribute to the public’s increased understanding of the operations and activities of government. Please be aware that we reserve the right to grant a fee waiver should a search find documents that meet the criterion of a public interest fee waiver as described in the previous paragraph.

If you are not satisfied with this action, you may appeal to the appellate authority, the Director of Administration and Management, Office of the Secretary of Defense, by writing directly to the Defense Freedom of Information Policy Office, Attn: Mr. James Hogan, 1155 Defense Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 20301-1155. Your appeal should be postmarked within 60 calendar days of the date of this letter, should cite to case number 13-F-0774, and should be clearly marked "Freedom of Information Act Appeal."

A no responsive documents response.