Question about request: FBI policies on parallel construction

Asked by Lael Henterly on November 20, 2013.

3 answers from Michael Morisy, Kel McClanahan and Shawn Musgrave.

Related request

Lael Henterly sent this request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States of America

Lael Henterly 11/20/2013

I’m still a bit confused… if anyone can help me better understand this or advise as to how to proceed, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

Michael Morisy 11/20/2013

Hi,

It looks that you’re request is currently being processed. It usually takes agencies a few weeks to do a complete search, so just get comfy: There’s nothing else you need to do but wait at this point.

Michael

Shawn Musgrave 11/20/2013

This is an odd answer, for sure – I don’t see why another requester’s capacity has any bearing on your own. However, in my experience the FBI does not charge fees when requested documents have already been processed for another requester. I don’t think this is an indication that the FBI plans to charge you, but that they’ve already waived fees in another request so they’re not going to do so for you.

Anyone have a different read?

Kel McClanahan 12/10/2013

I actually think that now that the requester has committed to paying they will charge. Had there been no fee commitment there might have had a chance on appeal, and I think that there would definitely be a chance of prevailing in court. But with a fee commitment I would be very surprised if there was no bill due.