Letter from Margaret P. Grafeld, DOS to Amrit Singh, ACLU re: the ACLU's FOIA Request. The letter states that the document production requested is being complied with in some parts and denied or withheld in part.
United States Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
Case No. 200303827 Segment ER5
Ms. Amrit Singh
American Civil Liberties Foundation
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor DEC 2 0 2004 New York, NY 10004-2400
Dear Ms. Singh:
I refer to our previous correspondence regarding the release
of certain Department of State material you had requested
under the Freedom of Information Act (Title 5 USC Section
552) in your letters of October 7, 2003, and May 25, 2004.
We have retrieved 18 additional documents from the Central
Records System that we have grouped as Segment ER005.
After reviewing these documents, we have determined that
three may be released in full, four may be released with
excisions, and eight may not be released. The released
documents are enclosed. A decision on three documents
requires interagency or intra-agency coordination. We will
inform you when we receive the results of that coordination.
Material in the excised portions of three of the documents
released in part and in seven of the documents withheld in
full is currently and properly classified under Executive
Order 12958 in the interest of national defense or foreign
relations. As such, it is exempt from release under
subsection (b)(1) of the Freedom of Information Act.
Information in one of the documents withheld in full is
exempt from release under subsection (b) (5) of the Freedom
of Information Act because it consists of pre-decisional
deliberative process material and/or because it contains
information protected by the attorney client privilege
and/or attorney work product privilege.
Material in the excised portions of one of the documents
released in part and in one of the documents withheld in
full is of such a nature that its release would constitute a
clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. As such,
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it is exempt from release under subsection (b)(6) of the
Freedom of Information Act.
In the case of a document released in part, all non-exempt
material that is reasonably segregable from the exempt
material has been released.
Sincerely,
Margaret P. Grafeld
Director
Office of Information Programs
and Services
Enclosures:
As stated.
DOS-002126