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 L23
DEC 2 8 2004
Mr. Amrit Singh
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004-2400
Dear Mr. 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 106 additional documents from the Office
of the Legal Advisor, which we have grouped as Segment L023.
After reviewing the documents we retrieved, we have
determined that 15 may be released in full, three may be
released with excisions, and 28 may not be released. A .
decision on 15 documents requires interagency or intraagency coordination. We will inform you when we receive the
results of that coordination. Forty-five documents
originated with other government agencies and have been
referred to those agencies for review and direct reply to
you.
Material in the three documents released in part and in 20
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 21 of the documents withheld in full and in
one released in part is exempt from release under subsection
(b)(5) of the Freedom of Information Act because it is
protected by the deliberative process privilege, attorney
client privilege, attorney work product privilege, and/or
another privilege incorporated by subsection (b)(5).
DOS-001384
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In some cases, two or more exemptions may apply to the same
document. In the case of a document released in part, all
non-exempt material that is reasonably segregable from the
exempt material is released.
Sincerely,
Margaret P. Grafid
Director
Office of Information Programs
and Services
Enclosures:
As stated.
DOS-001385