Letter from Margaret P. Grafeld, DOS to Amrit Singh, ACLU re: the ACLU's FOIA Request. 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
JUL 2 5 2005
Case Number: 200404118
Segment: JUS001
Ms. Amrit Singh
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, New York 10004
Dear Ms. Singh:
I refer to your letters of October 7, 2003 and May 25, 2004
to the Department of Justice requesting the release of
certain material under the Freedom of Information Act (Title
5 USC Section 552) and to our reply of February 18, 2005.
As we noted in our reply, interagency coordination was
required before a decision could be made as to the release of
seven of the documents retrieved by the Department of Justice
in response to your request. The coordination has now been
completed for all of them and we find that none may be
released.
Material in five 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 all seven of the documents withheld in full
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).
Two or more exemptions may apply to the same document.
DOS-003189
This completes our processing of this case. Because the
documents discussed in this letter were referred to us by
another agency, they were assigned Case No. 200404118.
However, this case is directly related to Case Numbers
200303827 and 200402044, which are responses to your two
Freedom of Information requests to the Department of State
of October 7, 2003 and May 25, 2004.
Sincerely,
t)
• ,A)
Margaret P. Grafeld
Director
Office of Information Programs
and Services