Documents / FOIA release
This is a declaration by Delores M. Nelson, the CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator, dated October 26, 2009. She filed it in support of the CIA's motion for summary judgment in Larry W. Bryant v. CIA, a FOIA suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Bryant had sought records of a 1987 FAA meeting about the November 17, 1986 Japanese flight 1628 encounter over Alaska. The declaration describes the agency's searches, which found no records of the meeting and three documents from other agencies about later airborne UFO encounters.
Approved for Release: 2025/06/10 C07083377 was for duplication only, it was not affected by fee category.2 The letter further explained that requests for fee waivers3 must be considered under the standards that Agency regulations outlined at Part 1900 of Title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.). In accordance therewith, the CIA informed Mr. Bryant that because the information he sought was already in the public domain, and “its re- release would not likely contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the United States Govemment”, his request for a fee waiver was denied. The September 30, 2008 letter also informed Plaintiff that he _ could appeal the denial of his request for a fee waiver within 45 days from the date of the letter, but if CIA has started to process a request, the Agency may accept an appeal of a fee waiver denial only “if the requester agrees to be responsible for the costs in the event of an adverse administrative or judicial decision”. (A true and correct copy of CIA’s September 30, 2008 letter and enclosures is attached hereto as Exhibit B.) 2 The CIA did not formally address Plaintiff’s request for status as a new media representative in its September 30, 2008 letter, although after explaining the cost of the UFO package—ten cents per page less the first 100 pages, the letter stated “as a requester in the ‘all other’ category.” Regardless, since the only charge was for duplication, the fee was the same whether his fee category was determined to be news media or all other. 3 Although Plaintiff used the term “waiver” in his request letter, based on context of his letter (and subsequent appeal and complaint), it appears that there was confusion over fee category (status) and fee waiver and that requester used the latter term to mean his request for news media status. Notwithstanding that it appears Plaintiff did not request a fee waiver, because of his use of the term waiver, the CIA treated it as such. 4 Approved for Release: 2025/06/10 C07083377
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 16 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.