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Kean v. NASA, 1:03-cv-02509

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (govinfo) · 21 pages · text from the file's own layer

This memorandum opinion by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, dated March 27, 2007, rules in Leslie Kean's FOIA suit against NASA over records about the object said to have crashed in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania on December 9, 1965. The court found NASA had not shown its searches were adequate and noted likely overlooked Cosmos 96 records. It upheld NASA's withholding of two emails under Exemption 5 and ordered the parties to propose new search procedures.

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refer to as the second search. After speaking with Robinson,
McConnell noted that there were responsive documents that had not
been released to plaintiff, and he sent those documents to
plaintiff with a letter dated October 21, 2003. This response
did not comply with the directives in the Jennings letter,
however, as it failed to cover most, if not all, of the search
categories listed in the letter.
C. Third Search
Because McConnell’s letter stated that it was an “initial
determination,” plaintiff filed an appeal by letter dated
November 14, 2003. Apparently, this second appeal came to the
attention of Margaret Roberts, Senior Attorney in the General
Counsel’s office. On December 2, 2003, Roberts sent instructions
to the FOIA Office to be forwarded to all the NASA Centers,
directing them to perform a new, third search in compliance with
the Jennings letter by January 5, 2004. 1st Roberts Decl. ¶ 9.
In order to specify the parameters of this new search, Roberts
did not articulate particular search terms or topics, but instead
included copies of the Jennings letter and plaintiff’s previous
requests and correspondence in order to guide the search.
Much of the dispute in this case centers around the
adequacy and documentation of this third search, which was
conducted by multiple NASA offices. With regard to the other
NASA Centers, Roberts in her declaration provided email responses
Case 1:03-cv-02509-EGS Document 45 Filed 03/27/07 Page 5 of 21

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