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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.
“Anderson”1 page
7 efforts. See 2d Decl. of Stephen McConnell, Def.’s Supp. Mem., Attach. 2. As Margaret Roberts did, McConnell sent out instructions to the various departments at NASA Headquarters using his FOIA Office “Control Sheets.” Attached to his declaration are responses by these departments. Many of the responses were single-line conclusory statements, such as: “A search was conducted in Code U and no responsive records were located.” Id. at 19 (email response from Marietta Anderson). Based on these responses, McConnell would later declare that he believes “they collectively represent that a reasonable search was performed.” 4th Decl. of Stephen McConnell, Def.’s Supp. to Opp., Attach. 2, ¶ 6. Plaintiff similarly argued that defendant had provided no declarations describing the search efforts of the NASA Office of the Chief Information Officer during the third search. Plaintiff focuses on this office because it has a searchable database and inventories of records stored at federal record centers. Defendant, in response, submitted a supplemental declaration by Patti Stockman describing those efforts. See 2d Decl. of Patti Stockman, Def.’s Opp., Attach. 6. The declaration, however, is not detailed, and simply states that Stockman conducted a search, “using broader terms than were used during the May 2003 search, did so pursuant to instructions in the Roberts Memo, and reported search results to Margaret Roberts.” Id. ¶ 3. Case 1:03-cv-02509-EGS Document 45 Filed 03/27/07 Page 7 of 21
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