SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91B00389R000500190002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 3, 2013
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 2, 1989
• Content Type: MISC

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MILLER REPORTING CO., INC.
507 C Strect, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
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Department of Health and Human Services.
Mr. Wright, Mr. Faulk, Mr. Roberts, it is good to have
you all here. Mr. Faulk, it is good to see you again, and I
should add that somebody had asked me whether we had had an
earlier hearing and in the interests of appropriate reflec-
tions of freedom of information, when I had mentioned
chatting with Mr. Faulk before this was over the weekend in
simply a chance encounter..
Mr. Faulk is a dedicated and hard-working public servant
and we have known each other for years and I have had the
benefit of his expertise as a member of the State Department.
going back to an early trip to China to normalization. So I
just wanted to hasten to add we did not rehearse testimony
before we started. It was more a discussion of the weather
than anything else.
Mr. Wright, I wonder if I might ask you--and all of the
statements will be put in the record and we will go back to
that, but just in case we have another vote, you heard Mr.
Peek, who is the Editor for the Addison Independent, tell us
he was treated as commercial requestor by the CIA. That sort
of puts him in the same category as Exxon or Citibank.
Was that a right decision?
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MILLER REPORTING CO., IN~.5
507 C Sum, N.E.
Wuhington, D.C. 20002
STATEMENT OF A PANEL CONSISTING OF JOHN H. WRIGHT,
INFORMATION AND PRIVACY COORDINATOR, CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY; RUSSELL M. ROBERTS, DIRECTOR,
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION/PRIVACY ACTS DIVISION,
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES; AND RICHARD C. FAULK, DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY FOR OPERATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
Mr. Wright. It is not really clear at this point. I
think that, well, first of all, in many of the FOIA requests
we get, many requestors allege that they have journalist
connections and we do require a fairly high degree of
specificity before we can make that determination.
And in the case of Mr. Peek, we do offer administrative
appeal rights in the event that the initial determination
either denies the fee waiver or the requestor is not satisfied
with the initial category determination.
At the time that request was serviced, we had relatively
little experience with the new provisions of the Reform Act,
and my advice to Mr. Peek at this point would be, if he did
.not exercise his administrative appeal rights, to do so
because in the process of doing that, we do expand the
record. There is an exchange of information, and so forth.
The request for other fee considerations is looked at
more broadly in our organization, and that really is the
proper course of action at this point.
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Senator Leahy. Well, let me tell you the statute is
fairly clear. It says, "Fees shall be limited to reasonable
standard charges for document duplication when records are
not sought for commercial use and the request is made by a
representative of the news media."
Now, a description of a newspaper which has county-wide
circulation in a county where there is a well-known college,
and one with which your agency has had a long and open
relationship, I might add, as has the Foreign Service and
others because of the language programs and all--members of
the agency give lectures and open-to-the-public forums at
Middlebury. Mr. Peek is an editor for that newspaper.
I mean, just based on what he has said here today, is
there any reason why he has to go through an appeal process?
I mean, isn't it pretty much on the face of it that he
qualifies as a representative of the news media, or are
editors precluded?
Mr. Wright. Well, I believe he identified himself in
the letterhead as Editor of the Addison Press, and it may not
have been entirely clear to our professional officers who
processed the case that he was indeed the editor of a
newspaper.
He did say in his request letter, and I have just had
the opportunity to look at it today, that newspaper articles
MILLER REPORTING CO., IN would be written based on the information disclosed. And the
507 C Strcct, N.E. J
Wuhington. D.C. 20002
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MILLER REPORTING CO., INN.5
507 C Scrcct, N.E.
Washineton. D.C. 2000:
only thing I can say at this point is that the initial
reaction to that request may have been to not see a connection
between him as editor as Addison Press and editor of the
newspaper.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Wright. Based on what has been said today, my guess
is that were he to supply us additional information, he might
well qualify for a fee waiver, or at least placement in the
news media category.
The issue of whether he would be entitled to a fee
waiver is--that would be considered on other merits.
Senator Leahy. Well, I don't think he is going to have
any difficulty proving the fact that he is a member of the
news media, and if you would like an affidavit from me, I
will be happy to do that. I have been both praised and
damned by his newspaper, usually with even-handed heavy-
handedness. So it is not for any other reason that I say
that.
But, you know, the thing that bothers me more than
anything else is in your letter, or your agency's letter that
was written by Mr. Strickland, it says this: "Although you
are an editor of the Addison Press, Inc., the information you
seek does not meet the regulatory requirement of current
events or information that would be of current interest to
the general public."
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MILLER REPORTING CO., INC
Now, that is kind of an outrageous statement, not to put
too fine a point on it, isn't it?
Mr. Wright. Well, I think you have to look at the
information requested, and essentially, as I recall, there
were three items in that request. One of those items clearly
involved a request for information on the possible conduct of
intelligence activities involving representatives from the
college.
Another of the items asked for information dealing with
relationships with individuals associated with Middlebury
College, and what we indicated there was that any records
which might reflect the existence of a covert relationship,
we would neither confirm nor deny the existence of any such
records.
Senator Leahy. But that is not the point.. It says,
"would not be of current interest to the general public.,,
Now, any ongoing intelligence activity may be of current
interest, and none of us disagree that you have an exemption
for that and you neither confirm nor deny, and so on.
Mr. Wright. Yes.
Senator Leahy. I have no problem with that; I strongly
support that. But on his specific request, to say that it
could be of current interest to the general public--I mean,
isn't this exercising an editorial function that goes way
11 beyond anything that is set out in the law?
Washington, D.C. 20002 II
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Mr. Wright. Well, yes, I agree with that, but I would
like to, if I could, come back to the nature of the request.
In essence, the way that request was treated--and, again,
forgive me; I do not have the correspondence in front of me
and I am trying to recall this from memory.
Senator Leahy. Sure.
Mr. Wright. Essentially, a significant portion of that
request was denied, and we cited exemptions, named a denying
official, and gave Mr. Peek appeal rights. We focus,
however, down to what was left, and the remaining portion of
the request focused primarily, as I recall--again, I do not
have the letter in front of me--on CIA recruiting activities
at Middlebury College.
The CIA does recruit at colleges and universities
throughout the nation; it is a matter of public record. That
fact has been made known many times with regard to many
colleges and universities.
And, again, I come back to the point as to whether the
19 information on the fact that we are, again, recruiting on a
20 college campus in the U.S. would be of public interest or,
21 and I believe we may have stated in the response letter,
22 contribute significantly to an understanding of the operations
23 of the U.S. government.
24 And I think depending on which of those two criteria you
MILLER REPORTING CO.,INC.S apply, you might very well come up with a different viewpoint
507 C Sam, N.E.
Wuhingcon, D.C. 2002
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as to whether a fee waiver should be granted.
Senator Leahy. Mr. Wright, I might say in that regard,
along with one of the administrators of the CIA I went to
Middlebury in a public forum. We discussed why it was very
appropriate for the CIA to be there. I did this at the
request of the Director of the CIA, who was at that time
hearing from a number of different schools not only in my
State, but in a lot of other States, about why the CIA
shouldn't be there recruiting.
I felt they had the absolute right to be there recruit-
ing, as well as any company would or anything else. But if
one agrees or disagrees with it, that is a choice for the
student to make.
Middlebury had invited in somebody who was strongly
opposed to the CIA who spoke one night, or a couple of people
did, and then one of the assistant directors of the CIA and
myself spoke of why they should be allowed to be there.
Again, they are public things.
The only reason I mention this is that-it was an
overflow crowd each time. Trust me, there was a great deal
of public interest, and I suspect there would be today.
[The statement of Mr. Wright follows:]
MILLER REPORTING CO., INC.
507 C Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
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MILLER REPORTING CO., 14L5
507 C Street. N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
background. It takes a long time to get that, and so we do
miss some of the hiring opportunities that other agencies
have.
Given the background and the information that people
deal with, they have to have a good clearance, and high-level
clearances take time. But we are working on trying to
improve the working area of our people, and also their grade
levels, and bring in more people.
Senator Leahy. Mr. Wright, what about over at the CIA?
Is this considered almost--well, in an open session I am not
going to mention a couple of the assignments that are
considered one step short of Alcatraz.
But going into the FOIA part of the CIA probably would
not be the most sought after area for a career CIA officer,
would it?
Mr. Wright. Senator Leahy, actually, some of the FOIA
positions are highly coveted. We do have a career track in
records management activities and an assignment in the FOIA
office would be considered an important tour of duty for an
individual on that career track.
As far as the review of records for releasability is
concerned, the CIA operates on the basis of using its most
senior intelligence officers to conduct those reviews. So
outside of the main workforce cadre, you do find a very
substantial number of intelligence officers, both operations
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MILLER REPORTING CO., I.
507 C, Suet, N.E.
officers and intelligence analysts, and what have you,
involved in the review of records to determine their ultimate
releasability.
Senator Leahy. So then if somebody gets well trained
into handling FOIA, they actually do have a career available
to them there. They would not be in a position where they
would almost immediately be looking for somewhere else to go?
Mr. Wright. Yes, sir, that is correct. It would be in,
overall, our records management field.
Senator Leahy. Now, Mr. Faulk, in regard to the fee
issues, I looked at the form letter that the department sends
to requestors to inquire as to their credentials and intent.
It seems like there is an awful lot of paperwork here.
Most of the initial request letters I have seen have a
lot of information, such as a university letterhead or a
listing of publications which would help people make waiver
determinations.
Are you able to categorize how much time is spent on fee
determination as compared to actual search and retrieval and
review of documents?
Mr. Faulk. If you don't mind, Senator, I will turn to
my expert on that and ask the question.
Senator Leahy. We will get the fee determination expert
here. Sir, you understand what I am--.
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