Item 2.116: Follow-up FOIA Request to NASA (See Items 2.109 and 2.114)
TO: Ms. Jessica L. Bowen
FOIA Officer
U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, DC 20546
FROM: Larry W. Bryant
3518 Martha Custis Drive
Alexandria, VA 22302
DATE; July 30, 2011
1. References:
a. My freedom-of-information request filed as your case No. 11-HQ-F-00873/11-JPL-F-01009 (dated May 14, 2011, and posted on my blog as Item 2.109);
b. Your e-message to me of July 29, 2011, in which you (1) deny my request for a records-search/review fee waiver under my requester status as a "representative of the news media" (RNM); and (2) refuse to complete the processing of my request.
2. In order for me to issue a comprehensive appeal of your adverse action in this matter, I hereby submit this letter as a new FOIA request - viz., that you send to me, via USPS mail, a photocopy of the entire contents of your agency's FOIA case files identified in reference 1a, above.
3. In my unchanged RNM status, I hereby ask that you waive all records-search/review fees incurred by this new request, whereas I state my willingness to pay your document-duplication cost beyond the first 100 pages. So as to provide you further evidence of my RNM status, I'm sending to you, via USPS mail, a photocopy of the table of contents from Issue No. 155 (Vol. 24, No. 2 - January 2011) of the newsstand periodical UFO Magazine, along with a photocopy of my column within that issue ("Bryant's UFO View - Tell Us More, Ms. Grafeld!"). This internationally distributed UFOnewsmagazine contains news/information about current UFO research/literature (e.g., book reviews), historical updates, UFO-encounter reports/analyses, UFO-research conferences, and commentary about public access to official-government UFO-E.T.-related policies/practices/records. Its coverage of UFO-E.T.-related current events, milestones, research opportunities, and UFOlogical personalities provides a dynamic avenue for public inquiry and participation in addressing a perennial public issue of deep sociopolitical consequence. Accordingly, in light of the magazine's self-defining role in catering to the public interest in such a disciplined pursuit of UFOtruth, it would be redundant for me to submit to your four-point demand for explaining, say, my support to the public's interest/understanding in pursuing official disclosure of UFO-E.T. reality. Besides, neither the FOIA's statutory language nor that of its amending Open Government Act of 2007 applies that demand to the RNM-requester subcategory (unless the requester is seeking a waiver of all document-duplication fees in addition to all records-search/review fees).
4. By USPS mail, I'm sending to you a signed copy of this e-formatted letter.
LARRY W. BRYANT
Columnist for UFO Magazine
Copy furnished to: Editor, UFO Magazine
P. S.: By his demanding, on July 13, 2011, that I agree to pay a $116.25 records-search/review fee before the Jet Propulsion Laboratory deigns to process my original request of May 14th, JPL FOIA chief Dennis B. Mahon has rendered my fee-waiver request not moot but ripe for judicial review.
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