Freedom Of Information Act Letter #13


7 November '96

Department of The army
Headquarters
Fort Detrick
Maryland
21702-5000

Freedom of Information Act Office

This is in reply to your Freedom of Information Act request, dated October 3, 1996 to Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland.

In accordance with Army Regulation 25-55, the Department of The Army Freedom of Information Act Program, a record must exist and be in the possession and control of the Department of Defense at the time of the request to be considered subject to the FOIA. There is no obligation to create, compile, or obtain a record to satisfy an FOIA request. Unfortunately you have not provided an adequate description of desired records to enable us to locate files with a reasonable amount of effort. The Freedom of Information Act specifically addresses the need for specificity and precludes "fishing" expeditions.

I respectively request you to be more specific in identifying the records you are requesting. Descriptive information about any record may be divided into two broad categories as follows:

1. Category 1 is file related and includes information such as type of record (for example, memorandum), title, index citation, subject area, date the record was created, and the originator.

2. Category 2 is event related and includes the circumstances that resulted in the record being created or the date and circumstances surrounding the event the record covers.

Generally a record is not reasonably described unles the description contains sufficient category 1 information to permit the conduct of an organized, nonrandom search based on the Component's filing arrangements and exisiting retrieval systems, or unles the record contains sufficient Category 2 information to permit inference of the Category 1 elements needed to conduct such a serach.

I am sorry I have not been able to assist you further in your efforts. Once the necessary information has been provided, I will assist you in any way possible.

Sincerely
Teresa C Holland
Freedom of Information Act Officer

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