Thursday, January 15, 2015

Final MARAD FOIA appeal filed; New State Dept FOIA submitted




 

As I indicated the other day, the final appeal for the U.S. Maritime Administration's responses to my FOIA request was due on Friday, Jan. 9. That appeal was completed and filed electronically. According to the acknowledgement letter I received on Monday, MARAD has until Feb. 9 to respond. The response letter MARAD officials sent was sloppy as it was a generic form letter. They couldn't even be bothered to fill it in correctly, with the date that my FOIA was submitted listed as "DAY MONTH, 2013.) The correct date was Nov. 4, 2013. My appeal letter is here: http://goo.gl/R3tCCY 

As a result of what was discovered in the MARAD materials, we know now that there was some involvement of the U.S. State Department with STORIS' export. As a result, I have just filed a new Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department requesting records related to STORIS. We want to know why and what level of involvement the State Department had, what kind of permits or correspondence they created, etc. Again, STORIS was illegally exported to Mexico, so if the State Department was involved, this adds another layer of bureaucracy to the situation. The FOIA letter is here: http://goo.gl/6Yncj7

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