DEAR MR. SALOSCHIN:

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01495R000800020005-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2000
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 6, 1974
• Content Type: LETTER

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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~DDI 9 .
6 December 1974
Mr. Robert Saloschin
Office of Legal Counsel
Department of Justice
Room 5234 Main Justice
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Mr. Saloschin:
We have received your memorandum of 2 December 1974 requesting
comments on the draft "Preliminary Guidance" which Justice proposes to
issue to agencies. In view of the tight deadline, we are responding with
our own preliminary comments and, within the next.day or so, will forward
any additional comments we may develop.
You ask whether we believe a meeting is necessary to discuss the
comments received by Justice from the departments. We believe not and
indeed we would agree that the delay which a meeting would cause is too
expensive in time. We note also your comment that the guidance to be
distributed now is preliminary and is subject to possible correction later.
The basic thrust of the proposed guidance is that agencies will
need to take various actions promptly to bring themselves into compliance
and all concerned should direct their actions in this direction. We entirely
agree. We have taken a number of steps to this effect already, one of
which is that we are systematically briefing senior management through-
out the Agency. There are many additional steps to be taken, in particular
to revise current regulations and develop additional instructions, and
we are proceeding with them on an urgent basis.
We believe the proposed guidance is very helpful and informative
and will do much to alleviate the very serious problems with which we
are all faced under the amended Act, but we also believe the problems
are difficult ones and the guidance can, at best, be helpful.
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Our comments on specific points follow:
(a) The-first sentence of the third paragraph on.page 2 reads as
follows: "The above time limits should prove generally adequate,
or more than adequate, for the proper processing of ordinary requests
in normal circumstances." This statement seems, at best, misleading.
In fact, the time limits are grossly inadequate if requests come in
any number or involve dragnet approaches or are complicated.
Moreover, the unreasonable time limits is one of the situations to
which the President objected, both in his veto message and in his
request for a substitute bill. While it might not be appropriate for
the Department of Justice to include in its guidelines to agencies
language such as the above, which possibly could be considered
critical of the.provisions of the law, we think it important that
Justice not go on record in defense or support of those time limits.
To that end we suggest the sentence be revised substantially as
follows: "At this stage there is no.way to know whether these time
limits are adequate."
(b) On a related point, the last sentence of the first paragraph
on page 5 is as follows.: "To the extent this may involve an unavoid-
able conflict with the performance of other duly prescribed agency
duties on which no time limit has been imposed by law, it should
generally be assumed that first priority must be given to the proces-
sing of requests and appeals under the Act as amended." While the
sentence contains language permitting discretion, we think in many
cases, and perhaps indeed in all cases where the conflict between,
the requirements of the 1974 Amendments and other duly prescribed
agency duties is an "unavoidable" one, an agency would not be
justified in giving first priority to processing requests under the
Act. In the intelligence field, for example , the value and useful-
ness of intelligence is directly related to its timeliness. This Office
would not be prepared to advise our people that they should give
priority to Freedom of Information requests at the expense of pro-
viding quality and timely intelligence, although we of course would
emphasize the risk of litigation. We suggest therefore that the Depart-
ment of Justice guidelines be revised to readily accommodate this
type of management decision on the part of the agencies . A sentence
could be added following the one quoted above substantially as follows:
"But it of course is the responsibility of the agencies to determine
the efforts they must make to comply with conflicting legal require-
meats upozi them and to allocate their resources appropriately.
"
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(c) Your. suggestion in the last paragraph beginning on page 2
that "very. explicit and well-conceived instructions to requesters
on how to address their requests and their appeals" should prove
beneficial both to the agencies and to the requesters. For example,
the revised Section 552 (a) (3) of Title 5 indicates that requests must
be made "in accordance with published rules stating the . . . pro-
cedures to be followed." We assume a request which is not in
compliance with published procedures in that it is not properly
addressed would not begin the running of the 10 and 20-day periods.'
(d) Your suggestion (paragraph 2 on page 3) that agencies under-
take to enter into agreement with requesters for an extension of time
in cases where compliance with the deadline is difficult, if not impos-
sible, makes great good sense and should prove acceptable to all
but the most unreasonable requesters.
(e) The restrictive language in the penultimate sentence of
zz, paragraph 2 on page 4, "and is sued," seems unwise. If an agency
fails to "issue a timely initial determination," it should nevertheless
continue to process the request, even if it is not sued.
(f) As requested, we will study the matter raised in your paragraph
4 and we will be in touch with you on that subject.
(g) The time limits imposed by the 1974 Amendments would
make it virtually impossible to comply with the Attorney General's
request in his. letter of. 11 July 1973 to consult with the Department's
Freedom of Information Committee prior to the issuance of a final
denial. It would seem desirable to include such a statement in the
Preliminary Guidance.
(h) As you know, under the Amendments, the request need only
"reasonably describe" the records desired. In theory at least, this
is such a broad description of the documents which may be requested
that the agencies would be paralyzed. A request for all documents
produced by the Department of from 1960-1970 might be considered
a request which "reasonably describes" the records sought. If in
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your view such dragnet requests are not permitted, by the language
of the amended 552 (a) (3), it would seem useful if the Justice guide-
lines could include advice which would permit agencies to control
and limit the range or category of documents which may be requested.
C) C3
Sincerely,
STATINTL
Associate General Counsel
4
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 I ~a [] INTERNAL
;I IASSIFIED use "INL1 ^ CONF!DFNIIAL ^ SEUET
Approved For Release
Associate General Counsel
'DD/I
7E-44
DD/O
7E-26
D/DCI/NIO
7E-62
Inspector General
2E-24
Mr. Thuermer
Asst. to the Directo
1F04
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
to whom. Draw a line ocross column after each comment,)
Attached is a copy of the
CIA preliminary comments to the
Department of Justice, prepared
by OGC, concerning the Depart-
ment's "Preliminary Guidance"
which we received from the Depart-
ment of Justice late Wednesday.
We are forwarding these preliminar'
comments to Justice this morning,
but as we indicated in our trans-
mittal. sheet of 5 December, we
propose to forward any additional
comments early next week.
STATINTL
INTERNAL
USE WILY
800020005-7
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STATINTL
STATINTL
MEMORANDUM FOR: Messrs. Pr/c or/Wh
sent to Harry Eisenbeis
FYI -- These are the preliminary OGC
comments on the Freedom f Information Act. (Copy
was sent to n Friday. I have also
9 Dec 74
(DATE)
FORM NO. REPLACES FORM 10-101
1 AUG 5 54
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