CIA-Congressional emails 2016

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

Copies of emails sent to or from a House.gov or Senate.gov email address, including subdomains, from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016.

I am a member of the news media and request classification as such. I have previously written about the government and its activities. I have a reasonable expectation of publication and my editorial and writing skills are well established. I discuss and comment on the files online and make them available through non-profits such as the Internet Archive and MuckRock, disseminating them to a large audience. While my research is not limited to this, a great deal of it, including this, focuses on the activities and attitudes of the government itself. As such, it is not necessary for me to demonstrate the relevance of this particular subject in advance.

Additionally, case law states that “proof of the ability to disseminate the released information to a broad cross- section of the public is not required.” Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Dep’t of Justice, 365 F.3d 1108, 1126 (D.C. Cir. 2004); see Carney v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 19 F.3d 807, 814-15 (2d Cir. 1994). Further, courts have held that "qualified because it also had “firm” plans to “publish a number of . . . ‘document sets’” concerning United States foreign and national security policy." Under this criteria, as well, I qualify as a member of the news media.

Additionally, courts have held that the news media status "focuses on the nature of the requester, not its request. The provision requires that the request be “made by” a representative of the news media. Id. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II). A newspaper reporter, for example, is a representative of the news media regardless of how much interest there is in the story for which he or she is requesting information." As such, the details of the request itself are moot for the purposes of determining the appropriate fee category. As my primary purpose is to inform about government activities by reporting on it and making the raw data available, I request that fees be waived.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Emma Best

I will not limit the request to specific Agency offices, nor I am required to (as the Agency is well aware). To aid in your confusion about what "subdomains" are:

In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is a part of a main domain.

The Domain Name System (DNS) has a tree structure or hierarchy, with each non-RR (resource record) node on the tree being a domain name. A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain; the only domain that is not also a subdomain is the root domain. For example, west.example.com and east.example.com are subdomains of the example.com domain, which in turn is a subdomain of the com top-level domain (TLD). A "subdomain" expresses relative dependence, not absolute dependence: for example, wikipedia.org comprises a subdomain of the org domain, and en.wikipedia.org comprises a subdomain of the domain wikipedia.org. In theory this subdivision can go 127 levels deep (though that limit is not in any published RFC). Per RFC 1035, each DNS label can contain up to 63 characters, as long as the whole domain name does not exceed a total length of 255 characters, but in practice most domain registries limit at 253 characters.

Subdomains in this context are defined by editing the DNS zone file pertaining to the parent domain. However, there is an ongoing debate over the use of the term “subdomain” when referring to names which map to the Address record A (host) and various other types of zone records which may map to any public IP address destination and any type of server. Certain groups insist that it is inappropriate to use the term “subdomain” to refer to any mapping other than that provided by zone NS (name server) records and any server-destination other than that of a domain name server. Notwithstanding the terminology debate, many well-known public DNS providers use the term “subdomain” to refer to names which map to A (host) records which may map to any type of host or destination-server.

I am appealing the rejection of the fee waiver request, as these communications deal exclusively with the operations of the government and how issues of oversight are handled. These types of materials are of paramount importance to the public, and any assertion to the contrary is ridiculous.

I do not agree to pay fees. An appeal has been filed.