Navy/Battleship Film
| Submitted | Oct. 15, 2012 |
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Communications
From: Inkoo Kang
To Whom It May Concern:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:
All documents relating to the US Navy's participation in the production of the film Battleship (2012)
I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as I believe this request is in the public interest. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.
In the event that fees cannot be waived, 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,
Inkoo Kang
From: Petrillo, Roberta N CTR OPNAV, DNS-36
MuckRock News
DEPT MR 2009
PO Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819
Inkoo Kang:
Thank you for your FOIA request dated October 15, 2012 requesting documents relating to the Navy's participation in production of the film Battleship. We received your request and have assigned it DON # 2013F100091.
The Navy does not have a centralized filing system that can be searched by key words for documents and several Navy components were involved in the movie production from facilities management to fleet training exercises. We will have to communicate with multiple offices in different time zones, making this a complex request that more than likely will take over 20 days to coordinate. Once we locate the necessary offices that likely have responsive documents, they may contact you to narrow the scope of your request.
If you have any questions, you may contact the Navy's FOIA Requester Service Center on 202-685-0412.
From: Petrillo, Roberta N CTR OPNAV, DNS-36
MuckRock News
DEPT MR 2009
PO Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819
Inkoo Kang:
I have initially contacted numerous offices that were involved in this film. Unfortunately, they have requested that the scope of your request be narrowed before I task out your request to process.
Based on the information provided in your request, we are unable to conduct a search. In accordance with the Department of the Navy's FOIA regulations (32 CFR 701.8 (a)(1)), a requester is required to describe the records sought in sufficient detail to enable an employee familiar with the subject area of the request to locate responsive records with a reasonable amount of effort. Your request does not comply with this requirement.
The part of your request that FOIA has an objection is the statement "ALL DOCUMENTS relating to the Navy's participation........."
The comments came back "That is way too broad for NAVFAC to process contract-related documents and CHINFO had numerous PAOs involved with the media at various locations. There are a lot of moving parts to filming such a production which took place in various locations around the U.S. I would recommend he/she narrow the scope of their request before you disseminate for action."
Descriptive information about a record may be divided into two broad categories
(i) Category I is file-related and includes information such as type of record, title, index citation, subject area, date the record was created, or its originator.
(ii) Category II 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 unless the description contains sufficient Category I information to permit the conduct of an organized, non random search based on the existing filing arrangements and retrieval systems, or unless the record contains sufficient Category II information to permit inference of the Category I elements needed to conduct such a search.
If you wish to pursue this matter under the FOIA, please provide additional information for the request that complies with the foregoing criteria.
So you will have to decide if you want basic contracts the Navy entered into and the name of the entity...like a certain production company. Or a specific basic contract for something like cranes or dumpsters. Or if you want something like memorandum of agreements (if there are any), or Navy support agreements (if they exist). Something like scripts would belong to production company and are copyrighted and not under Navy's cognizance for release.
There is no centralized repository or directory for records, so it is not possible to identify an open-ended request for records without further specificity.
Please state in writing EXACTLY what you seek so a reasonable search can be done. Please respond within 10 days, or we will have to close out your request with no action. The deadline for your response is Monday Nov 5, 2012.
Fees will not be charged for the initial processing of your request at this office, however, the office that actually processes your request may charge fees for responsive documents. We have already spent over 2 hours searching for the appropriate offices that could likely respond to your request once your scope is narrowed.
From: DONFOIA-PA
Mr. Kang,
Attached is a copy of our response to your FOIA request.
Sincerely,
DONFOIA-PA SUPPORT
Department of Navy
P: (202) 685-0412
F: (202) 685-6580
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