FOIA Appeal under 5 USC 552A (K) (5)

[xdraper]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Only US Law.

I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to provide me background check documents from a position I applied for in the US Govt 20 years ago. I received the requested documents. But, there is a page containing redacted information. It was redacted based on information provided by a Confidential Source under 5 USC 552A (K) (5). Is there a statute of limitations that expires when what this source said can be revealed to me? Can I appeal the USC 552(A) decision to redact the information provided by this source? I would like to know what the redacted information says. I have no interest in knowing the name of the Confidential Source.

 

[FlyingRon]

Actually, technically it's a Privacy Act requires rather than FOIA (they've obviously treated your request as a privacy act request or you'd not gotten the response you did).

No, there's no statutory timeout on confidentiality agreements. Actually, I'm pretty sure these days that they no longer offer confidentiality on background checks interviews any more (I was a supervisor in a company where just about everybody needed to be cleared so I got those interviews on people constantly). You can appeal the denial. If you phrase your question specifically for the text of the statement without identification of the person who made it, you might get less redaction.

Of course, if that doesn't work, you can always try to get it through the courts.

Try reading this http://www.archives.gov/foia/privacy-program/guide.html and see if it doesn't help.