FOIA Appeal (FIA)

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Appeal; Appeal Denied; Fee Categorization

On July 31, 2019, the Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal filed by Mr. Martin Pfeiffer (Appellant) concerning the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) determination to categorize him as a commercial use requester in connection with a FOIA request that he submitted to the NNSA. The NNSA explained, in a determination letter to Appellant, that it had categorized him as a commercial use requester because he had posted records provided by the NNSA in response to previous FOIA requests on a website and charged a subscription fee for access to the records. On appeal, Appellant asserted that he had posted "virtually all" of the records provided to him by the NNSA to a second website which any person could access for free, that he was an educational institution requester because he intended to use the records as part of his Ph.D. research, and that he was a representative of the news media based on his prior publication of two articles in periodicals and his ability to disseminate information via Twitter. OHA determined that the Appellant had not established that he was an educational institution requester because he had not identified any specific academic purpose towards which he intended to use the requested records or provided any verification from his university that the requested records related to specific academic work in which he was engaged. OHA further determined that the Appellant had not established himself as a representative of the news media because he was not associated with any news media organization, was not a journalist by trade, and had not asserted that he sought the requested records in connection with a specific piece of journalism which he had a reasonable basis for expecting to publish. Finally, OHA concluded that the Appellant's practice of posting records obtained through the FOIA on a website and  charging subscribers for access to the records was commercial in nature, even if he published them elsewhere for access without charge, and therefore that the Appellant was a commercial use requester. Accordingly, OHA denied Appellant's appeal. OHA Case No. FIA-19-0027.