ODNI Revises Costly Declassification Rule

As promised, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) last week formally withdrew a new rule on requesting declassification of classified ODNI records after receiving public complaints that it would have imposed onerous costs on requesters. A revised rule was then issued.

“ODNI received comments regarding the fee provisions [with] the recommendation that those provisions be withdrawn and replaced with fee provisions comparable to those in ODNI’s Freedom of Information Act program,” ODNI said in an April 22 Federal Register notice. (Comments to that effect from the Federation of American Scientists are here; comments submitted by Openthegovernment.org are here.)

“ODNI agrees and therefore is withdrawing its direct final rule.”

A revised rule with amended fee provisions was published in the Federal Register today.

Under the revised rule:

*    photocopying charges would be 10 cents per page instead of 50 cents per page;

*    fees would be waived whenever costs incurred were $10 or less;

*    and the revised rule now allows for a public interest waiver of fees when “the disclosure is likely to contribute significantly to the public understanding of the operations or activities of the United States Government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.”