FOIA Documents on DOD Redactions

As promised, we recently received the results of this FOIA inquiry from one of our subscribers.  At their request, we have redacted their name and contact information from the first page of this document. Any redaction after page 1 was already part of the document received from the DOD IG.

The first two pages are the cover letter response from the DOD IG summarizing the request, response and any future actions required. The next 5 involve the memo from 9 Senators to the DOD IG regarding their questions/inquiry about Lejeune in the Summer of 2012. Finally, the remaining pages are copies of the cookie-cutter response sent to all 9 Senators from DOD IG.

Most curious is the part found in the response letters to the Senators. All state the same thing. All refer the reader to “see enclosure” on a Navy request to ATSDR on Jan 5, 2012. We are efforting a copy of that document to add to this article shortly for further context.  We’re very curious as to what the Navy put into that letter regarding their explanation/reasoning for the redaction of information. We’re also going to track down and have a closer look at the Chapter B Report in a future post.

Have a look at the following documents. We wanted to make sure these are posted for all to see. Is the DOD using redaction techniques to hide information relevant to the full scope and picture of what happened with Lejeune water contamination?

To quote our source:

Using “critical infrastructure” as a convenient way to deny access to pollution data is sleazy and horrendous and should not be tolerated.

If, indeed, that’s what the DOD is up to here, we certainly agree.