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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION and RICHARD POLLOCK, Plaintiffs, v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Defendant. Civil Docket No. 15-cv-1979 (RJL)

DEFENDANT’S REPLY IN SUPPORT OF ITS MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFFS’ CROSS-MOTION FOR DISCOVERY INTRODUCTION

In this Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) case, Plaintiffs challenge the adequacy of the U.S. Department of State’s (“State”) search for records responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA request, which sought records showing that five State officials, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, completed mandatory security and information technology training courses regarding the handling of classified materials and communications. State searched the Department-wide training systems and databases that contain records of all official training activity for security and information technology courses undertaken by State employees and  produced all responsive records pertaining to the identified officials. Plaintiffs’ singular challenge to this search is that State failed to also search “individual-specific hard drives and/or shared drives utilized by any of the specific senior State officials” on the chance that they might contain “courtesy cop[ies] of . . . certifications” showing that those officials completed security and information technology training courses. Mem. in Opp. to Def.’s Mot. for Summ. J. at 5, ECF No. 13 [hereinafter Opposition].

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2 Plaintiffs’ argument fails as a matter of law. State searched the record systems and databases that would contain records showing that the specified individuals completed the mandatory training courses if they in fact completed them—specifically, the Student Management Training System (“STMS”), the Cyber Security Administration database, and Sensitive Compartmented Information (“SCI”) electronic training records. Sec. Decl. of Eric F. Stein ¶¶ 4, 6 [hereinafter Second Stein Declaration]. Those record systems maintain all such records for the requested timeframe.

See

 

id 

. State was therefore not obligated “to conduct an additional search of individual-specific or shared drives for copies of the requested training certifications, because such certifications, if they existed, would be retained in the databases and records systems previously searched” (i.e, the STMS, Cyber Security Administration database, and SCI training records).

 Id 

. ¶ 7. The issue of whether State had to search for any duplicate copies of training certifications that the officials might have saved on any individual or shared drives, when it had

already

 searched the centralized record systems responsible for maintaining and retaining such certifications, is a legal one that can be resolved on the summary judgment record. The Court should therefore deny Plaintiffs’ unusual request for discovery in a FOIA case. Plaintiffs’ request is unsupported by any showing that Plaintiffs cannot respond to State’s motion for summary judgment without discovery, or any allegation or evidence of bad faith by State. As such, discovery is unwarranted, and the Court should grant State’s motion for summary  judgment.

ARGUMENT I.

 

State Reasonably Limited Its Search for Responsive Records to the Foreign Service Institute, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and the Bureau of Information Resource Management

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3 As an initial matter, Plaintiffs do not challenge the search that State actually conducted— that is, its decision to search the Foreign Service Institute (“FSI”), the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (“DS”), and the Bureau of Information Resource Management (“IRM”), and the search methods employed by those offices. As set forth in State’s motion for summary judgment, State determined that these were the offices reasonably likely to have records responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA request for records certifying that certain State officials had satisfied mandatory security and information technology training courses regarding the handling of classified materials and communications.

See

Def.’s Mot. for Summ. J. at 5–7, ECF No. 12; Decl. of Eric F. Stein ¶ 10, ECF No. 12-2 [hereinafter Stein Declaration]. After learning that IRM was not responsible for maintaining the types of training records requested by Plaintiffs, Stein Decl. ¶ 14, State reasonably focused its search efforts on FSI and the Security Infrastructure Directorate (“DS/SI”) at DS. The former is “the primary training institution for [State],” while the latter has access to SCI electronic training records. Sec. Stein Decl. ¶¶ 3, 6. At FSI, a management analyst searched both the STMS, which “contains a record of all official training activity undertaken by Department employees,” and the Cyber Security Administration database, which “contains records of all online training activity specifically related to the Department’s Cyber Security Awareness course (PS800).”

 Id 

. ¶ 4. The analyst specifically searched the employee training profiles of the individuals identified in Plaintiffs’ FOIA request using their names and unique numeric identifiers as search terms. Stein Decl. ¶ 12. Similarly, at DS/SI, the Special Assistant for DS/SI searched the office’s electronic and  paper files—including records of Cyber Security Awareness trainings, SCI electronic training

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