December 18, 2023
SENT BY E-MAIL
XXXX
Re: 2024-APP-00001; Appeal of Response 24-FOI-00013
Dear XXXX:
By correspondence of October 19, 2023, you submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (24-FOI-00013) for records documenting XXXX FEDERAL CREDIT UNION approved name change to XXXX FEDERAL CREDIT UNION on 06/09/1986 to help facilitate the recording of a lien release with the FAA.
By letter of November 17, 2023, an attorney in the NCUA’s Office of General Counsel responded to your FOIA request and advised that we have no responsive records. You appealed this determination in a November 27, 2023 email correspondence. Your appeal does not contend that the NCUA’s search for records in response to your request was inadequate. Rather, your appeal indicates that “without anything in writing from the NCUA confirming [the credit union name change] took place my client is stuck with three liens on his aircraft that can never be released.” Further, you ask “if the NCUA can confirm in writing that the name change from XXXX Federal Credit Union to XXXX Federal Credit Union did in fact occur on 06/09/1986.”
Your FOIA appeal is denied. As explained in the November 17, 2023 response letter, a reasonable search for agency records responsive to your request produced no records. Your appeal does not challenge this search result but asks the NCUA to create a written confirmation of a credit union’s name change. Please note that the FOIA does not require the NCUA to make or generate responsive documents, answer written questions, or in any other way create records that do not exist in order to respond to a request.1 Nevertheless, as a courtesy, your request was forwarded to the NCUA’s Office of Credit Union Resources and Expansion (CURE) for processing as a routine inquiry. Attached is a response letter from CURE confirming that XXXX Federal Credit Union (charter XXXX) changed its name to XXXX Federal Credit Union.
Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. §552(a)(4)(B) of FOIA, you may seek judicial review of this determination by filing suit against the NCUA. Such a suit may be filed in the United States District Court where you reside, where your principal place of business is located, the District of Columbia, or where the documents are located (the Eastern District of Virginia).
The 2007 FOIA amendments created the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) to offer mediation services to resolve disputes between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies as a non-exclusive alternative to litigation. Using OGIS services does not affect your right to pursue litigation. You may contact OGIS in any of the following ways:
Office of Government Information Services
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road - OGIS
College Park, MD 20740-6001 E-mail: ogis@nara.gov
Web: https://ogis.archives.gov
Telephone: 202.741.5770; Toll-free: 877.684.6448
Fax: 202.741.5769
Sincerely,
/s/
Frank Kressman
General Counsel
GC/PY
2024-APP-00001
Attachment
Footnotes
1 See Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 152 (1980) (“The [FOIA] does not obligate agencies to create or retain documents; it only obligates them to provide access to those which it in fact has created and retained.”); Carson v. U.S. Office of Special Counsel, 534 F. Supp.2d 99, 102-103 (D.D.C. 2008) (“The FOIA does not require an agency to create documents that do not exist or to collect disparate data and then generate an agency record.”); Frank v. DOJ, 941 F. Supp. 4, 5 (D.D.C. 1996) (stating that an agency is not required to “dig out all the information that might exist, in whatever form or place it might be found, and to create a document that answers plaintiff's questions.”).