Sd B2 Homeland Security Fdr- 7-8-04 Letter From Ice Re Document Request 776

J-2004

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PRINCIPAL LEGflL flDUISOR Rceoffhe Principal Legal Advisor

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

4251 Street, NW, Room 6100 Washington, DC 20536

US. Immigration and Customs Enforcement July 8,2004

VIA FACSIMILE 202-296-5545 Mr. Daniel Marcus General Counsel National Commission on Terrorist

Attacks Upon the United States Dear Mr. Marcus: In the course of producing documents in response to requests from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Commission), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) located a number of records that ICE determined are prohibited from disclosure to the Commission under the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b). The DHS Privacy Office issued an opinion concurring with the ICE position, which set forth bases for the conclusion that the Privacy Act prohibited the disclosure of these records to the Commission. The DHS orally advised you of this determination and later provided you a copy of the Privacy Office's opinion. To my knowledge, the Commission has never questioned the validity of the DHS opinion. On that basis, DHS has interpreted the Commission's actions as an assent to modify its document requests to request only those documents that DHS can lawfully disclose to the Commission. If you have any concerns regarding this issue, please feel free to contact me to discuss them. Sincerely,

Jo Ann McLane Chief of Staff

Office of the Principal Legal Advisor cc: John M. Mitnick Office of General Counsel Daniel Brown Deputy Associate General Counsel

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