(a) The initial determination is whether to make a record available in response to a FOIA request. A full release may be made by an official knowledgeable of the record, with authority to determine that no harm would come from release. Adverse determinations (refer to Sec. 300.3(b)) must be made by the designated Initial Denial Authority (IDA) except for determinations made regarding the requester category and requests for fee waivers or expedited processing. By this regulation, the Director, DLA, delegates to Heads of DLA Components (see Sec. 300.3(h)) the designation of IDA. The designation of IDA may be further delegated by the Heads of DLA Components to their Deputies. The IDA shall review all recommendations for withholding information and whether the criteria for withholding under one or more FOIA exemptions are met. DLA has IDAs throughout the agency; and each IDA will make the determination for records within their area of functional responsibility. If a request involves records from more than one functional area, consultation will be done with all responsible IDAs but will be signed by the IDA assigned the primary responsibility for processing the request.
(b) The FOIA requires that any reasonably segregable portion of a record must be released after appropriate application of the Act's nine exemptions. Segregation is not reasonable when it would produce an essentially meaningless set of words and phrases, or even sentences which taken separately or together have minimal or no information content.
(c) If information is withheld in whole or part, DLA will provide in a response letter the exemption under which the withholding is made, a description of the type of information redacted, the name and title or position of the IDA and the administrative appeal rights. When information is withheld in full, DLA will provide an estimate of the volume withheld. This estimate should be in number of pages or in some other reasonable form of estimation. When information is withheld in part, DLA will show the redacted amount of information and the exemption under which the redaction is made on the released portion of the record, unless including that indication would harm an interest protected by the exemption under which the redaction is made.