UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WILLIAM E. POWELL, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 19-44 (JEB) SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Pro se Plaintiff William E. Powell is on a mission to uncover financial information related to his late father and grandfather’s trusts, estates, and businesses. He also seeks information about himself. Powell is no stranger to this Court; indeed, he has been employing the Freedom of Information Act to obtain these records for years. See Nos. 16-1682, 17-278, 17- 2396, 17-2435, 18-453, 18-847, 18-2675. In the current action, he seeks documents from the Social Security Administration. After receiving his request, SSA conducted a search and released to him certain material. When Powell challenged such response by filing this suit, the agency conducted another search and disclosed additional items. Having done so, it now moves to dismiss or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. Because Defendant has fully explained its search and sufficiently demonstrated that it has released all relevant documents, the Court will grant the Motion. I. Background The parties agree that on October 6, 2018, Powell submitted a Privacy Act request via SSA’s FOIA Public Liaison email address. See ECF No. 1 (Complaint); ECF No. 12 (Motion to 1 Dismiss), Exh. D (Declaration of Monica Chyn), ¶ 3. He requested the following information regarding his account: “Account Data, Payment Data and Beneficiary Data[,] . . . summary of yearly earnings and quarters of coverage, self-employment, certificate of coverage, and establishing a foreign coverage exemption under a Social Security Agreement.” MTD, Exh. A (Pl. Req.) at 1–2. He asked for this information under his Social Security Number or any cross- referenced Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) for the years 1985 through 2017. Id. Powell sought a search of the following systems: “Earning Record and Self-Employment income System, Social Security Administration, Office of System, Master Files of Social Security Number (SSN) Holders and SSN Application, Social Security Administration (SSA), Master Beneficiary Record Social Security Administration, Deputy Commissioner for System, Office of Retirement and Survivors insurance system (ORSIS).” Id. at 7. While this request is difficult to parse, SSA replied to him a few days later. On October 10, 2018, a member of the Office of Privacy and Disclosure (OPD) at the Office of the General Counsel at SSA emailed Powell, confirming his request and giving him access to a tracking number. See Chyn Decl., ¶ 4. Earnings information, however, is properly processed via the Division of Earnings and Business Services (DEBS). Id., ¶ 5. For this reason, eight days later OPD emailed Powell a letter that contained instructions about how he could file a DEBS request. Id. OPD admits that this email “inadvertently” failed to acknowledge his non-earnings requests. Id. In any event, DEBS indeed released a report of Powell’s earnings for the years 1985–2017, which comprised earnings found in SSA’s Earnings Recording and Self-Employment Income System, including any self-employment income. Id., ¶ 7. After Powell filed suit, SSA conducted an additional search for the non-earnings ...
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