UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA NATIONAL SECURITY COUNSELORS, et al., Plaintiffs, Civil Action No. 12-284 (BAH) v. Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION This action was commenced over five years ago by the plaintiffs, National Security Counselors (“NSC”), and three individuals (collectively, the “plaintiffs”), against the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) (collectively, the “defendants”), pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, and five other statutes, and has already engendered three rounds of dispositive motions as well as consideration of a motion for class certification and a motion for reconsideration. 1 Only one claim, Count Sixteen, is unresolved out of the original twenty-six asserted in the First Amended Complaint (“FAC”), ECF No. 9. Now pending before the Court are the defendants’ Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment on Count Sixteen (“Defs.’ Mot.”), ECF No. 105, and the plaintiffs’ Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment and Discovery (“Pls.’ Cross-Mot.”), ECF No. 108. For the reasons set out below, the defendants’ motion is granted and the plaintiffs’ motion is denied. 1 NSC is a Virginia nonprofit organization and the individual plaintiffs are Kathryn Sack, a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia; Jeffrey Stein, a representative of the news media; and Mark Zaid. First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) at ¶¶ 3–7, ECF No. 9. 1 I. BACKGROUND The factual and procedural history of this case is fully described in prior opinions issued in this case and, thus, the background summary here is limited to that relevant to Count Sixteen, the only count remaining at issue. See Nat’l Sec. Counselors v. CIA (“NSC I”), 316 F.R.D. 5, 8 (D.D.C. 2012) (denying plaintiffs’ motion for class certification and pre-certification discovery); Nat’l Sec. Counselors v. CIA (“NSC II”), 931 F. Supp. 2d 77, 112 (D.D.C. 2013) (dismissing, on CIA’s partial motion to dismiss, Counts One, Five, Six, Fifteen, Nineteen, Twenty-Five, and Twenty-Six, and denying defendants’ motion to dismiss Counts Twenty-One and Twenty-Two); Memorandum and Order, dated June 13, 2013 (“NSC III”) at 9, ECF No. 60 (denying plaintiffs’ motion for partial reconsideration); Nat’l Sec. Counselors v. CIA (“NSC IV”), No. 12-cv-284, 2016 WL 6684182, at *35 (D.D.C. Nov. 14, 2016) (granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment, in whole or in part, on Counts Two, Four, Seven, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twenty, Twenty- One, and Twenty-Three, and denying motion as to, inter alia, Count Sixteen). Thereafter, the parties requested a summary judgment briefing schedule regarding only Count Sixteen. See Jt. Status Report (Apr. 28, 2017) at 1, ECF No. 104. Count Sixteen claims that the CIA failed to comply with its FOIA obligations in responding to NSC’s FOIA request number F-2011-01679, submitted on June 20, 2011, “for records pertaining to the search tools and indices available to the components in the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Area (‘DCIA Area’) for conducting searches of their respective records in response to FOIA requests.” FAC ¶ 140. The request ...
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