9-11 Commission

Subject: Documents/Interviews
Notes from Meeting with Phillip Zelikow, Dan Marcus, Steve Dunne

Thursday, May 29, 2003

General Points
• White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has requested all Agencies cooperate
with Commission. Cooperation to date has been good.

• Main POC is Adam at Justice. He has been helpful to process. For issues with
him go through Dan or Steve.

• Issue that may come up is "Executive Privilege" (advice high-ranking officials

told the president)

Documents
• Document requests will be generated by email from Dan or Steve to appropriate
Agency's POC.

• Draft a request, have Dan/Steve review, will also be reviewed by Phillip. Point is
to centralize and coordinate requests, as there will be overlapping interests among
teams: avoid duplication, and unnecessary burdens on Agencies.

• Usual return date is 2 weeks.

• Urge Agencies to respond with "rolling production", that is they don't have to
wait until they have located all documents on request to begin providing those
that are more readily available. They should get process going. Produce
documents as they come up.

• Dan or Steve can grant extensions to Agencies; ; can also ask what the hold up is

• Go to Dan or Steve if there are problems. Keep them informed.

(Team 3: We should file draft requests to "shared" drive.)

• Team leaders and/or team members can have contact with Agencies' POCs.
(We'll come up with a policy for Team 3 on this.)

• Obviously, need to keep copies of what has been requested thus far, and as we go
forward.

• We can combine document requests with requests for particular information:

"Please tell us about the following . . . " (Similar to interrogatories)

• Try to be specific in requests. Can ask for "any and all documents related to
subject x" but be aware that this formula may create huge burden, e.g., asking
State for "any and all documents related to visas".

• Don't forget email: but that will generate thousands of documents. (Sippernet—

(Team 3: Submitted request to NSC on Friday, May 30. Dan and Steve, and Phillip
worked on it. Review it for preferred language.)

• Be aware of non-duplication requirement in our statute. Not supposed to ask for

records the Joint Inquiry produced and to which we allegedly have access.

Review of our Charter

• Facts and circumstances surrounding 9-11. "Everything is fair game"; per
Phillip, massive and unprecedented access to information;
• Immediate factual response through September 20, 2003;
• Mandated to look into lessons learned, make policy recommendations;
• O.k. to request documents re what has been done post 9-11;

Specific Points for Counterterrorism Policy

• Documents that reflect decisions made
• Policies adopted
• Programs implemented
• Evaluations of how policies are working (e.g., team working visa issue: an IG or
internal report on how visa system is working post 9-11)
• How do policies change from pre 9-11 to post 9-11?
• Are the designs and blueprints in place?
• Are they actually working?

Interviews

• Get documents and background first

• We can ask for interviews with particular people.
• Each week we should be making progress in arranging key interviews
 • Coordinate among teams
• Describe succinctly the goals of each interview

Guidelines

• Commissioners wanted to record the meetings. We will say we prefer to record,

but if interviewee objects, will honor their objection.

• "Agency Minders" sitting in on meetings with interviewees. General Rule: No

Minders. Exception: High level officials (current or former) may have
assistants/subordinates present. Various reasons for this exception

Access to Joint Inquiry Report, Work Product

• We have access to FBI Documents given to Joint Inquiry Staff (JIS) and which
are at the Ford Bldg

• No Documents provided by NSA to JIS. JIS had to view NSA documents on site
at Fort Meade. NSA says they will put info on CD-Roms for us.

• CIA says JIS had the docs; but JIS says inter-office JIS docs/notes which they
claim are privileged, are commingled with the CIA docs. Governor Kean may
have to speak with Porter Goss to get these. CIA says they did not make copies of
documents provided to JIS. Phillip thinks we may want to send the JIS a formal
document request for the CIA docs.

RE: Former USG Officials & Academics

• Dan says we can contact former USG officials without going through their former
agencies. But must keep Dan informed;

• 9-11 Staff is free to contact academic/think tanks but should tell Dan and Dianna
so we can maintain a central list and avoid duplication of contact.