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Navy mistakenly sends FOIA plans to reporter

The Unites States Navy inadvertently sent a memo to a local NBC News reporter this week detailing how it intended to try and deter requests he had filed under the Freedom Of Information Act.

Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for NBC 4 in Washington, D.C., tweeted out a screenshot of a portion of the memo on Tuesday morning, where the name of Robin Patterson, the Navy's FOIA Public Liaison is visible. The Navy FOIA office confirmed that MacFarlane had made the FOIA requests mentioned in the memo.

EPIC FAILURE- U.S. Navy accidentally sends reporter its strategy memo for dodging his FOIA request cc: @gregorykorte pic.twitter.com/aKno0qKK6h — Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) January 7, 2014

According to copies of the FOIA request mentioned in the memo, MacFarlane was looking for information relating to the Navy Yard shooting in September. In mid-December MacFarlane filed the FOIAs seeking memos authored by various Naval Sea Systems Command officials in September, October and Novemer 2013, e-mails sent by those same officials between 8:00 and 9:30 a.m. on the day of the shooting, and photos of Building 197, where the shooting occurred, that were not part of the investigation.

(PHOTOS: Shooting at Navy Yard)

MacFarlane also requested that fees beyond $15 be waived as the "request is in the public interest."

"A compelling need exists to warrant expedited processing of this request, because a large number of our viewers are immediately impacted by the content of these records," MacFarlane writes. "These records relate directly to performance of government in matters of safety, health and well-being."

In the memo, the Navy discusses how to negotiate with MacFarlane and tell him the request would be a "fishing expedition."

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At one point, the memo states that obtaining the documents may be costly, which might encourage MacFarlane to "narrow the scope" of his request.

"Again, another 'fishing expedition,'" the memo states. "[J]ust because they are media doesn't mean the memos shed light on specific government activities."

Officials in the Navy's FOIA office told us at first that the memo was sent as an "administrative error," then later said they could not comment on the veracity of the document.

MacFarlane later tweeted that the U.S. Navy apologized for the FOIA response.

UPDATE (4:24 p.m.): The Navy has sent the following statement via Twitter:

This post has been updated with the content of the FOIA requests.

Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.