Actually, there is a nice US Supreme Court ruling that any documents
under the _control_ of the agency _are_ subject to FOIA.
The database that moved from SRI to NSI did so as part of a contract
with NSF (and DARPA before them). Therefore, the control argument
should hold. But you'd have to test it in court.
WSimpson@UMich.edu
Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32
SRI lost to NSI in a competitive procurement run by DISA, and SRI turned
over the database to NSI as a consequence.
The DISA contract with NSI only covered USG-related material (e.g., .GOV,
.MIL), so NSF and DISA executed an agreement under which NSI would convert
and maintain *all* of the database in return for a month-to-month payment
of (memory's a bit hazy here) $20k, while NSF prepared, issued, and
executed a competitive solicitation for NIC services for non-USG customers
- including .EDU, obviously but also .COM.
When the dust settled on the peer-reviewed and competitive NSF
solicitation, NSI had won the registration piece; this avoided yet another
transfer of the non-USG-related part of the database to the winner.
-s