This request is a collaboration with journalist Alec Gitelman.
The Department of Defense’s Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program offers free and discounted equipment to foreign governments. “Typically, EDA is transferred to support U. S. allies in their modernization efforts and to assist Latin American and Caribbean nations in their counter-narcotics programs,” according the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which oversees the program.
In 1992, Congress required the Department of Defense to establish a public database with key information about each transfer. To that end, DSCA publishes a spreadsheet of the transfers online, indicating:
The recipient country, the item(s) to be transferred and the quantity of each, the implementing agency for each transfer (Army, Navy, Air Force, Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), transfer via grant or sale, the notified acquisition value and current value of the equipment[, … the] status of the transfer and the date of the latest status change.
Unfortunately, the most recent version of the database publicly available on the DSCA website, as of mid-July 2024, appears to include records only through mid-2020.
Our FOIA request 📄 seeks the latest version of the database, including any FOIA-disclosable data records not provided in the public spreadsheet. It also seeks a copy of all internal EDA database records pertaining to four specific transfers, as well as records documenting the internal EDA database.