Federal Communications Commission FCC 08-93
STATEMENT OF 
COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS
Re: Solomon Oden Battle Request for Inspection of Records
I approve today’s Order, which affirms our Bureau’s conclusion that the FCC has no 
documents (beyond the two that have already been disclosed) that are responsive to the FOIA 
request before us.  Simply put, the agency cannot turn over documents that it doesn’t have.  
But as a general matter, I do want to emphasize that the underlying facts in this case 
illustrate exactly the point that the Government Accountability Office recently made:  The FCC 
does not always keep adequate records on consumer complaints filed with the agency.  Here, a 
consumer filed his complaint over two years ago and the agency apparently has no record of 
whether the underlying complaint had merit or whether the carrier’s partial response to the 
complaint was satisfactory.  We need to do better.