271.2—Definitions.
(a)
Board means the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System established by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (38 Stat. 251).
(b)
Commercial use request refers to a request from or on behalf of one who seeks information for a use or purpose that furthers the commercial, trade, or profit interests of the requester or the person on whose behalf the request is made.
(c)
Direct costs mean those expenditures that the Committee actually incurs in searching for, reviewing, and duplicating documents in response to a request made under § 271.5.
(d)
Duplication refers to the process of making a copy of a document in response to a request for disclosure of records or for inspection of original records that contain exempt material or that otherwise cannot be inspected directly. Among others, such copies may take the form of paper, microform, audiovisual materials, or machine-readable documentation (e.g., magnetic tape or disk).
(e)
Educational institution refers to a preschool, a public or private elementary or secondary school, or an institution of undergraduate higher education, graduate higher education, professional education, or an institution of vocational education that operates a program of scholarly research.
(f)
Federal Reserve Bank means one of the district Banks authorized by the Federal Reserve Act, 12 U.S.C. 222, including any branch of any such Bank.
(g)
Information of the Committee means all information coming into the possession of the Committee or of any member thereof or of any officer, employee, or agent of the Committee, the Board, or any Federal Reserve Bank, in the performance of duties for, or pursuant to the direction of, the Committee.
(h)
Noncommercial scientific institution refers to an institution that is not operated on a “commercial” basis (as that term is used in this section) and which is operated solely for the purpose of conducting scientific research, the results of which are not intended to promote any particular product or industry.
(i)
Records of the Committee includes rules, statements, decisions, minutes, memoranda, letters, reports, transcripts, accounts, charts, and other written material, as well as any materials in machine readable form that constitute a part of the Committee's official files.
(j)
Representative of the news media refers to any person actively gathering news for an entity that is organized and operated to publish or broadcast news to the public.
(1)
The term “news” means information about current events or that would be of current interest to the public.
(2)
Examples of news media entities include, but are not limited to, television or radio stations broadcasting to the public at large, and publishers of newspapers and other periodicals (but only in those instances when they can qualify as disseminators of “news”) who make their products available for purchase or subscription by the general public.
(3)
“Freelance” journalists may be regarded as working for a news organization if they can demonstrate a solid basis for expecting publication through that organization, even though not actually employed by it.
(k)
(1)
Review refers to the process of examining documents, located in response to a request for access, to determine whether any portion of a document is exempt information. It includes doing all that is necessary to excise the documents and otherwise to prepare them for release.
(2)
Review does not include time spent resolving general legal or policy issues regarding the application of exemptions.
(l)
(1)
Search means a reasonable search, by manual or automated means, of the Committee's official files and any other files containing records of the Committee as seem reasonably likely in the particular circumstances to contain documents of the kind requested. For purposes of computing fees under § 271.9, search time includes all time spent looking for material that is responsive to a request, including line-by-line identification of material within documents. Such activity is distinct from “review” of material to determine whether the material is exempt from disclosure.
(2)
Search does not mean or include research, creation of any document, or extensive modification of an existing program or system that would significantly interfere with the operation of the Committee's automated information system.