FOIA News: Cheers for National FOIA Portal

Cheers for a National FOIA Portal

Nat'l Archives & Records Admin., The FOIA Ombudsman, Sept. 11, 2017

Almost five and a half years ago we at OGIS recommended to Congress that the development of a government wide FOIA web portal could improve public access to government information. Now, thanks to ongoing collaboration between the Office of Management and Budget (OMB and the Office of Information Policy at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and 18F, the digital services agency within the General Services Administration, we are closer than ever to having a National FOIA Portal.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Sept. 7 & Sept. 8, 2017

Sept. 8, 2017

Jackson v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that Criminal Division conducted adequate search for wiretap records pertaining to plaintiff's criminal case and that agency properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 3 (oddly citing Privacy Act, which is not an Exemption 3 statute, instead of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act).

Burke v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- finding that U.S. Secret Service performed reasonable search for certain records pertaining to plaintiff's criminal case.

Sept. 7, 2017

McPhail v. FBI (W.D. Pa.) -- holding that FBI was precluded from using Glomar response concerning plaintiff's co-defendant because Securities and Exchange Commission had officially acknowledged existence of investigation and FBI's participation in that investigation.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinions issued Sept. 6, 2017

Beagles v. Watkins (D.N.M) -- ruling that plaintiff improperly named individual employee as defendant and that plaintiff exhausted administrative remedies because agency failed to make determination on appeal for two years. 

King & Spalding v. HHS (D.D.C.) -- finding that government could not withhold information provided by confidential source pursuant to Exemptions 7(C) and/or 7(D) unless it explained whether source was an entity or individual. 

Judicial Watch. v. U.S. Dep't of State (D.D.C.) -- concluding that: (1) FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(E) to withheld surveillance videos concerning Anwar Aulaqi, an American-born Muslim cleric killed in Yemen by drone strike; and (2)  State Department failed to provide certain details necessary to evaluate adequacy of searches conducted in six of nine offices or record systems.   

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

FOIA News: National Security Division seeks FOIA attorney

The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a job announcement for a supervisory attorney-advisor to oversee its Freedom of Information Act unit.  The application deadline is September 14, 2017.  

FOIA News: The National Journal spotlights Pharma lawsuit

This King & Spalding FOIA Suit Hinges on Whether a Government Source Is Person or Company

By C. Ryan Barber, Nat'l Law J., Sept. 7, 2017 

A federal judge in Washington has kept alive a lawsuit from King & Spalding that seeks records from federal enforcement and regulatory agencies about information the firm believes was at the heart of an investigation targeting a pharmaceutical client.

The firm last year sued the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services for records about the government’s investigation of the Massachusetts-based medical device company Abiomed Inc. The Justice Department investigated claims but did not bring any action against Abiomed over the marketing of the heart pump Impella 2.5, the company said in 2015.

Abiomed received some records from federal investigators, but not everything. At issue in the case now: 67 pages of records that, if released to the public, could reveal the identity of an unnamed source who provided information to the government. Justice Department lawyers argued in the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that disclosure of certain records “would invade the privacy of third parties.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: EOUSA seeks FOIA attorney

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a Freedom of Information Act attorney to serve in the Executive Office for United States Attorneys.  The application deadline is September 21, 2017.  The job announcement is here.

FOIA News: OGIS on Misdirected Requests

Return to Sender

Nat'l Archives & Records Admin., The FOIA Ombudsman, Sept. 6, 2017

As you might be aware if you regularly read our blog (or if you check our mediation program quarterly performance statistics), the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 created a surge in requests for our assistance. We have also received many submissions intended for other federal agencies – including misdirected appeals, certifications of identity, and other sensitive personal information.  Initially, we attempted to pass along all of these misdirected documents to the intended agency. We became concerned, however, that our practice might delay the transmission of the information to the correct agency and potentially place sensitive personal information at risk. To address these concerns, we will now to alert the requester of the error immediately and advise them to contact the agency directly.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Sept. 1, 2017

Wisdom v. U.S. Trustee Prog. (D.D.C.) -- deciding that agency performed reasonable search for records concerning plaintiff's bankruptcy case and that it properly withheld certain records pursuant to Exemptions 5 and 6. 

Bayala v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- determining that agency performed a reasonable search for records concerning his asylum application and that it properly relied on Exemption 5 to withhold certain information, but not the first eight paragraphs,  from an "Assessment to Refer" document.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

FOIA News: 18F makes recommendations to Justice Department for new national FOIA website

18F makes recommendations to Justice Department for new national FOIA website

By Alex Howard, Sunlight Foundation, Sept. 1, 2017

18F, the digital government unit housed within the U.S. General Services Administration, has published comprehensive research and recommendations (PDF) regarding a new national Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) website. When the prototype website clears the government’s security protocols, the public will be able to see the minimum viable product that 18F has built and deployed at beta.foia.gov. You can check out the FOIA project on Github in the meantime, thanks to 18F’s ethos of working in the open.

Congress mandated the development of the platform in last year’s FOIA Improvement Act, directing the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Justice Department to build a “consolidated online request portal that allows a member of the public to submit a request for records under subsection (a) to any agency from a single website.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: BuzzFeed Investigates How Scientists Got To See Their Competitors’ Research

These Scientists Got To See Their Competitors’ Research Through Public Records Requests

By Teresa L. Carey and Aylin Woodward, BuzzFeed, Sept. 2, 2017

Through our own FOIA requests, BuzzFeed News obtained logs of all the FOIA requests received by two major science agencies. Over the past 10 years, the NIH, the main federal funder of biomedical research, has received more than 13,300 requests for grant proposals, these records show. In 2015 and 2016, nearly 30% of these requests came from other academic institutions.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), which supports a wide range of science projects, received more than 1,800 requests for grant proposals between 2009 and 2016, and about half were filed by academic scientists or university officials.

In some cases — like Sherman’s, as it turns out — FOIA requests were filed by university officials keen to obtain examples of successful grants to help train their scientists to write better ones. But others came from researchers who want to find out what their competitors are planning. Although this practice is perfectly legal, many of the scientists involved were reluctant to talk about it.

Read more here.