FOIA News: House seeks to intervene in case involving congressional records

House moves to block access to congressional records through FOIA

A motion to enter a lawsuit over proposals on health care reform has bipartisan backing.

By Josh Gerstein, Politico,  Sept. 15, 2017, Sept. 15, 2017

The House of Representatives is taking legal action to make sure that federal agencies don't release congressional records to the public through the Freedom of Information Act.

The move, which came Friday evening in a lawsuit demanding access to discussions about health care reform between the Trump administration and Congress, threatens to cut off a mechanism liberal watchdog groups were using to gain insight into closed-door negotiations on a variety of policy issues.

In legal papers filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, House General Counsel Thomas Hungar said the move to protect congressional correspondence was authorized by a House body known as the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group. While the panel of top House leaders has divided in the past on sensitive issues, Hungar wrote that they "voted unanimously to authorize this intervention ... to protect the institutional interests of the House."

Read more here.

FOIA News: Feds withhold majority of Mar-A-Lago visitor logs

Mar-a-Lago Visitor Logs Are Being Withheld, Ethics Group Says

By Ben Brody & Bill Allison, Bloomberg,  Sept. 15, 2017

• Transparency groups won lawsuit to make records public

• Florida resort has attracted attention over Trump visits

A government transparency group vowed on Friday to continue a court battle to open up visitor logs at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, after the administration provided only the names of Japanese staff who attended a February visit from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, one of three government transparency groups that sued the Department of Homeland Security for the information, obtained and released the records on Friday. The Justice Department said in a letter to CREW that the records were responsive to the group’s request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Trump Administration Responds to Mar-A-Lago Visitor Log Lawsuit

Other materials "relate to the President’s schedules. The
government believes that Presidential schedule information is not subject to FOIA"

— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) September 15, 2017

Letter here: https://t.co/8fx2BUq8xJ
Single page response here: https://t.co/HlsIbyLFEj

— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) September 15, 2017

.@NSArchive Director Blanton re: Mar-a-Lago logs: "I'm outraged. I can only conclude the Trump WH intervened with career DOJ lawyers"

— Nick Penzenstadler (@npenzenstadler) September 15, 2017

FOIA News: 9th Circuit Upholds Decision on Detainee Privacy Interests

9th Cir. Favors Detainees' Privacy In FOIA Fight

Kelly Knaub, Law 360, Sept. 13, 2017

The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday upheld a summary judgment order tossing a suit by the treasurer of the National Border Patrol Council seeking the names of 149 noncitizens who were released from detention pending a final removal determination, saying the privacy rights of the former detainees outweigh any public interest.

A three-judge panel affirmed the opinion issued by Senior District Judge Roslyn O. Silver of Arizona’s district court, which held that the Department of Homeland Security had not erred in withholding the names of the released...

Read more here (subscription required).

FOIA News: DOJ Releases FOIA Self-Assessment Tools

FOIA Self-Assessment Toolkit Now Available

Dep't of Justice, Office of Info. Pol'y, Sept. 12, 2017

At its final Best Practices Workshop for this summer, OIP previewed its new FOIA Self-Assessment Toolkit as a resource for agencies to use when assessing their administration of the FOIA.  OIP has encouraged agencies to conduct self-assessments to review and improve their FOIA program.  In their Chief FOIA Officer Reports, many agencies reported conducting self-assessments using methods such as reviewing their workflows and Annual FOIA Report data.  By examining their procedures, practices, and results, agencies can improve their FOIA administration by, for instance, streamlining request processing, identifying new ways to use technology, and increasing proactive disclosures. 

The FOIA Self-Assessment Toolkit consists of 13 modules, each focusing on a distinct aspect of the FOIA process, such as Initial Mail Intake, Adjudicating Requests for Expedited Processing, Searching for Responsive Records, Requester Services, FOIA Reporting, and FOIA Websites.  Each module contains various milestones to help agencies evaluate their FOIA program and identify areas for improvement.  At the end of each module, OIP offers best practices and guidance covering the topic.    

Read more here.

FOIA News: The CIA's Long Fight to Limit FOIA

CIA included FOIA in its war on leaks

Emma Best, MuckRock, Sept. 12, 2017

A set of CIA documents originally marked CONFIDENTIAL and labeled “Initiatives to Deal with Leaks” outlines the recommendations of the CIA Director’s Security Committee (SECOM) for responding to the Intelligence Community’s (IC) ongoing leak problems. These recommendations included several notes about limiting the IC’s exposure to FOIA, arguing that FOIA’s “climate of transparency” encouraged leaks.

Read more here.

FOIA News: NOAA Scientists' Emails Protected as Deliberative

NOAA gets judge to agree that its scientists' e-mails are protected

Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, Sept. 12, 2017

Once upon a time (in mid-2015), some climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a study in the journal Science. This sort of thing happens all the time. Yet, in this case, all hell broke loose.

The problem was that this study put yet another nail in the crowded lid of a coffin housing the claim that global warming had somehow suddenly ceased in 1998. Because the study involved an update to NOAA’s global temperature dataset, some who disliked its conclusion—like US House Science Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas)—alleged without evidence that the scientists had improperly manipulated data.

This began a long fight between NOAA and Rep. Smith, who issued subpoenas for the scientists’ e-mails and early drafts. NOAA scientists met with Smith to carefully explain the study’s methods and point out that all the relevant data and research was already publicly available. But the agency refused to hand over the scientists’ communications and drafts.

In stepped Judicial Watch, a conservative group that regularly files Freedom of Information Act requests for government documents. NOAA didn’t provide the group with the e-mails, drafts, and peer reviews either, so Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in December of 2015.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOE, Enviro Group Denied Quick Wins By Judge In FOIA Suit

DOE, Enviro Group Denied Quick Wins By Judge In FOIA Suit

By Adam Lidgett, Law360, Sep. 12, 2017

A D.C. federal judge on Monday shot down competing bids for quick wins in an environmental group’s lawsuit seeking to force the U.S. Department of Energy to release records concerning a Mississippi power plant, finding that material factual issues still remain.

U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta denied the federal government and the Climate Investigations Center’s summary judgment bids in which the parties dispute the appropriateness of the DOE’s decision to withhold certain materials responsive to the group’s Freedom of information Act request....

Read more here (subscription). 

FOIA News: TIGTA Audit of IRS FOIA Compliance for FY 2016

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration ("TIGTA") recently posted its annual audit of Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") compliance with the Freedom of Information Act to the agency's website.  Based on a "statistically valid sample" of 70 information requests, TIGTA discovered that IRS disclosure specialists improperly withheld information in 14.3% of cases.  TIGTA also found that 98.6% of requests in the sample were responded to timely.  The IRS's FOIA backlog at the end of FY 2016 descreased by approximately 4% from FY 2015.

Read the full report here.

FOIA News: CREW Sues Treasury for Travel Records

Watchdog Group Sues Treasury Dept. For Failure To Respond To FOIA Request

Nichole LaFond, Talking Points Memo, Sept. 11, 2017

he liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Treasury on Monday for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request the group filed last month.

CREW filed a FOIA request with the Treasury Department on Aug. 23 requesting documents related to the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton’s use of a government plane to travel to Lexington, Kentucky on Aug. 21.

The pair traveled to the state to visit Fort Knox with Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and view the solar eclipse on-site. They also made an appearance at a luncheon with members of a local chamber of commerce, The Washington Post reported last month.

Read more here.