FOIA News: Can you hear me now?

FCC accused of hiding Chairman Carr’s messages with DOGE and Musk

FCC refuses to provide messages, has “wasted a year” of court’s time, filing says.

By Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica, June 26, 2026

An advocacy group trying to investigate DOGE’s influence on the Federal Communications Commission accused the FCC of failing to comply with a public records request and of concealing Chairman Brendan Carr’s use of the Signal messaging service.

“The evidence clearly demonstrates that the FCC has acted in bad faith by withholding documents responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request,” journalist Nina Burleigh and advocacy group Frequency Forward said in a filing yesterday in US District Court for the District of Columbia. “The FCC acted in bad faith when it redefined the search criteria without notice to Plaintiffs or this Court. Further, the FCC acted in bad faith by concealing the fact that the Chairman Carr has a Signal account on a phone he uses to conduct government business.”

Burleigh and Frequency Forward sued the FCC last year, alleging that it violated the Freedom of Information Act by wrongfully withholding agency records. In August 2025, a federal judge ordered the FCC to produce documents and criticized it for a “vague and uninformative” response to the lawsuit.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued June 21-22, 2026

June 22, 2026

Stevens v. ICE (7th Cir.) -- vacating district court's order requiring production of more than 2,000 pages without redactions as sanction for agency's mismanagement of FOIA litigation and Vaughn Index deficiencies; finding that while slew of agency errors might justify sanctions, district court’s blanket disclosure was abuse of discretion where injury from the sanction fell on innocent third parties rather than the agency employees responsible for errors; noting that "one should never attribute to malice something that can be explained by incompetence" and that "errors—even howlers—are inevitable" given volume of documents involved; further noting that judge's choice to order blanket disclosure rather than refer documents to magistrate or special master for in camera review was unjustified; and remanding with instructions to limit disclosures to information concerning agency's own operations and privileges that agency is free to waive.

June 21, 2026

Gomez v. USCIS (N.D. Cal.) -- ordering EOIR and USCIS to produce plaintiff's immigration records without redactions within four days where agencies missed statutory deadlines and failed to grant expedited processing, and where plaintiff faced imminent pre-deprivation bond hearing; finding that agency improperly relied on privacy exemptions to withhold requester's own records; further finding that Exemption 7(E) did not shield employer information or biographical details in Form I-213 narrative where such information constituted neither investigative techniques nor procedures; lastly, determining that balance of equities tipped in favor of TRO where government sought expedited bond hearing while stonewalling plaintiff's FOIA requests.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

FOIA News: OGIS open meeting 8/4/26

Office of Government Information Services Open Annual Meeting

Nat’l Archives, Calendar of Events

The federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Ombudsman's office, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), will host its annual public meeting in accordance with the FOIA statute. 

Please join OGIS as we host our Annual Open Meeting on Tuesday, August 4 at 10 a.m. ET. OGIS Director Alina M. Semo will share information about OGIS’s annual report. Members of the public will also have the opportunity to present oral or written statements, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act statute.

See more here.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: A smooth criminal

Trial Att’y, Dep’t of Justice/CRM, GS 15, Wash., DC, closes 7/6/26 (public).

FOIA News: FOIA Technology Inventory Underway

Request for Agency Participation in Developing FOIA Technology Inventory

DOJ-OIP Blog (June 24, 2026)

Today, OIP and OGIS, in collaboration with the Department of the Interior (DOI), request input from federal FOIA programs in the creation of a central FOIA technology inventory.  Once completed, the inventory will serve as a living resource available to federal agencies to help inform FOIA technology acquisition and implementation decisions. 

Read the full post here.

The underlying Chief FOIA Officers Council memorandum about this initiative is available here. That memo highlights how the inventory aims to identify all “FOIA technology solutions used across federal agencies, including case management systems, eDiscovery platforms, document review tools, and related applications and costs.” The inventory would then “serve as a living resource available to federal agencies to help inform FOIA technology acquisition and implementation decisions.”

FOIA News: Notwithstanding FOIA, SSA Moves to Dismiss Palantir Records Suit

The Social Security Administration has moved to dismiss the claims against it in American Oversight v. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, et al., No. 26-1351 (D.D.C.), arguing the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction because FOIA does not authorize judicial review of SSA's fee determinations made under section 1306(c) of the Social Security Act.

The agency contends that section 1306(c)—which authorizes the agency to charge the full cost of processing non-program-related requests "notwithstanding" FOIA—constitutes an independent fee regime outside FOIA's reach, rendering plaintiff's search and withholding claims premature absent agreement to pay the assessed fees. The motion relies principally on Shapiro v. SSA, 160 F.4th 347 (2d Cir. 2025), and Democracy Forward Found. v. SSA, No. 25-3384, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101010 (D. Md. May 7, 2026), both holding that section 1306(c) fees fall outside FOIA's fee provisions and are not subject to FOIA judicial review. The suit concerns Palantir contracts and data-sharing records at five federal agencies.

See SSA’s motion to dismiss here. The case docket is here.

FOIA News: Will SCOTUS take FOIA case?

The U.S. Supreme Court may decide this week whether to take up the case of Buckley v. DOJ, which centers on how broadly FOIA Exemption 7 should be applied. Buckley, whose bookstore events in Buffalo, NY were monitored by undercover FBI agents, sought records about himself and others, but the FBI withheld most of them under Exemption 7.

On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed a per se rule that courts need not examine whether records were compiled for a legitimate law enforcement purpose when they come from a law enforcement agency. In a certiorari petition backed by an amicus brief from the Cato Institute, Buckley argues that courts should not apply that per se rule and instead should require a showing that records were actually compiled for a law enforcement purpose.

Stay tuned for the Supreme Court’s cert decision.

See the case docket on SCOTUSblog here.

FOIA News: Biden loses bid to block release of memoir recordings

Judge allows release of Biden memoir audio to Heritage Foundation

By Anthony Thompson, USA TODAY, June 20, 2026

A federal judge ordered the Department of Justice to provide hours of audio recordings from former President Joe Biden’s 2017 memoir interviews to the Heritage Foundation, ruling that the public interest outweighs Biden’s privacy concerns despite his lawsuit to block the disclosure.

A federal judge ruled that hours of audio recordings tied to former President Joe Biden’s 2017 memoir can be turned over to the Heritage Foundation, rejecting his bid to block the disclosure.

In a ruling June 20, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said Biden’s privacy interests, while real, are outweighed by the public’s interest in the materials and the government’s obligation under the Freedom of Information Act to promote transparency.

The decision marks a setback for Biden, who in May sued the Department of Justice in an effort to stop the release of the recordings. The Heritage Foundation has argued the files could show evidence that Biden mishandled classified information, a claim he has denied.

Biden’s legal team immediately moved to seek an injunction pending appeal, signaling an ongoing fight over whether the audio can be released.

Read more here.

Jobs: jobs, jobs: Seven Up

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./CBP, GS 7-9, Wash., DC, closes 6/24/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Commerce/HQ, ZA 4, Wash., DC, closes 6/25/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Commerce/HQ, ZA 4, Wash., DC, closes 6/25/26 (public).

Sup, Att’y-Adviser, Nat’l Labor Rel. Bd., GS 15, Wash, DC, closes 6/26/26 or first 50 applications (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 12, Wash., DC, closes 6/26/26 (non-public).

Gen. Att’y, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./ICE, GS 11-15, Wash., DC, closes 7/7/26 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Transp./FAA, FV J, Wash., DC, closes 7/7/26 (internal only).

Court opinion issued June 19, 2026

Heritage Found. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- in a reverse-FOIA challenge to DOJ's planned release of transcripts and audio recordings from Special Counsel Robert Hur's investigation of former President Biden, holding that: (1) the Privacy Act permitted APA review of the disclosure decision; (2) DOJ reasonably reversed its prior Exemptions 6 and 7(C) withholdings after further redactions; and (3) preliminary injunction was unwarranted because the public interest in understanding the basis for Hur's prosecutorial decision outweighed the remaining privacy interests in the records.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.