Court opinions issued May 29, 2020

Cvijanovich v. U.S. Secret Serv. (8th Cir.) (unpublished) -- summarily affirming district court’s decision granting summary judgment to agency concerning plaintiff’s request for records about himself.

NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund. v. DOJ (S.D.N.Y.) -- finding that agency failed to demonstrate that it performed reasonable search for records concerning proposed inclusion of citizenship status question on 2020 decennial census.

Sai v. TSA (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, concluding that: (1) agency demonstrated that it properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 3 and 5 (deliberative process privilege); (2) agency failed to demonstrate that it searched all reasonable locations or employed reasonable search terms and proper time frame; (3) agency was not required to organize records into discrete PDF files,but that agency failed to show how it would be unduly burdensome to create “irreversible redactions within fully digital, non-rasterized PDFs” outside of FOIAExpress program that agency typically used.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinion issued May 27, 2020

Am. Immigration Council v. ICE (D.D.C.) -- concluding that: (1) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S Customs & Border Patrol improperly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold full birth dates of apprehended individuals, because agencies failed to show that disclosure of birth month and year of anonymous individuals could be used to identify them; (2) ICE did not perform adequate search for unique identifiers of apprehended individuals, and CBP improperly withheld unique identifiers pursuant to Exemption 7(E); (3) CBP properly relied on Exemption 7(E) to withhold locations where individuals were apprehended; and (4) ICE was not required to create a codebook or glossary of the terms and acronyms contained in responsive spreadsheets, but it was required to search for definitions within agency databases.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinions issued May 26, 2020

Citizens for Responsibility in Wash. v. DOJ (D.D.C) -- ruling that: (1) Office of Information Policy performed adequate search for records concerning a 2017 meeting with reporters to share private text messages sent during 2016 presidential campaign by two former FBI investigators on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team; and (2) OIP and Office of Inspector General properly withheld as “non-responsive” individual emails and texts from whole threads because conversations veered into unrelated topics, rejecting plaintiff’s argument that FOIA defines a “record” by the manner in which it is maintained by the agency.

Glawson v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- determining that EOUSA performed reasonable search for certain grand jury records pertaining to plaintiff’s criminal prosecution in 2008.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinion issued May 25, 2020

Shem-Tov v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) Interpol, U.S. National Central Bureau and the Department of Homeland Security performed adequate searches for records concerning their assistance to Israel’s criminal prosecution of plaintiff; (2) USNCB and DHS properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 7(C) and 7(E), but that government’s evidence and briefing was too sparse with respect to Exemption 7(D).

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinion issued May 21, 2020

Statton v. Fla. Fed. Judicial Nominating Comm’n (11th Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that the Florida Federal Judicial Nominating Commission, which was created by two U.S. Senators from Florida, was not a federal agency subject to FOIA.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinions issued May 20, 2020

Rodriguez v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- granting government’s unopposed summary judgment motion after concluding that FBI performed adequate search for records concerning plaintiff’s criminal case and that it properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 3, 5, 6, 7(A), 7(C), 7(D), 7(E), and 7(F).

Rutila v. DOT (N.D. Tex.) -- accepting findings and recommendations of magistrate judge that FAA performed adequate search and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinions issued May 19, 2020

Citizens United v. U.S Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- concluding that with the exception of relatively minor redactions on two documents, State Department justified its withholdings to Christopher Steele-related documents pursuant to Exemptions 1 and 3.

White v. DOJ (S.D. Ill.) -- determining that: (1) plaintiff failed to reasonably describe requests sent to FBI, ATF, and U.S. Marshals Service for records relating to white supremacist groups; (2) FBI performed adequate search for records concerning other white supremacist groups or was reasonably producing records at rate of 500 pages monthly; (3) FBI, ATF, and USMS properly refused to confirm or deny existence of records concerning third-party individuals; (4) USMS was processing or had already processed records concerning plaintiff despite initial delay and court would not retain jurisdiction over claim; and (5) BOP performed adequate searches for records concerning plaintiff and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5, 6, 7(C), 7(E), and 7(F).

Hutchins v, EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- finding that EOUSA performed adequate search for grand jury records pertaining to plaintiff’s drug conspiracy conviction in 1996.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinions issued May 18, 2020

Doyle v. DHS (2nd Cir. 2020) -- affirming district court’s decision that that visitor logs for White House and President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home are not “agency records” of the U.S. Secret Service, relying on D.C. Circuit’s 2013 opinion in Judicial Watch v. U.S. Secret Service.

District of Columbia v, ICE (D.D.C.) -- ruling that ICE properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to redact personal identifying information from records generated by agency’s arrest of twelve individuals in July 2018.

LaVictor v. Trump (D.D.C.) -- dismissing claims against three DOJ components because plaintiff offered no evidence that he had submitted requests, and dismissing claim against Federal Bureau of Prisons because plaintiff failed to appeal from agency’s 2016 adverse determination.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinion issued May 14, 2020

Bloche v. DOD (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, which plaintiffs did not dispute, ruling that: (1) Department of the Army properly relied on deliberative process and attorney-client privileges to withhold records concerning involvement of medical professionals in designing interrogation tactics; (2) Defense Intelligence Agency properly relied on Exemptions 1, 3, and/or 5 to withhold summary of trip taken to assess interrogation operations at Guantanamo Bay; and (3) Joint Task Force Guantanamo properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 7(E).

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinion issued May 11, 2020

Reyes v. U.S. Dep’t of the Interior (S.D. Cal.) -- concluding that: (1) Bureau of Indian Affairs performed adequate search for tribal membership and genealogy records concerning deceased family member; (2) agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold records concerning its processing of plaintiff’s FOIA request; and (3) plaintiff arguably asserted “policy-and-practice” claim, but neither party moved for summary judgment on that issue.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.