Upcoming USCIS Webinar
Office of Gov’t Info. Serv., July 3, 2019
Thinking about FOIA beyond its 53rd birthday on July 4th? Interested in how to submit and track FOIA and Privacy Act requests and receive documents digitally from U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)? The agency will demonstrate the system and answer the public’s questions during an hour-long webinar at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday July 9th.
Read more here.
Top State Department Record-Keeper Says He Warned Clinton Team on Emails
By Mark Tapscott, Epoch Times, July 2, 2019
Former Department of State Director of Information Programs and Services (IPS) John Hackett warned key Hillary Clinton aides about their failure to preserve official business emails on her private server, Judicial Watch announced Tuesday.
“Well, we heard that there were 50,000 or 60,000 emails, and that they had—‘they’ being the secretary’s team—had culled out 30,000 of these,” Hackett told Judicial Watch during a recent deposition.
The non-profit government watchdog made the Hackett deposition public Tuesday. Clinton was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 and used a private email system throughout her tenure to conduct official diplomatic business.
Read more here.
National Archives Needs Better Handle on Agency Electronic Records, Says Watchdog
Challenges come from outdated technology, uncertain inventory of agencies.
By Charles S. Clark, Gov’t Exec., July 1, 2019
The government’s full-time archivists need to up their game in performing the 21st-century task of preserving the increasing portion of federal agency records that exist only in electronic form, a watchdog found.
Though the National Archives and Records Administration has made progress in strengthening and modernizing its handling of important agency documents, “permanent electronic records are still at a significant risk of loss and destruction,” according to a June report from the agency’s inspector general.
Read more here.
EPA's Response to Society of Environmental Journalists
This week several media outlets misrepresented EPA's new FOIA regulation, and were forced to correct their misreporting. This new regulation brings the Agency into compliance with the Congressional amendments to FOIA from 2007, 2009, and 2016. Congress provided all federal departments and agencies until the end of 2016 to update their FOIA regulations. The Obama administration failed to meet this deadline.
Yesterday, the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), whose mission states that they strive to "strengthen the quality" of environmental journalism, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler which included numerous inaccuracies that were regurgitated from false articles. Below is EPA's response to the SEJ, signed by EPA career officials.
BELOW IS THE LETTER IN FULL:
Dear Director Parker:
On behalf of the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, we write in response to your letter dated, June 26, 2019. Together we manage the Agency’s National Freedom of Information Act Office, which advises the Agency on legal issues pertaining to FOIA requests, coordination, and project management. Additionally, we are the two career attorneys tasked with providing the recommendations to update the Agency’s FOIA regulations.
This week EPA finalized an updated FOIA regulation that brings the Agency into compliance with a series of Congressional amendments. Unfortunately, a series of false and misleading claims have relayed inaccurate information to the public about this updated regulation. The Agency believes it is important to address these significant misrepresentations and emphasize that the update to the Agency’s FOIA regulation in no way expands or increases the authority of political officials in the FOIA process. The Agency’s updated regulation does not grant political officials’ additional authority to review or withhold FOIA documents, their authority will remain consistent with the authority granted to them under the past regulation.
Read the full response here.
How business interests shaped US public records law: Q&A with Jeannine Relly
By Clark Merrefield, Journalist Resource June 28, 2019
* * *
Journalists use FOIA to tell stories about government dealings that otherwise might be shut away forever. But obtaining information through FOIA can get tricky in practice, especially when government business and private industry interests overlap, which they often do.
We talked recently with Jeannine Relly, an associate professor at the University of Arizona School of Journalism, about how business interests have shaped FOIA amendments since the act was passed in 1966. Relly has extensively studied international right-to-know trends in journalism. In 2016 Government Information Quarterly published her paper, “How Business Lobby Networks Shaped the U.S. Freedom of Information Act: An Examination of 60 Years of Congressional Testimony,” written with Carol Schwalbe, director of the UA School of Journalism.
Read the entire article here.
Senator Chuck Grassley gave a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday in which he emphasised the importance of the Freedom of Information Act, noting the the recent SCOTUS decision undermined transparency. A video of his remarks are available here; his related tweet from Wednesday is below:
USCIS Expands FIRST: A Fully Digital FOIA System
Release Date: June 25, 2019
WASHINGTON— USCIS is announcing the expansion of its digital Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Immigration Records System (FIRST). FIRST is the only system in the U.S. government that allows users to submit and track FOIA requests and receive documents digitally. This process will save time, improve efficiency, and reduce potential errors that can occur with manually handling paper.
Starting today, FOIA requestors with a USCIS online account can submit requests online for their own records. Soon, they will be able to submit online requests for non-A-File material (policies, communications, etc.) Later this year, USCIS online account holders can make requests on behalf of another person.
Read more here.
Advocate Dedicated to Uncovering Government Secrets Is Fired for Sex Harassment
Robert Freeman, a nationally known force for government transparency, engaged in “unwanted physical contact” with a female reporter earlier this year.
By Jesse McKinley, N.Y. Times, June 25, 2019
For more than four decades, Robert J. Freeman was a champion of government transparency in New York.
As the executive director of the Committee on Open Government, he helped offer access to records that the state might have otherwise been happy to shield. But a state investigation revealed he had kept secrets of his own.
On Monday, he was fired after the inquiry showed he had sexually harassed a female reporter and engaged in other inappropriate sexual behavior using his state-owned computer.
Read more here.
[ALB comment: The FOIL godfather foils his career and legacy. Sad.]
By Miranda Green, The Hill, June 25, 2019
More political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could soon have the authority to weigh in on public information requests.
The rule is expected to be published in the Federal Register as early as Wednesday and will not allow for a public comment period.
According to the new language in the FOIA rule signed by EPA chief Andrew Wheeler last week, the administrator and other officials would be allowed to review all materials that fit a FOIA request criteria, known as responsive documents, and then decide “whether to release or withhold a record or a portion of a record on the basis of responsiveness or under one or more exemptions under the FOIA, and to issue ‘no records’ responses.”
Read more here.
[Note: An early version of this story mischaracterized the scope of the new rule and misstated some of the authorities that come with it.]
SUPREME COURT ISSUES DECISION ON EXEMPTION 4 OF THE FOIA
Today the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Food Mktg. Inst. v. Argus Leader Media, 139 S. Ct. 915 (2019), which examines the definition of the term confidential for applying Exemption 4 of the FOIA. The Court’s decision overturns the definition of confidential established over forty years ago in Nat’l Parks & Conservation Ass'n v. Morton, 498 F.2d 765 (D.C. Cir. 1974). The Court’s opinion can be found here.
As with all significant FOIA developments, OIP will issue guidance and provide training on the impact of this decision. Please be sure to continue following us on FOIA Post for announcements on when guidance is issued and training opportunities are offered. In the meantime, agencies are always welcome to seek advice through OIP’s FOIA Counselor Service.
Read more here.