FOIA News: Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General criticizes FOIA plaintiffs (updated)

Claire McCusker Murray, DOJ’s Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General, criticized certain requesters at Thursday morning’s Sunshine Week event hosted by the Office of Information Policy, Her full remarks are here. Politico reporter Josh Gerstein tweeted the following:

FOIA News: DOJ to kick off Sunshine Week

The Department of Justice will celebrate Sunshine Week on Thursday, March 12 from 10m to noon in the Great Hall of Main Justice. This event will include a keynote by the Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General of the United States, as well as the Department’s annual Sunshine Week FOIA Awards Ceremony.

FOIA data for fiscal year 2019 released last week indicated that DOJ’s backlog increased 46 percent from FY 2018 (from 17,411 requests to 25,558 requests), much of which was attributed to the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

FOIA News: DHS releases FOIA backlog reduction plan

Today the U.S. Department of Homeland Security posted a Departmental FOIA Backlog Reduction Plan: 2020 - 2023, which includes “five goals that lay out a sustainable course for containing and reducing the age of the backlog in the short-term, and sustainably lowering the size of the backlog over the next three to five years.” DHS receives more FOIA requests annually than any other federal agency. The department’s backlog at the end of FY 2019 was 31,454 requests, down from 53,971 at the end of FY 2018.

FOIA News: D.C. Circuit unconvinced that prison security video may be withheld in full

Court Orders Bureau Of Prisons To Quit Being Such A Noob And Hand Over Those Cat Videos

Or get a teenager to help!

By Elizabeth Dye, Above the Law, Mar. 10, 2020

If middle schoolers can ‘shop cats ‘n’ shit into their TikToks, then the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) can work out how to redact a video of an inmate getting stabbed in the dining hall. So holdeth Judge David Sentelle, writing for a unanimous panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C.

See more here.

FOIA News: More on Judge Walton

Judge’s slap at AG William Barr was shameful politicking

By Josh Hammer, NY Post, Mar. 9, 2020

In 2017, as President Trump took office, anti-Trump activists vented rage with pussy hats and other leftist agitprop. But the real work of the #Resistance has been carried out by holdover bureaucrats in the executive branch — and activist judges roaming far beyond their constitutional remit. Witness a senior federal district judge’s unhinged, disingenuous broadside last week against Attorney General William Barr.

Judge Reggie Walton was confronted with a straightforward Freedom of Information Act complaint, a relatively common type of litigation. In this case, the plaintiffs sought an unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian “collusion” released last spring.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Change of speakers at NARA's Sunshine Week event

Today the Office of Government Information Services announced that Senior U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth and his biographer had canceled their plans to attend NARA’s Sunshine Week event on March 16th. In their stead, NARA has invited Judge Lamberth’s colleague Judge Reggie Walton, who recently was in the news for issuing a decision in which he assailed the credibility of U.S. Attorney General Bar and the career attorneys of the Department of Justice with respect to Special Counsel’s Mueller report. More details about the event are available here.

FOIA News: FOIA delay does not empower court to extend regulatory comment period

Judge: FOIA delay “incomprehensible,” but not a reason to keep open comment period

S. Envtl. Law Ctr., Mar. 9, 2020

A federal judge today told government attorneys that a lengthy delay in producing public documents to SELC was “incomprehensible” and “somewhat outrageous,” but also told attorneys he did not have the authority to order the government to extend the public comment period over changes proposed to the National Environmental Policy Act.

Read more here.

FOIA News: NARA cancels FOIA forum on Mar. 12

The National Archives and Records Administration has canceled the March 12th Multi-Agency Forum: Using FOIA to Access Intelligence Community Records due to “circumstances beyond [its] control.” Additional information is available here.

FOIA News: Eight Senators Weigh in on FOIA Case Seeking Release of Auto Tariff Report

Toomey Leading Bipartisan Amicus Brief Supporting Lawsuit Seeking Release of Commerce Department’s 32 Auto Report

Office of Senator Pat Toomey, Mar. 7, 2020

U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) has filed an amicus brief in federal district court in support of the Cause of Action Institute's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking to compel the U.S. Department of Commerce to follow federal law and release its Section 232 "national security" report on imported automobiles.

Joining Senator Toomey in submitting this amicus brief are Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). The brief is also signed by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and Mark Warner (D-Va.). Senators Toomey and Warner are the lead authors of a bipartisan bill to reform Section 232.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ defends Mueller report redactions

DOJ responds after judge slams AG Barr over Mueller report

By Louis Casiano, Fox News, Mar. 6, 2020

The Justice Department on Friday said that the federal judge who ordered a review of the unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report made a series of assertions that "were contrary to the facts" when he expressed doubts about Attorney General William Barr's objectivity.

“Yesterday afternoon, a district court issued an order on the narrow legal question of whether it should review the unredacted special counsel’s confidential report to confirm the report had been appropriately redacted under the Freedom of Information Act," DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. "In the course of deciding that it would review the unredacted report, the court made a series of assertions about public statements the attorney general made nearly a year ago. The court’s assertions were contrary to the facts."

Read more here.