FOIA News: DOJ must release more Mueller report info, court rules

Judge orders DOJ to publish info redacted as privileged from Mueller report

By Harper Neidig, The Hill, Sept. 30, 2020

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to publish information redacted from the Mueller report that had been designated as privileged.

District Judge Reggie Walton said the Trump administration had failed to justify certain redactions from the report on the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The specific redactions he took issue with cover the decisionmaking process within former special counsel Robert Mueller's team over whether to charge certain people with crimes during the probe.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FCC withdraws 2nd Circuit appeal about net neutrality commentators

FCC Drops Appeal, Will Provide Data About Net Neutrality Commenters To New York Times

By Wendy Davis, Media Post, Sept. 29, 2020 

The Federal Communications Commission has withdrawn its appeal of an order requiring it to provide The New York Times with metadata about web users who who submitted comments to the agency during its 2017 net neutrality proceeding, which resulted in a rollback of the Obama-era rules.

The move brings an end to a lawsuit brought by the New York Times in 2018, when the newspaper sued the FCC for more information about users who weighed in on the proposed revocation of the agency's prior net neutrality rules. Those rules prohibited broadband providers from blocking or throttling traffic and from charging higher fees for fast-lane service.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Chief FOIA Officers Council's meeting on Oct. 14, 2020

The Chief Freedom of Information Act Officers Council will hold its annual meeting virtually on October 14, 2020, according to a notice issued in the Federal Register by the National Archives and Records Administration and the Department of Justice. The meeting is open to the public.

FOIA News: DOJ issues summary and assessment of Chief FOIA Officer reports

SUMMARY AND ASSESSMENT OF AGENCY 2020 CFO REPORTS ISSUED

DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Sept. 24, 2020

Today the Office of Information Policy (OIP) is pleased to release its summary and assessment of agencies’ 2020 Chief FOIA Officer (CFO) Reports.  As in prior years, OIP’s summary and assessment focuses on steps agencies have taken to improve FOIA administration in five key areas addressed in the Department's FOIA Guidelines:

• Applying a Presumption of Openness,

• Ensuring Agencies Have Effective Systems for Responding to Requests,

• Increasing Proactive Disclosures,

• Greater Utilization of Technology in FOIA Administration, and

• Improving Timeliness and Reducing Backlogs.

This past March marked the eleventh year that agency CFOs submitted these reports to the Department of Justice.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ issues guidelines for 2021 FOIA reports

NEW GUIDELINES ISSUED FOR 2021 AGENCY CHIEF FOIA OFFICER REPORTS

DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Sept. 24, 2020

Today the Office for Information Policy issued guidelines for the timing and content of agency 2021 Chief FOIA Officer Reports.  The FOIA requires agency Chief FOIA Officers to report to the Attorney General on their performance in implementing the law.  Accordingly, since 2009, the Department of Justice has directed agency Chief FOIA Officers to “review all aspects of their agencies’ FOIA administration” and to report annually to the Department of Justice on the efforts undertaken “to improve FOIA operations and facilitate information disclosure at their agencies.” 

Read more here.

FOIA News: Postal Service seeks to claw back FOIA-released documents

USPS Regrets Its Transparency, Asks FOIA Requester To Remove 1,200 Pages It Forgot To Withhold

from the please-double-check-your-work-for-accuracy dept

By Tim Cushing, Techdirect, Sept. 23, 2020

The government has fucked up and it thinks citizens are obligated to help it unfuck itself. We're not. Too bad.

Recently, government accountability nonprofit American Oversight obtained nearly 10,000 pages of memos and emails from the United States Postal Service. The documents dealt with the USPS's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike the USPS's effusive response to this FOIA request, the agency's response to complaints from employees about the danger they were facing was far more tepid.

These documents were shared with the Washington Post, which highlighted the Postal Service's scrapped plan to send every American five masks, as well as the internal turmoil that accompanied the spread of the coronavirus.

Apparently, the USPS had second thoughts about its FOIA response following this unflattering nationwide media coverage. It sent a letter to American Oversight asking it to take down every single one of the 10,000 pages it had given the organization.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Ginsburg, who died on Friday night at the age of 87, authored one Freedom of Information Act opinion during her twenty-seven years on the U.S. Supreme Court: Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880 (2008). A recap of that opinion is available from SCOTUSblog here. She ruled on countless FOIA cases as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1980 to 1993.

FOIA News: ICYMI, FOIA Litigation Trends

July 2020 FOIA Litigation with Five-Year Monthly Trends

By FOIA Project, Sept. 8, 2020

During the month of July 2020 federal district courts saw a total of 75 new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits filed under 5 U.S.C. 552. To place this number in perspective, 75 new filings compares with a monthly average of 66 filings during the last 12 months. This month’s total brought overall FOIA filings on an annual basis for these last 12 months to 797.

Read more here.

FOIA News: OGIS issues FOIA assessment of Nuclear Regulatory Commission

OGIS Publishes NRC FOIA Compliance Assessment Report

Office of Gov’t Info. Serv., Sept. 17, 2020 

OGIS’s latest agency compliance assessment delivers six findings and 10 recommendations for  improving FOIA compliance and administration at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates commercial nuclear power plants and other uses of nuclear materials, such as in nuclear medicine.

NRC requested that OGIS review its FOIA program as part of its efforts to improve it. OGIS assessments include an analysis of FOIA data; a review of written materials such as FOIA regulations, standard operating procedures, management reports, Chief FOIA Officer reports and agency FOIA case files; direct observations; and interviews with agency employees and officials with responsibility for FOIA administration. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: Federal Reserve revises FOIA regs

Following a public comment period last year, the Board of the Governors of the Federal Reserve System has issued a final rule updating its FOIA regulations, as well as the Board’s rules governing the disclosure of confidential supervisory information.