FOIA News: Webinar for immigration FOIAs

The National Immigration Litigation Alliance will host a panel discussion on August 20, 2025, on how to file, appeal, and litigate immigration-related requests for records maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. See details here.

FOIA News: How Private Detectives Use FOIA

FOIAengine Tracks Three Private Eyes on the Trail of Short-Seller Culper Research

By John Jenkins, Law St. Media, Aug. 6, 2025

Brian Willingham is a licensed private investigator in New York, ID# 1000149418.  He runs an investigative agency called Diligentia Group.  The company’s motto is “We Find Evidence That Normal People Can’t.”  

* * *

Apart from sharing a furtive line of work, all three detectives have something else in common:  They are using the federal Freedom of Information Act to conduct counter-surveillance on behalf of anonymous clients.

The use of FOIA proxy requesters is common and well known.  We first bumped into the above three investigators a few weeks ago, while researching our story about the activist short-seller Christian Lamarco; his firm, Culper Research; and the mysterious “Jeff Bourland.”  (See “Some Research Into Short-Seller Culper Research.”)   

Read more here.

FOIA News: Tips for lowering FOIA fees

5 Tips for Slashing FOIA Costs (Including How One Reporter Lowered a Records Request Fee from $2,800 to Just $29)

By Rowan Philp, Global Investigative Journalism Network, Aug. 5, 2025

Reporters in many countries with freedom of information access (FOI) laws sometimes receive massive fee quotes from government agencies to retrieve, duplicate, redact, or export extensive public records they’ve requested.

“Emphasize that you don’t want to over-burden them… If something takes less time for them, it means less cost for you.” — Sharon Lurye, Associated Press data journalist 

But it turns out that, with a little research and negotiation, reporters can sometimes slash the cost of obtaining records bundles and speed up the government’s response in the process.

Experts say that reporters should not automatically accept large fees quoted by FOI officers, and should remember that these officials are typically concerned with their estimated time burden, and not the cost figure. Also, keep in mind that reducing the cost of your request by reducing their time burden will likely shorten the time until you receive the files you want.

Read more here.

FOIA News: The Freedom of Information Act and Deteriorating Federal Transparency Infrastructure

The Freedom of Information Act and Deteriorating Federal Transparency Infrastructure

By Amanda Teuscher, Just Security, Aug. 4, 2025

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — the nation’s primary legal tool for accessing public records — is under increasing pressure. The longstanding need for meaningful FOIA reform, including increased resources and improved practices, has been overtaken by a wave of structural rollbacks that the United States has not seen before. As I show below, good government and pro-transparency organizations like American Oversight, the nonpartisan non-profit where I work, as well as investigators and political reporters, have been documenting a rise in denials, delays, and office closures, along with an uptick in other problematic practices. Combined with a pattern of disregard for disclosure and record-keeping requirements, these developments threaten to hollow out a core pillar of government accountability – and to weaken one of the public’s most effective checks on corruption. In this way, FOIA is not simply a tool for transparency. It is a mechanism for accountability, and one that has long helped expose corrupt actions, government misconduct and waste, and undue influence while providing crucial evidence for those seeking to hold power to account. Its weakening does not merely impair public knowledge; it also reduces the likelihood that abuses will be detected, investigated, or deterred. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: Bernard Bell on FOIA and “First Party” Disclosure Requests

FOIA and “First Party” Disclosure Requests:  Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs v. DOJ

By Bernard Bell, Yale J. on Reg., Notice & Comment, Aug. 4, 2025

In Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs v. DOJ, Dkt. No. 24-5127, ─ F.4th ─,  2025 WL 2088557 (D.C. Cir. July 27, 2025), the D.C. Circuit waded into the issues of records disclosure in response to first-party FOIA requests.  Plaintiff Lawyers’ Committee represents various individual incarcerated in the federal prison system.  According to the complaint filed in the case, the Lawyers’ Committee “routinely represents individuals incarcerated in the BOP [Bureau of Prisons] in cases to uphold their civil and constitutional rights.” ¶2.  Timely access to “individual clients’ records” as well as “BOP-wide data related to compliance with the civil and constitutional rights” of the imprisoned is crucial to such an endeavor.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Recent report rehashes well-known FOIA stats

The Freedom of Information Act Is Failing Due to Government Bloat

In FY 2024, over 200,000 Freedom of Information Act requests were backlogged, according to the Government Accountability Office.

By Sophia Mandt, Reason, July 29, 2025

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a landmark law to increase government accountability, is falling short in its aim to improve transparency with American citizens, according to a recent report from Open the Books. FOIA gives the public the freedom to request government records from federal agencies, with the exception of certain information involving the White House, congressional records, confidential financial information, national security matters, and law enforcement records. In recent years, government-caused inefficiency has increased wait times for FOIA requests, which "have become so long they undercut the accountability FOIA is meant to provide," per Open the Books.   

See more here.

N.B. The Department of Justice published government-wide FOIA metrics for FY 2024 in mid-March.

FOIA News: Yale journal discusses D.C. Circuit decision

FOIA and Classification Procedures: Project For Privacy And Surveillance Accountability v. DOJ

By Bernard Bell, Yale J. on Reg., Notice & Comment, July 24, 2025

On July 18, a D.C. Circuit panel decided that an agency could invoke Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) Exemption 1 (the national security exemption), even though it had not met some of the procedural requirements related to classification set forth in Executive Order 13,526.  Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability v. Department of Justice, slip op. (D.C. Cir. July 18, 2025). Essentially, the panel distinguished some of the Executive Order’s procedural requirements from others ─ some must precede a proper classification, others governed agency obligations only after a document has been properly classified. The Court also made two other points of interest to those who follow FOIA.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Call for FOIA research proposals

Call for proposals: FOIA at 60 – Imagining the future of information access

Univ. of Florida, Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Info. Proj., July 22, 2025

The Journal of Civic Information is launching a Research Competition and Special Issue to mark the upcoming 60th anniversary of FOIA. Scholars, journalists, practitioners, advocates, and students are invited to submit innovative proposals exploring the future of access to public information and what transparency, accountability, and civic information should look like 60 years from now. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: OGIS Annual Open Meeting tomorrow

The Office of Government Information Services will hold its annual public meeting on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, from 11am to noon. Registration information, presentation slides, and a livestream link for this virtual meeting are available here.

FOIA News: FBI's request portal is up and running

The FBI’s electronic FOIA request system eFOIPA is now operational after an outage of several days. Happy requesting.