FOIA News: Obituary published honoring transparency leader Diana Fuentes

Remembering Diana R. Fuentes

Michael Morisy, Muck Rock (Mar. 23, 2026)

The journalism and transparency communities lost a true leader and friend with the passing of Diana R. Fuentes, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. IRE shared that she passed suddenly this past Friday.

She was an inspiring presence, representing not just IRE but the power of a free press and an informed public. She consistently championed the right to know, the right to report and the need for newsrooms to better reflect their communities. She brought her energy and optimism to bear on strengthening and expanding the community of journalists, as well as helping make sure that the next generation had access to the resources, training and support they need to do their work ethically and effectively.

Over the years, her thoughtfulness and enthusiasm touched MuckRock’s staff and community in many ways, whether in spearheading new training opportunities or connecting with journalists around the country to help tackle critical transparency challenges. Shortly before her death, Fuentes joined us at Sunshine Fest, moderating a panel that shared insights from veteran reporters on how to make the most of public records laws.

Our thoughts are with Fuentes’ family, colleagues and the many people she has inspired through an incredible career.

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Read the original post here.

IRS’s original press release can be found here.

FOIA News: ICYMI, Ninth Circuit hears arguments on USS Liberty report

The USS Liberty FOIA Lawsuit and the Fight Over a Secret 1967 Report

By Haley Fuller, Military.com, Mar. 21, 2026

Nearly six decades after Israeli forces attacked the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty during the Six-Day War, a lawsuit is attempting to force the release of a still-secret congressional report about the incident. The case, brought by journalist Michelle Kinnucan under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeks records that could shed light on what the U.S. government knew about the June 8, 1967, attack on the Liberty that killed 34 American sailors and wounded approximately 174 others.

Oral arguments in the case were held on March 9 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where judges heard arguments over whether the report is a congressional record exempt from FOIA or an agency record subject to public disclosure.

Read more here.

FOIA News: OPM withdraws 2008 proposed regulation

The Office of Personnel Management has withdrawn a proposed rule issued in July 2008 to amend its FOIA regulations, according to a notice issued today in the Federal Register. OPM plans to revise its FOIA regulations “in the near future to align with modern capabilities for submission and processing of FOIA requests.”

FOIA News: DOGE seeks to dodge FOIA discovery

Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Halt DOGE Inquiry

By Zoe Tillman, Bloomberg News, Mar. 23, 2026

The Trump administration asked the US Supreme Court to block a government watchdog group from questioning a senior official and obtaining internal records about the Department of Government Efficiency project once led by Elon Musk.

The March 18 request by the Justice Department is part of a long-running legal fight with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is seeking to uncover information about DOGE’s efforts last year to drastically cut federal spending and fire thousands of government workers.

The justices intervened in the same case last year in favor of the administration, halting CREW’s fact-finding push. But the case was sent back to a federal appeals court, which allowed CREW’s requests for documents and testimony to proceed after the liberal-leaning organization narrowed some of its lines of inquiry.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Staffing woes worsened FOIA delays, per agency reports

‘Significant’ staff cuts drive rising FOIA backlogs

The latest reports from agency chief FOIA officers illustrate how the Trump administration's workforce cuts drove another increase in FOIA backlogs.

By Justin Doubleday, Fed. News Network, Mar. 20, 2026

The Trump administration’s workforce cuts and an ever-increasing number of Freedom of Information Act requests have deepened challenges for already strained federal offices charged with overseeing FOIA processing.

Annual FOIA reports and related chief FOIA officer reports, released by the Justice Department in recent weeks, offer insights into an unprecedented year for federal FOIA offices. While governmentwide FOIA backlogs have been on the rise for years, the workforce reductions in 2025 compounded existing challenges facing FOIA offices, the reports show.

Most FOIA offices are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence and other automation technologies to streamline the FOIA process and make up for staffing gaps. But many of those efforts are early in development and have largely failed, so far, to make much of a dent in rising backlogs.

At the Defense Department, the FOIA backlog rose by 42% to more than 30,000 cases across the department by the end of fiscal 2025. A FOIA request is backlogged when an agency fails to respond within the statutory timeframe of 20 working days.

DoD’s chief FOIA officer attributed the increase in backlogs to “loss of staff, increases in the number of incoming requests, to include complexity of those requests, and litigation.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ announces recipients of FOIA awards with eyebrow-raising commentary

On March 20, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Information Policy announced the recipients of its 2026 Sunshine Week FOIA Awards, recognizing federal employees and teams for their work administering the Freedom of Information Act. The awards were presented in three categories: Exceptional Service by a FOIA Professional or Team, Exceptional Advancements in Information Technology to Improve FOIA Administration, and the Lifetime Service Award.

Associate Attorney General and Chief FOIA Officer Stanley E. Woodward declared that the current Department of Justice is the “most transparent . . . in our nation’s history.” OIP Director Sean Glendening attributed FOIA workload challenges in part to “a small group of frequent requesters” who submit complex requests.

FOIA News: This and that

• OGIS Publishes Four New Ombuds Observers Clarifying FOIA Terms of Art, FOIA Ombuds

• 6 FOIA tips to boost your reporting, Nat’l Press Club

• The FOIA: Off to a slow start, picked up speed, now hitting a brick wall, Thomas Susman

• Kalshi and Polymarket Targeted by Journalists, Law. St. Media

• People are requesting more government records than ever. Why are they getting less?, Anna Massoglia

FOIA News: Sunshine Week in full swing; FOIA info remains in the dark

As of 9:59am this morning, six departments still have not published their annual FOIA reports for fiscal year 2025: Agriculture; Health & Human Services; Homeland Security; Justice, Treasury; and Veterans Affairs. The reports were required to be posted on March 1, 2026. Additionally, nine departments apparently missed yesterday’s deadline to publish Chief FOIA Officer Reports.

Perhaps the new director of DOJ’s Office of Information Policy, Sean Glendening, will explain the delays—at least for DOJ—when he makes an appearance today at Sunshine Fest, a conference organized by University of Florida’s Brechner Freedom of Information Project, MuckRock, and the National Freedom of Information Coalition. No federal agency is planning to host a public Sunshine Week event this year. DOJ reportedly will bestow FOIA awards to federal FOIA professionals this week, but details have not been announced on DOJ’s website.

[ERRATA: The event at which OIP’s director will appear will take place after “Sunshine Fest” on Wednesday, March 18, 2026. See details here.]

FOIA News: FOIA fails—2026 edition

The Foilies 2026

Recognizing the Worst in Government Transparency 

By Dave Maass, Aaron Mackey, and Beryl Lipton, Elec. Frontier Found., Mar. 15, 2026

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Established in 2015, The Foilies are an annual project by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock to recognize the agencies, officials and contractors that thwart the public's right to know. We give out these tongue-in-cheek "awards" during Sunshine Week (March 15-21), a collective effort by media and advocacy organizations to highlight the importance of open government.  

This year, we've got a few "winners" whose behavior defies belief. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: Staff shortages delayed FOIA access last year, reports WaPo

Did Trump cuts slow access to public records? We found 26 cases that say yes.

Lawyers’ pleas for extensions reveal post-DOGE staffing woes at federal agencies’ Freedom of Information Act offices.

By Nate Jones, Wash. Post, Mar. 14, 2026

“Hello, the FOIA office has been placed on admin leave and is unable to respond to any emails.”

This was how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention responded by email this past spring to a Freedom of Information Act request for records about the risk of catching measles in areas with low vaccination rates.

The public health institute’s FOIA office had lost too many staff members to fulfill public record requests — falling victim to President Donald Trump’s executive order to eliminate “waste, bloat, and insularity” in the federal government by significantly reducing its workforce.

As hundreds of thousands of federal employees were fired or chose to leave the government last year, FOIA requesters — myself included — wondered: Would these personnel reductions further undermine the federal government’s already strained ability to follow federal law and disclose public records when requested under FOIA?

The answer, we now know, is a resounding yes. Attorneys for at least 13 agencies and departments have explicitly stated in 26 FOIA lawsuits that the downsizings were the reasons for failures to meet FOIA deadlines, according to a Washington Post review of 339 active FOIA lawsuits.

Read more here.