Below is a summary of the notable FOIA court decisions and news from last month, as well as a look ahead to FOIA events in February.
Court decisions
We identified and posted 12 decisions in the month of January. Of note, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held in Human Rights Def. Ctr v. U.S. Park Police that a district court had no inherent judicial authority to prevent a FOIA requester from disclosing, disseminating, or making use of Exemption 6-protected information that the agency inadvertently released. In reaching its decision, the D.C. Circuit acknowledged but gave no weight to a 2022 Tenth Circuit ruling that affirmed a district court’s “clawback” order. The D.C. Circuit expressed no opinion as to whether a court may claw back inadvertently released documents that are “subject to any independent legal prohibition on disclosure such as applies to classified documents”; it also declined to consider appellant’s argument that the district court’s order violated the First Amendment.
In a less significant (but arguably more entertaining) decision, a court in the Northern District of Illinois rebuked the U.S. Immigration for Customs Enforcement for redacting information from a publicly filed document readily available on a public docket. The court pulled no punches in its opinion, stating that the redactions were “egregious,” “ludicrous” “preposterous,” and a “blatant misuse of exemptions” that “defies comprehension” and “screams of bad faith.” See Stevens v. HHS (N.D. Ill.).
Top news
FOIA reading rooms went offline at several agencies, including OSTP, OMB, CEQ, following President Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025.
A White House-ordered hiring freeze has significantly reduced the number of available government FOIA jobs.
The sponsors of Sunshine Week announced an in-person FOIA conference on March 19-20.
DOJ/OIP posted two ”updated” sections of the FOIA Guide: Exemption 4 and Reverse FOIA.
February calendar
Feb. 4: D.C. Circuit hears argument in Hettena v. CIA, No. 24-5110, a case in which appellant disputes the agency’s redactions to a 2005 OIG report about the death of a suspected Iraqi terrorist at Abu Ghraib prison.
Feb. 5: DOJ/OIP’s virtual Advanced Freedom of Information Act Training for government employees and contractors.
Feb. 7: Deadline for agencies receiving 50 requests or less in fiscal year 2023 that choose to report to submit their Chief FOIA Officer Report to OIP.
Feb. 12: D.C. Circuit hears argument in Am. First Legal Found. v. Dellinger, 24-5168, which raises the issue of whether 5 U.S.C. § 1216(c) compels the Office of Special Counsel to investigate any allegation of an arbitrary and capricious withholding of records under FOIA.