On May 6, 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing entitled "Ensuring an Informed Citizenry: Examining the Administration’s Efforts to Improve Open Government." Witnesses include Melanie Pustay, DOJ; Nikki Gramian, NARA; Joyce Barr, State Dep't; Karen Kaiser, Associated Press; and Thomas Blanton, Nat'l Sec. Archive.
Official announcement here.
Q. I am trying to get the full details of a criminal case which took place in New York City last year. I was able to go to the courthouse and copy a limited amount of files, but I was unable to get the “Evidence” that the District Attorney brought forth against the Defendant. They said that was all back at the DA’s office. The people at the DA’s office were not helpful.
A. You may wish to submit a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to the District Attorney's office in question. Although D.A. offices are subject to FOIL, please note that certain records such as grand jury minutes, trial transcripts, and physical evidence are exempt. For further information about FOIL, you may wish to consult the web site of the New York Department of State's Committee on Open Government, which has issued FAQs about making FOIL requests, as well as advisory opinions categorized by topic (e.g., Court Records; District Attorney). For your convenience, here is the contact information for each District Attorney's office in New York City: Manhattan; Bronx; Brooklyn; Staten Island; and Queens.
W. Energy Alliance v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv. (10th Cir.) -- Ruling that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying WEA's motion for attorneys fees and costs. Although the district court found that the agency's reasons for delaying disclosure had no basis in law ("an internal processing error and an inopportune employee vacation"), that factor was outweighed by the district court's findings that the records benefitted WEA's dues-paying members, not the public -- findings that the Tenth Circuit held were not clearly erroneous.
Q. Where can I find the annual FOIA reports of the Office of Information Policy before 1998?
A. DOJ/OIP's Annual Reports from 1975 to 1997 were archived and are available online here.
Q. How do I obtain dates of entry into the United States?
A. Information regarding entry into the United States in or after 1982 is available from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). You may access the CPB's Freedom of Information Act web site here. Please note, however, that CPB is likely to deny any FOIA request concerning a third party without that person's written consent.
If you are a nonimmigrant alien and interested in obtaining evidence of your entry into the United States (I-94 Form), you may do so online here.
The National Archives and Records Administration maintains immigration records, more popularly known as "ship passenger arrival records," for various ports for the years 1800-1959. Click here for additional details.
I hope this information is helpful.
Profile: Stuart Delery, Acting Associate Attorney General
By Jay Clemens, ExecutiveGov, April 28th, 2015
Stuart Delery serves as the U.S. acting associate attorney general, with responsibility in helping the attorney general and the deputy attorney general to implement departmental policies and programs.
Delery leads the Justice Department‘s civil litigating and grant-making components, Office of Tribal Justice, Executive Office for U.S. Trustees, Office of Information Policy, Foreign Claims Settlement Commission and the Access to Justice Initiative.
He is also the government’s chief FOIA officer, vice chairman of the steering committee of the president’s financial fraud enforcement task force and previously served as co-chairman of various working groups within that task force.
Remainder of article here.
Mr. Delery's DOJ bio can be located here.
The U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services is ending its participation in FOIAonline as of May 1, 2015, according to an email sent today from USCIS to a FOIA requester (see below). FOIAonline allows individuals to submit FOIA requests electronically to participating agencies, track the status of requests, file appeals, and search for other people's requests, appeals, and responsive records.
Email from USCIS:
From: USCIS.FOIA@uscis.dhs.gov [USCIS.FOIA@uscis.dhs.gov]
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 12:56 PM
To: [redacted by FOIA Advisor]
Subject: FOIA Online pilot project to end
04/27/2015 12:55 PM
FOIA Request: USCIS-2015--[redacted by FOIA Advisor]
The FOIA Online pilot project will end May 1 and you will no longer be able to file FOIA requests at this site. We wish to thank you for your participation in the pilot. In the future when inquiring about this specific FOIA Online request please use the file number [redacted by FOIA Advisor].
Please email your future FOIA requests to uscis.foia@uscis.dhs.gov or fax to (816) 350-5785. You may also submit your requests by mail to the FOIA/PA Officer at the National Records Center, P.O. Box 648010, Lee’s Summit, Mo. 64064-8010. We will respond to your FOIA/PA request by mail.064-8010. We will respond to your FOIA/PA request by mail.
Federal government fails basic FOIA test
By Scott Martelle, L.A. Times, April 27, 2015
You’d think that if you were going to get a timely and adequate response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the federal government, it would be from the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy, which oversees the government’s compliance with FOIA requests.
But if you thought that, you’d be wrong.
And remember, this isn't government information - it's the American public's information.-
According to the FOIA Project, operated by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the Office of Information Policy was one of 10 agencies that failed to adequately respond to a basic FOIA request, a remarkable failure rate -- that’s nearly half of the 21 agencies queried. Only seven of the agencies fully complied in a timely manner.
Read more here.
Farm Group Asks Appeals Court To Reverse Ruling on EPA Release
By DTN/Progressive Farmer, April 25, 2015
Two agriculture interest groups continue to press EPA to stop releasing farmers’ personal information by asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to overturn a ruling by a federal district court in Minnesota.
The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council filed a 68-page appeal Friday. The groups said in the appeal that the release of personal information of concentrated animal feeding operation owners and other farmers to environmental groups in 2013 was “unlawful.” The groups ask the Eighth Circuit Court to reverse the lower court’s decision.
The Minnesota federal district court ruled that because some of the information had been posted online by state agencies, EPA was free to publicly release the same information under the Freedom of Information Act.
According to the brief filed Friday, the ag groups argue there is no “merit to the (district court’s) suggestion that citizens lack a privacy interest in information that appears on the Internet. That theory is one that might appeal to George Orwell, but it is not one that has a basis in law or common sense.”
Remainder of article here.
Read brief here.
Freedom Watch v. Nat'l Sec. Agency (D.C. Cir.) -- Affirming Glomar responses of NSA, CIA, and Dep't of Defense in connection with requests for records about New York Times article discussing U.S. cyber-attack on Iran; remanding case to the district court to oversee the State Department's processing of former Secretary Clinton's privately-maintained emails for records responsive to Freedom Watch's request.
The court held that Freedom Watch was precluded from challenging the Exemption 1 Glomar responses of NSA and CIA because it had not challenged them at the administrative stage. The court found DoD's Glomar response to be proper on the merits; it accorded "substantial weight" to DoD's judgment that acknowledging existence or non-existence of records would "'cause damage to national security by providing insight into DoD's military and intelligence capabilities and interests.'" With respect to the State Department, the court held that Freedom Watch forfeited objections to the agency's search and the withholding of a press briefing memo by failing to assert those objections at district court level. The court further held that district court had not abused its broad discretion in denying Freedom Watch's request for discovery, which was not supported by evidence of agency bad faith. The court accepted the government's suggestion to remand the case to permit State Department to process former Secretary Clinton's emails, as well as to supplement the record concerning its search for documents maintained by the Executive Secretariat. The court reminded the agency that regardless of its plans to release the emails to the public, it had an obligation under FOIA to produce responsive records "'in the shortest amount time.'"
Related article from The Hill here.
See complete case list for April 2015 here.