FOIA News: IRS Bonuses Subject Of FOIA Law Suit

IRS Bonuses Subject Of FOIA Law Suit

By Christopher Bergin, Forbes, June 29, 2015

For more than two years the IRS has played its old game of hide the ball regarding requests to release Lois Lerner’s e-mails — e-mails that would teach us a lot about what actually went on during the exempt organization scandal. Many of those requests came from the United States Congress: the elected officials who control the IRS budget. The IRS’s stalling tactics have run the gamut from eye-rollingly comical to downright disturbing.

Through this and and other worrisome developments, one thing is clear: the IRS is now in desperate trouble. Most of that trouble it created itself. It would be unfair to call them the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, because when it comes to shooting itself in the foot the IRS is an expert marksman. The IRS is an agency whose initial reaction to almost anything is secrecy.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Upcoming deadlines to apply for federal FOIA jobs

June 29, 2015

Dep't of Def., Wash. HQ Serv., Gov. Info. Specialist (current & former Fed. employees)

Dep't of Health & Human Serv., Nat'l Inst. of Health, Gov't Info Specialist (U.S. citizens)

Dep't of Health & Human Serv., Nat'l Inst. of Health, Gov't Info Specialist (status candidates)

July 1, 2015

Dep't of Labor, Wage & Hour Div., Gov. Info Specialist (current WHD employees)

Dep't of the Interior, Bureau of Safety & Envtl. Enforcement, Gov't Info. Specialist (U.S. citizens)

Dep't of the Interior, Bureau of Safety & Envtl. Enforcement, Gov't Info. Specialist (status candidates)

Dep't of Homeland Security, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, Paralegal Specialist (GS 9/11) (current ICE employees)

Dep't of Homeland Security, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, Paralegal Specialist (GS 11) (current ICE employees)

July 2, 2015

Dep't of Homeland Security, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, Gen. Attorney (U.S. citizens)

Dep't of Justice, Bureau of Prisons, Gov't Info. Specialist (BOP employees)

July 7, 2015

Dep't of Health & Human Serv., Substance Abuse and Mental Health Serv. Admin, Gov. Info Specialist (status candidates)

Dep't of Transp., Fed. Aviation Admin., Gov. Info. Specialist (current & former Fed. employees)

July 9, 2015

Dep't of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Serv., Senior Disclosure Specialist (current IRS employees)

July 10, 2015

Dep't of Homeland Security, Transp. Security Admin., Gov. Info Specialist (U.S. citizens)

July 15, 2015

Dep't of Veterans Affairs, Bd. of Veterans Appeals, Program Specialist (current VA employees)

Court opinions issued June 24-25, 2015

June 25, 2015

Bethea v. USDA (D.S.C.) -- adopting Magistrate's report and recommendation to require agency to conduct a further search.

June 24, 2015

Gahagan v. DOJ (E.D. La.) -- ruling that Immigration & Customs Enforcement failed to adequately explain why it searched only electronic files; that Executive Office for Immigration Review was required to search files that would "likely" contain responsive records, not where they would "most likely" be found; and that no particular format was required for government's Vaughn Index -- a declaration could suffice.          

Summaries of all cases since April 2015 are available here. 

FOIA News: Republican National Committee Files FOIA Request on Hillary Clinton Personnel Practices

Republican National Committee Files FOIA Request on Hillary Clinton Personnel Practices

By Billy House, Bloomberg, June 26, 2015

The Republican National Committee is pressing the State Department for information on whether former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her chief of staff at the department, Cheryl Mills, failed to disclose a special arrangement allowing Mills to hold outside jobs.

A Freedom of Information Act request the RNC sent to the department Friday demands a copy of all records related to Mills' "selection, approval, status, and/or classification of Mills" as a special government employee in 2009 and again in 2013. Coming on the heels of a disclosure that Clinton's release of business-related emails she sent on a private account was incomplete, the RNC's latest move underscores Republicans' determination to maintain a relentless focus on the Democratic presidential frontrunner's managerial practices.

Read more here.

FOIA News: House Votes To Improve DHS Terror Plans, FOIA Responses

House Votes To Improve DHS Terror Plans, FOIA Responses

By Daniel Wilson, Law360, June 25, 2015

Lawmakers voted 423-0 to pass H.R. 1615, the DHS FOIA Efficiency Act, and 420-2 on H.R. 2200, the CBRN Intelligence and Information Sharing Act, both of which had been debated on Tuesday but had final votes held over.

The FOIA Efficiency Act will require the agency to step up its game in how it responds to Freedom of Information Act requests, including through streamlining the FOIA process and making other efforts to cut down on its FOIA backlog, the largest of any federal agency, bill sponsor Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., claimed.

Read more here (subscription required). 

FOIA News: State Dept.: Hillary Clinton didn’t turn over all Libya emails

State Dept.: Hillary Clinton didn’t turn over all Libya emails

By Rachel Bade, Politico, June 25, 2015

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton withheld from the State Department several emails related to Libya, the State Department confirmed Thursday night — calling into question her insistence that she has handed over her complete public record.

The 2016 Democratic front-runner did not hand over 15 exchanges with longtime Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal on the security situation in the Middle Eastern nation. The existence of the new correspondence only came to light days ago after Republicans subpoenaed the former Clinton White House adviser’s records and he turned them over.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Here's how much it costs to fly Obama from Maryland to Miami and back

Here's how much it costs to fly Obama from Maryland to Miami and back

By Amanda Macias, Business Insider, June 25, 2015

America's "flying Oval Office" costs taxpayers $206,337 every hour it is in flight, according to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) letter obtained by the nonprofit Judicial Watch. 

And according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, the "most expensive-to-operate Air Force One to date," flew President Obama from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to Miami and back (a total of 4.2 hours) on Wednesday, April 22, for $866,615.40.

Read more here.

Judicial Watch documents here.

FOIA News: Animal rights groups weaponzie FOIA, report states

The National Association of Biomedical Research has released A Review of Animal Rights FOIA Requests FY14, a report that discusses the efforts of animal rights activists to gather intelligence about entities that they target.  

Court opinions issued June 22-23, 2015

June 23, 2015

Am. Immigration Lawyers Ass'n v. Exec. Office for Immigration Review (D.D.C) --  holding that agency was not required to process non-responsive information so long as it "'is clearly and without any doubt unrelated to the subject of the request'  and its redaction will not interfere with [plaintiff's] ability to understand or contextualize the responsive material; further holding that agency was permitted to raise exemption claims for material that it had previously withheld as non-responsive.

June 22, 2015

Ellis v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- determining that government properly withheld requested drug surveillance records under Exemption 5 (attorney-client privilege) and that it conducted an adequate search.

Summaries of all cases since April 2015 are available here. 

FOIA News: Ex-Im Official Deleted Text Messages After FOIA Request

Ex-Im Official Deleted Text Messages After FOIA Request

By Lachlan Markay, Washington Free Beacon, June 24, 2015

A top official at a controversial U.S. export finance agency deleted text messages sent within days of the 2014 midterm elections after a watchdog group filed an open records request for the messages, the agency admitted recently.

The watchdog group, Cause of Action, said the deletion amounts to “unlawful destruction of federal records” in a legal complaint filed on Wednesday.

The group filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Nov. 14 asking for text messages sent or received by top officials at the U.S. Export-Import Bank from Nov. 2 to Nov. 8.

Ex-Im responded months later, saying in a May reply that messages from Scott Schloegel, the chief of staff and senior vice president, “were accidentally deleted on approximately January 1, 2015,” more than a month after Cause of Action filed its FOIA request.

Read more here.