According to a Federal Register notice published today, the Securities & Exchange Commission has adopted amendments to its FOIA regulations "to allow the Commission to collect fees that reflect its actual costs, add an appeals time frame . . . and clarify other issues in the regulations." The effective date of the amended regulations is August 14, 2015.
Q. Where can I find Freedom of Information Act form for the State of New York? I downloaded a form from the NY Attorney General's office, but it does not appear to be the one I want. Simply, I need incorporation information for a business in New York.
A. The State of New York does not require the use of any particular form in order to make a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. You may write a standard letter, To obtain information about a New York corporation, you might wish to navigate the web site of the New York Department of State, which has a searchable business database: http://www.dos.ny.gov/corps/bus_entity_search.html. If the information you seek is not included in that database, then a FOIL request to the Department of State would be a reasonable next step.
Am. Civil Liberties Union of N. Cal. v. Dep't of Justice (N.D. Cal.) -- following up on its decision of June 17, 2015, the court held that the Criminal Division could not withhold a "'description and guidance on how cell site simulators and related technologies are utilized and implemented by law enforcement,'" nor "a form designed for the purpose of identifying an unknown phone . . . being used/carried by a known individual."
Summaries of all cases since April 2015 are available here.
By Jesse Byrnes, The Hill, July 13, 2015
Clintons ordered to answer questions in private email lawsuit
Bill and Hillary Clinton have been ordered to answer questions later this month in a lawsuit over their use of a private email server, according to court documents filed by the conservative Freedom Watch group.
Hillary Clinton, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, will give her deposition on July 28 in Washington, D.C., and former President Bill Clinton will be deposed there the following day, according to the documents.
The civil suit, filed in March in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges that Hillary Clinton failed to produce documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding State Department waivers for those doing business with Iran, potentially undermining U.S. sanctions.
Read more here.
Ryan v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- determining that FBI conducted an adequate search of its Central Records System, but that it did not explain whether search of Electronic Sureveillence Indices includes variations of plaintiff's name.
Agility Pub. Warehousing Co. v. Nat'l Sec. Agency (D.D.C.) -- ruling that NSA properly refused to confirm or deny existence of records of plaintiff's telephone communications pursuant to Exemptions 1 and 3, and that agency performed reasonable search for other requested records.
Summaries of all cases since April 2015 are available here.
Q. To which agency should I submit a FOIA request to get my grandfather's immigration information?
A. If your grandfather arrived in the United States before 1983, you might wish to contact the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which maintains records of ship arrivals to the United States from foreign ports between approximately 1820 and 1982. If you are interested in Alien Files ("A-Files"), which were first created in the early 1940s, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) transfers those files to NARA 100 years after the immigrant's date of birth.
FOIA reform: A bit too much transparency for journalists?
By Erik Wemple, Washington Post, July 10, 2015
From The Washington Post’s Lisa Rein comes news that the federal government is launching a six-month pilot program with seven agencies to post online documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “So if a journalist, nonprofit group or corporation asks for the records, what they see, the public also will see,” writes Rein.
Participating agencies are the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Millennium Challenge Corporation and certain parts of the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, the Justice Department and the National Archives and Records Administration.
The policy even has a pithy title — “release to one is release to all.”
Read more here.
Today, the Federal Register published a notice of a proposed FOIA fee schedule from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board that would increase hourly search rates from $83.00 per hour to $85.00 per hour. The proposed fees are reproduced below. Public comments may be submitted by August 10, 2015, by mail or hand delivery to the Office of the General Counsel, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, 625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite 700, Washington D.C. 20004-2901.
Proposed fee schedule
Search or Review Charge: $85.00 per hour.
Copy Charge (paper): $.05 per page, if done in-house, or generally available commercial rate (approximately $.10 per page).
Electronic Media: $5.00 per electronic media.
Copy Charge (audio and video cassette): Actual commercial rates.
Duplication of DVD: $25.00 for each individual DVD; $16.50 for each duplicate DVD.
Copy Charge for large documents (e.g., maps, diagrams): Actual commercial rates.
In case you missed it, the Administration recently launched pilot programs at seven agencies "to test the feasibility of publishing online the records released to individual requesters under the FOIA. These pilots will explore ways to increase government transparency and give citizens more information about government decisions and policies."
The pilot programs will take place at the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, as well as within components of the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and National Archives and Records Administration.
Read more here.
Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Serv. (D.D.C.) -- finding that IRS conducted an adequate search in response to plaintiff's request for any records concerning the selection of individuals for audit based on information contained in section 501(c)(4) tax exempt applications.
Summaries of all cases since April 2015 are available here.