FOIA News: State Department belatedly finds 1,300 emails on Anwar Al-Awlaki

State Department belatedly finds 1,300 emails on Anwar Al-Awlaki

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, Dec. 11, 2015

The State Department has belatedly discovered about 1,300 emails relating to deceased Islamic cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki in official accounts belonging to top aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, more than four years after a conservative group requested all such records, a new court filing reports.

At a federal court hearing in Washington last month, Justice Department attorneys assigned to the case brought by Judicial Watch told a federal judge that State‘s “executive secretariat” — the repository of records for the secretary's office — was searched in response to the initial Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch.

In the new filing Thursday evening, the lawyers representing the State Department said the records of Clinton's former office were searched initially. The filing (posted here) is vague about whether any responsive records were found at that time. However, it says a batch of emails about Al-Awlaki — who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011 — turned up only during the follow-up search.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA variety show tonight in D.C.

Curtis Raye hosts "FOIA Love," a show about public records, tonight at Busboys & Poets.  Details here.

Court opinions issued Dec. 8 & 10, 2015

Dec. 10, 2015

Harmon v. U.S. Dep't of the Treasury (S.D. Ind.) -- dismissing case because plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies for any of his four requests to the Internal Revenue Service.

Dec. 8, 2015

AAR Airlift Grp. v. U.S. Transp. Command (D.D.C. 2015) -- remanding a reverse-FOIA case in which plaintiff seeks to prevent disclosure of line-item pricing from a contract between the parties.  The court found that the agency's determination was arbitrary and capricious because the agency misinterpreted plaintiff's administrative correspondence.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: An Update on OGIS's Work on the Use of “Still Interested” Letters

An Update: Our Work on the Use of “Still Interested” Letters

By Amy Bennett, OGIS, Dec. 11, 2015

The Compliance Team has reviewed available statistics on the use of these letters and launched an effort to gather information on how they are used by particular agencies. One of the difficulties with this work is that agencies report the use of these letters in a variety of ways and it can be hard to distinguish cases closed by the use of “still interested” letters from other administrative closures. While we originally hoped to complete our report before the end of the calendar year, the information collection process has taken longer than anticipated. We expect to release our report before the end of March.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FBI tests eFOIA portal, good government groups take issue with ID requirement

FBI tests eFOIA portal, good government groups take issue with ID requirement

By Chris Nehls, Fierce Government, Dec. 10, 2015

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is testing a new online form to streamline Freedom of Information Act requests for documents that it previously processed in paper format. While the bureau says the new electronic system will boost its efficiency, government watchdogs say added requirements may prove to be counterproductive.

Currently in beta testing, the FBI plans to implement a full rollout of its eFOIA web portal in several months. The new online process will give citizens an alternative to mailing, faxing or emailing requests for documents.

Users, however, will be required to attach an image of a government-issued form of identification and will be limited to one request per day.

Read more here.

FOIA News: In Lawsuit, Journalist Seeks Hillary Clinton’s Deleted Personal Emails

In Lawsuit, Journalist Seeks Hillary Clinton’s Deleted Personal Emails

By Byron Tau, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 8, 2015

A journalist has sued to gain access to emails recovered from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server, a cache that could include tens of thousands of personal notes that Mrs. Clinton said she had deleted.

In a new lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Vice News reporter Jason Leopold asks the Department of Justice to produce any material investigators have recovered from Mrs. Clinton’s private email server, which she turned over to the department in August.

The Department of Justice has been probing the Democratic presidential candidate’s email arrangement, with digital forensics experts attempting to recover emails deleted from the server. Officials say Mrs. Clinton is not the subject of the investigation, which is focused on the potential mishandling of classified information.

Mr. Leopold’s lawsuit seeks access to any recovered files, which could include the roughly 30,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton described as personal in nature and said she deleted rather than turn over to the State Department.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Groups demand information on Camp Lejeune disability claims

Groups demand information on Camp Lejeune disability claims

By Patricia Kime, Military Times, Dec. 7, 2015

The approval rate for disability claims filed with the Veterans Affairs Department for illnesses related to poisonous drinking water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, has dropped by two-thirds since VA implemented a third-party review process to provide medical opinions on related diagnoses.

The Camp Lejeune subject matter expert program requires a VA-appointed physician to review the medical files of former troops who lived on base from 1953 to 1987 and are seeking compensation for illnesses possibly related to drinking contaminated water there.

But since the program was introduced in 2012, claims approvals have dropped from 25 percent to 8 percent, prompting critics to question the independence and training of the VA's 22 to 30-some experts, whom the department has not identified.

Veterans advocacy groups, including Vietnam Veterans of America, the Connecticut State Council of the Vietnam Veterans of America and The Few, the Proud, the Forgotten, have filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records about the subject matter expert program, seeking information on the identities, training and education of those experts.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Appeals Court Hears Arguments Tomorrow on Blocked Chicken Info.

Appeals Court Hears Arguments Tomorrow on Blocked Chicken Info.

By Dan Flynn, Food Safety News, Dec. 8, 2015

When it comes to food safety transparency, how much company information can you pry out of government agencies by using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)?

On Wednesday, a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco will hear arguments on both sides of that question in a case on appeal since October 2013 and known as ALDF v. FDA.

The information sought by the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) dates back to 2010 when ALDF asked for certain FDA records from enforcement of the then-new Egg Rule in Texas.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Final Jeopardy! Clue on FOIA

On Jeopardy! last night (12/7/15), the Final Jeopardy! category was U.S. LEGISLATION. This was the clue:

The website for this ’60s act says “First look to see if the information you are interested in is already publicly available”

Answer:

Tonight's "Jeopardy!" was journalist-friendly, including a newspaper category and this final answer. #FOIA pic.twitter.com/elhow81KWj

— Andrew Knapp (@offlede) December 8, 2015

FOIA News: The CIA Won’t Reveal What’s in its Secret Art Collection

The CIA Won’t Reveal What’s in its Secret Art Collection

By Danny Lewis, Smithsonian Magazine, Dec. 7, 2015

There are 29 paintings hanging on the walls of the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. But as Portland artist Johanna Barron discovered first-hand, if you want to learn more about them than what's given in the pithy descriptions provided on the Agency’s website, you'll likely be out of luck. Barron filed several Freedom of Information Act requests to attain information about the paintings but got nowhere.

Instead of giving up, however, Barron turned frustration into inspiration. In a new exhibition in San Francisco, the artist tries to recreate the mysterious paintings from the tiny snippets of description she has pieced together from reams of research and denied requests. “I felt this increasing need to try to uncover details that seemed to be kept secret for no logical reason,” she tells Jessica Zack for SFGate.

Read more here.