FOIA News: Donations needed to publish CIA records

This Guy Wants $10K to Scan CIA Docs and Put Them Online

By Stephanie Mlot & Chloe Albanesius, PC, Feb. 12, 2016

Thanks to the Snowden data dump and other hacks, classified data is readily available on the Internet. But oddly, millions of pages of officially declassified CIA documents are only accessible from a small room in Maryland. A new Kickstarter campaign wants to put that data online.

Michael Best needs $10,000 to scan the Central Intelligence Agency's declassified vault and upload it to the Internet Archive. "There are over 10 million pages of CIA documents that have never seen the light of day. It's time to change that," he said.

At the National Archives (NARA) facility in College Park, Md. sits a database with more than 700,000 files and millions pages of declassified CIA intel, known as the CIA Records Search Tool (CREST). But the only way to peruse it is to visit the facility and search via four available computers.

The plan, Best said, is simple: "Scan and upload as much as possible for everyone to access—for free."

Which is where you come in: Backers who pledge $1 or more get to help choose what gets digitized first after Best prints, scans, and processes the millions of pages. The documents will be uploaded to the Internet Archive, where anyone can peruse them online, or download them as a PDF or EPUB file for some light reading.

To get there, though, Best needs $10,000 for a scanner, 13-inch MacBook Air $1,199.00 at Amazon, office supplies, and rewards. He's currently raised about $7,500 with 18 days to go.

Will the CIA and National Archives allow it? As Best points out, those who visit the College Park facility can print out as much as they want. But it's unlikely that anyone has ever tried to print out the entire archive. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: State Dep't to release additonal Clinton emails this weekend

State Dept to release 550 Clinton emails over Presidents' Day weekend

By Julian Hattem,The Hill, Feb. 10, 2016

The State Department will release 550 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private sever this weekend, under pressure from a federal judge who earlier this week appeared visibly annoyed at its delayed efforts.

In a court filing late on Wednesday night, State Department official Eric Stein told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that department staffers have made “significant progress” on preparing the emails for release. 

As a result, the department will now be able to release the roughly 550 emails — which represent roughly 14 percent of the 3,700 remaining Clinton emails — on Saturday, in the middle of the three-day Presidents' Day weekend. The department had previously said that it could not release the emails until late next week.

Releasing the emails on Saturday “provides time to address any additional problems that may arise,” Stein wrote, “as have occurred in the past at this final stage in the process.”

The Obama administration is already more than a week behind schedule on the emails, which were all supposed to have been released by Jan. 29.

But last month, in a surprise announcement shortly ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the State Department said that the last of Clinton’s emails would not be made public until the end of February. 

Before Judge Rudolph Contreras on Tuesday, the administration said that it could not even release a fraction of those emails until at least next Thursday. In Stein’s filing late on Wednesday, however, he claimed that the State Department had brought on “additional resources” that have helped it speed up the process.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Feb. 9, 2016

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- concluding that the FBI conducted an adequate search for records pertaining to its use of drones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and that the agency properly withheld information pursuant to Exemptions 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7(E).

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

Court opinion issued Feb. 8, 2016

Davis v. U.S. Dep't of the Air Force (D. Mont.) -- granting agency's unopposed motion for summary judgment in case in which agency withheld records of espionage investigation pursuant to Exemptions 1 and 7(E); declining to enter a finding that the agency's espionage investigation was "groundless."  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

Court opinions issued Feb. 5, 2016

Conservation Force v. Jewell (D.D.C.) -- ruling that plaintiff was ineligible for attorneys' fees because it did not obtain court-ordered relief on the merits of its FOIA claims or receive relief from the agency that it would not have obtained but for the lawsuit.  In reaching its decision, the court held that ordering an agency to prepare a Vaughn Index does not constitute judicial relief.    

Bloomgarden v. U.S. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- determining that the Executive Office for United States Attorneys properly relied on Exemption 6 (but not Exemption 7(C)) to withhold disciplinary records concerning the Assistant United States Attorney who had been removed from plaintiff's criminal case in 1995.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

Court opinions issued Feb. 3 & Feb. 4, 2016

Feb. 4, 2016

Elec. Privacy Info. Ctr. v. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- finding that the government's declarations were too broad in scope for court to make a determination about the information withheld from records concerning a now-expired national security program. 

Feb. 3, 2016

San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Auth. v. U.S. Dep't of the Interior (E.D. Cal.) -- rejecting plaintiff's argument that the government had waived its ability to withhold any requested records pertaining to the subject matter of a final agency opinion that had been released in full.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

Q&A: receipt of federal funds and FOIA

Q.  Is a HUD-subsidized community required to follow FOIA guidelines?

A.  Municipal entities are not subject to the federal FOIA; the receipt of federal funds is irrelevant.  See, e.g., Hammerlord v. City of San Diego, No. 11-1564, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157740, at *16 (S.D. Cal. Nov. 2, 2012) (finding that housing commission not subject to FOIA notwithstanding receipt of federal funds).

FOIA News: Citizens United looks for coordination between Dems, feds on Clinton probe

Citizens United looks for coordination between Dems, feds on Clinton probe

By Julian Hattem, The Hill, Feb. 4, 2016

The conservative political organization Citizens United on Thursday demanded the federal government hand over any documents showing that State Department officials discussed the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server with Democrats.

The organization filed a pair of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests asking the State Department to give up any records showing that officials referenced the ongoing investigation or the department’s internal watchdog with top congressional Democrats or Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

“Citizens United wants to know if congressional Democrats are acting as defense attorneys for Hillary Clinton by seeking to politicize and undermine the State Department Inspector General’s investigation,” group President David Bossie said in a statement to The Hill. “Similarly, we want to know if Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is inappropriately communicating with Democrat political appointees at the State Department about the status of the State Department Inspector General’s investigation.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: Why won't the CIA reveal what's in its art collection?

Why won't the CIA reveal what's in its art collection?

By Matthew Ponsford, CNN, Feb. 5, 2016

The CIA's fortress headquarters in Langley, Virginia is home to more than few surprises, like a branch of Starbucks where the baristas definitely don't ask names, and a museum of spying you'll never set foot in.

And those are just the details they're authorized to talk about.

Langley is the nerve center of an espionage empire with a budget in the billions. Its classified headcount of intelligence operatives are tasked with, among other things, sabotaging ISIS and waging cyber warfare -- so it is understandable that the agency is a little tight-lipped.

But few know that the HQ's halls play host to one of the world's most enigmatic art galleries.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Feb. 2, 2016

Judicial Watch v. U.S. Dep't of Def. (D.D.C.) -- ruling that the agency properly relied on the deliberative process privilege to redact a memorandum relating to transfer five Guantanamo Bay detainees to the state of Qatar in exchange for the return of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.  In reaching its decision, the court rejected plaintiff's argument that the agency had adopted, incorporated, or relied upon the memorandum so as to lose the protection of the privilege.  

Polk v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation (N.D. Cal.) -- denying plaintiff's motion under Rule 60(b) of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for relief from decision granting summary judgment to agency.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.