FOIA News: Dep't of the Interior issues final FOIA regs

After considering public comments, the Department of the Interior has issued final revisions to its FOIA regulations. These revisions, which are set forth in today's Federal Register, will go into effect on April 4, 2016.  

Court opinion issued Feb. 29, 2016

Navigators Ins. Co. v. Dep't of Justice (D. Conn.) -- concluding that a supplemental declaration filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut established that the agency conducted a reasonable search.  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: DOE, FERC leaders used personal emails for business

DOE, FERC leaders used personal emails for business

By Corbin Hiar and Kevin Bogardus, E&E Publishing, Feb. 29, 2016

The revelation last March that Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton exclusively used a personal email server while leading the State Department sparked trouble for her campaign and the Obama administration.

Clinton's email server has since been found to contain emails that should have been marked as classified or top secret, providing political fodder for her Republican opponents. Other administration officials -- from Defense Secretary Ash Carter to Lois Lerner, the embattled former IRS director of tax-exempt organizations -- have also been caught using private email for work purposes.

Yet a Greenwire survey of two dozen environment and energy agency leaders found that the problem is even more widespread than previously reported. A fifth of those officials -- including Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz -- have used private email accounts for work communication, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and agency responses to reporters' queries.

The survey also showed Moniz and other top administration officials have not one but two government email accounts, which agency representatives say are necessary to limit communication with the public and reduce the risk of cyberattacks.

Read more here.

FOIA News: An Activist Wrote a Script to FOIA the Files of 7,000 Dead FBI Officials

An Activist Wrote a Script to FOIA the Files of 7,000 Dead FBI Officials

By Joseph Cox, Motherboard, March 1, 2016

One of the best times to file a Freedom of Information request with the FBI is when someone dies; after that, any files that the agency holds on them can be requested. Asking for FBI files on the deceased is therefore pretty popular, with documents released on Steve Jobs, Malcolm X and even the Insane Clown Posse.

One activist is turning this back onto the FBI itself, by requesting files on nearly 7,000 dead FBI employees en masse, and releasing a script that allows anyone else to do the same.

“At the very least, it'll be like having an extensive ‘Who's Who in the FBI’ to consult, without worrying that anyone in there is still alive and might face retaliation for being in law enforcement,” Michael Best told Motherboard in an online chat. “For some folks, they'll probably show allegations of wrongdoing while others probably highlight some of the FBI's best and brightest.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: State Dep't releasing last batch of Clinton emails

Final Clinton emails coming today

By Julian Hattem, The Hill, Feb. 29, 2016

The State Department will release the final batch of Hillary Clinton’s emails on Monday, some 10 months after the process began.

The release comes just ahead of 11 “Super Tuesday” contests, which Clinton hopes will propel her to a commanding lead over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential race.

Clinton’s campaign has tried to shake off the email controversy, but the monthly releases have fueled fresh headlines about her exclusive use of a private email account while serving as secretary of State.

With the releases now nearing an end, Republicans have seized on the fact that more than 1,800 emails from her machine were eventually classified. 

“What we’ve learned in this discovery is that Hillary Clinton trafficked in sensitive information over her unclassified — and, by the way, private — email system,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the former head of the House Oversight Committee, told The Hill on Friday. 

Clinton’s presidential campaign and the State Department have both disputed that the emails were classified at the time they were sent. Much of the information in them was classified retroactively, they say.

But the drips and drabs of information from various emails have carried the whiff of wrongdoing for Clinton.

One 2011 email released in January, for instance, seemed to show that Clinton ordered an aide to remove classification markings from a list of talking points and send it through a “nonsecure” channel.

Clinton subsequently insisted that no classified information was sent through unsecure means, but Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released a statement calling the disclosure “disturbing.” 

The State Department began releasing the roughly 55,000 pages of Clinton’s emails in May, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from Vice News journalist Jason Leopold.

On a monthly basis since then, the department released thousands of pages of emails for public review.

Read more here.  

Court opinions issued Fed. 24-25, 2016

Feb. 25, 2016

Pair v. Soc. Sec. Admin. (D. Md.) -- dismissing plaintiff's suit seeking records concerning a nine-digit alphanumeric code on the back of his Social Security card, because the agency averred that no responsive records existed.   According to SSA, the number is merely a control number used by the vendor who provides the cards to SSA to prevent fraud and counterfeiting; it has no public use.    

Henderson v. Office of the Dir. of Nat'l Intelligence (D.D.C.) -- holding that ODNI and the Office of Personnel Management properly relied upon Exemption 7(E) to redact certain information from their jointly issued "Federal Investigative Standards," which sets forth the standards for security and suitability background investigations of federal employees.

Feb. 24, 2016

Muchnick v. Dep't of Homeland Sec. (N.D. Cal.) -- finding that agency's Vaughn Index and declaration were not descriptive enough to justify withholding records concerning George Gibney, a former Olympic swim coach charged with sexual abuse.  

 Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: Fee estimate of $660 million likely highest in FOIA history

The Pentagon's $660 million FOIA fee

Secretary of Defense estimates that scouring contract data would take "15 million labor hours"

By J. Pat Brown, MUCKROCK, Feb. 26, 2016

For the last year, MuckRock user Martin Peck has been using FOIA to preform tech audits at various federal agencies, asking for counts of various devices - such as radios - that they might possess. It was his request that led to the DEA disclosing that they had two KingFish cell site simulators.

Peck was looking something only a little less controversial than cellphone trackers when he hit his biggest snag. Back in September, Peck asked the Office of the Secretary of Defense for the number of its HotPlug devices - used in computer seizures to keep the device powered on and preserve the data - they had purchased or were in use. This week, they finally got back to him, and boy did they have something to say:

Read more here.

FOIA News: State Department releases more Clinton emails

Feds release more Clinton emails on eve of South Carolina primary

By Julian Hattem, The Hill, Feb. 26, 2016

The State Department on Friday released 881 new emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server, a day before Democrats in South Carolina head to the polls.

The new release brings the total number of classified emails on the former secretary of State’s machine up to more than 1,800.

The vast majority of those classified emails were listed at the lowest level, that of “confidential,” but nearly two dozen were classified as “secret” and another 22 were deemed “top secret” — the highest level of classification.

Those top secret emails were deemed too dangerous to release to the public, even in a redacted form.

None of the 88 classified emails in Friday’s dump were classified at the time they were sent, a State Department official said. 

Friday’s release is the second-to-last from the State Department, which has been laboring to make Clinton’s emails public since last May.

Under the terms of a court order earlier this month, the department will need to publish the very last of the roughly 35,000 supposedly work-related emails on Monday. 

Federal officials planned to work through the weekend to reach that goal, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said earlier in the day.

“We’re still reviewing them – a lot of them, frankly,” Toner told reporters at the State Department. “Going to be working hard through the weekend.”

On Saturday, Clinton’s presidential campaign is hoping to cement its front-runner status with a strong showing in South Carolina, where polls show her with a significant lead over rival Sen.Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Sanders has repeatedly refused to attack Clinton over her emails, but Republicans have been less kind.

FOIA News: While US Attorney General, Eric Holder Used Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Birth Name as His Official Email Address

While US Attorney General, Eric Holder Used Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Birth Name as His Official Email Address

By Jason Leopold, Vice News, Feb. 25, 2016

Former US Attorney General Eric Holder is a huge fan of NBA hall of famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

So much so that Holder used Abdul-Jabbar's birth name, Lew Alcindor, as an alias in his official Department of Justice (DOJ) email account, raising more questions about the email practices of top Obama administration officials, and about the ability of US government agencies to track down correspondence in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

The Lew Alcindor revelation was made in a February 16 letter that DOJ sent to VICE News and Ryan Shapiro, a historian and doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in national security research. 

"For your information," the letter said, "e-mails in the enclosed documents which use the account name 'Lew Alcindor' denote e-mails to or from former Attorney General Holder."

Read more here.

FOIA News: The TSA Releases Data on Air Marshal Misconduct, 7 Years After We Asked

The TSA Releases Data on Air Marshal Misconduct, 7 Years After We Asked

By Michael Grabell, Pro Publica, Feb. 24, 2016

Seven and a half years ago, as a new reporter here, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all reports of misconduct by federal air marshals.

It had been several years since the U.S. government rapidly expanded its force of undercover agents trained to intervene in hijackings after 9/11. And a source within the agency told me that a number of air marshals had recently been arrested or gotten in trouble for hiring prostitutes on missions overseas.

I knew the FOIA request would take a while — perhaps a few months — but I figured I’d have the records in time for my first ProPublica project.

Instead, I heard nothing but crickets from the Transportation Security Administration.

Finally, last Wednesday, an email popped into my inbox with the data I had been fighting for since my fourth day at ProPublica.

Read more here.