FOIA News: Stars and Stripes enlists help to make FOIA requests

Stars and Stripes can’t invoke FOIA, but it can get around that limitation

By Tobias Naegele, Stars and Stripes, June 23, 2016

A newspaper should inform, entertain and, most important, watch out for its readers. Investigative reporting is at the heart of every newspaper’s First Amendment responsibility and mission. It’s how newspapers act as watchdogs for the communities they serve, questioning and probing policymakers, agencies and institutions.

One of the core tools journalists use to do that is the Freedom of Information Act, a federal statute that obligates the government to open up its files to journalists and the public at large. The act is supposed to ensure government transparency and protect from disclosure only that information that poses a risk to national security or the privacy of individuals.

Known by its acronym, FOIA, the act is one of the most critical tools for any investigative journalist, providing legal recourse should access be denied and ensuring that, when a request is upheld by the courts, the government, and not the news media, must pay its legal fees.

Excluded

Yet one newspaper is excluded from FOIA under the law: Stars and Stripes. Indeed, it’s the only U.S.-focused news organization incapable of leveraging this powerful federal law.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued June 17, 2016

Soto v. U.S. Dep't of State (D.D.C.) -- holding that 8 U.S.C. § 1202(f), which permits the Department to withhold documents "pertaining to the issuance or refusal of visas," extends to records concerning the revocation of visas; therefore, the Department properly invoked Exemption 3 to withhold records pertaining to the revocation of a student visa.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.  

FOIA News: Investigative Reporters and Editors Hold Session on Suing for Documents Under FOIA

They want their public documents. They’re not taking no for an answer.

By Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post, June 21, 2016

I will grant you upfront that the Freedom of Information Act is not a sexy topic.

And yet, last weekend, in a New Orleans Marriott — where some 1,800 true believers got together for the Investigative Reporters and Editors confab — it was standing-room-only for a rather thrilling session on how to sue the government for the release of denied or long-delayed documents. (The short course: It costs only a couple of hundred dollars to open a lawsuit, and doing so has a tendency to focus the attention of foot-dragging public servants.)

The rock stars of public records were present and accounted for: Jason Leopold, a reporter for Vice News, whom a Justice Department lawyer called a member of a “FOIA posse” and who claims with pride that the FBI once referred to him as an “FOIA terrorist”; Sarah Cohen, who heads a data journalism team at the New York Times; Brandon Smith, the independent journalist who, through sheer doggedness, forced the city of Chicago to release the video of Laquan McDonald being killed by police; and Matt Topic, the Chicago lawyer who helped him do it.

Cohen got the crowd psyched up, urging them to stand up and shout, “I want my documents!” (Some added an adjective that cannot be printed here.)

But it was Leopold’s show.

“I sometimes fantasize about winning the lottery and suing the government forever,” he told the crowd.

Read more here.

Q&A: The eyes of Texas are upon you

Q.  I submitted a FOIA form to view a police dash-cam video regarding a traffic citation [in Texas].  I was told that I cannot see the video unless I plead guilty and pay the fine or if I go to trial.   Is this accurate?

A.  I suggest that you contact the Texas Attorney General's office in order to receive the most complete and accurate answer to your question.  The following opinion letter from that office concerning dash-cam video might also be instructive.  

FOIA News: Clinton email lawsuit on hold

Judge halts Clinton email lawsuit, for now

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, June 21, 2016

A federal judge has put on hold a lawsuit related to Hillary Clinton's private email server, rejecting both the Justice Department's bid to resolve the case in the government's favor and a conservative group's demand to force the State Department to turn over more information about the issue.

In staying the Freedom of Information Act suit Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton cited ongoing discovery in two other cases filed by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.  In one of those cases, several top aides to Clinton have given depositions or are scheduled to give depositions before the end of this month.

In the suit Walton halted Tuesday, Judicial Watch had sought details on why Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy and former State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh corresponded with Clinton at her private address, but apparently did not ensure her emails were searched in response to pending FOIA requests.

The judge didn't rule out allowing the group to inquire into that issue via written questions or depositions of State officials, but he said it appeared those questions were within the ambit of the fact-finding process already underway in other litigation.

Read more here.  

FOIA News: Watchdog group sues for documents from the Department of Energy

Watchdog group sues for documents from the Department of Energy

By David Kramer, Physics Today, June 21, 2016

A California advocacy group has filed suit against the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for alleged violations of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The watchdog group, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), says in a June 10 complaint filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California that the NNSA is up to four years overdue in delivering requested documents.

The information in question concerns experiments with plutonium at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a shipment of anthrax to the lab, and management of the lab’s aging high-risk facilities. Tri-Valley CAREs also alleges that the NNSA failed to provide information about a 2012 study on the construction of a proposed plutonium pit manufacturing facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The project, known as the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility, was formally canceled by DOE in February.

Read more here.

Q&A: Father's military service records

Q.  How do I find my father's military record, which includes information about him being a POW in Germany during WWII and serving in Korea?

A.  You can request your father's military service records from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Just follow these instructions from NARA's website.   

Court opinion issued June 16, 2016

Palmieri v. United States (D.D.C.) -- determining that: (1) the Office of Naval Intelligence failed to conduct an adequate search for records concerning plaintiff, a former contractor for the United States whose security clearance was revoked; (2) the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) did not sufficiently establish that it properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 3 and the Bank Secrecy Act; (3) the Department of State, Defense Security Service, and OPM conducted adequate searches; (4) the Naval Criminal Investigative Service properly withheld records pursuant to Privacy Act exemption (j)(2) and plaintiff failed to expressly challenge agency's FOIA exemptions.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Q&A: NCIS Chicago

Q.   Is there any information or warrant for [name and date of birth redacted] born in Chicago that pertains to the navy criminal investigation unit?

A.   To request records from the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), follow these instructions from the agency's website.  Please keep in mind that if you are not the subject of the request (unclear from submission), the NCIS is likely to refuse to confirm or deny the existence of any responsive records in order to protect the subject's privacy interests.  If you are requesting records about yourself and the NCIS is currently investigating you, the agency might withhold certain investigatory records under Exemption 7(A).  Alternatively, if the NCIS reasonably believes that (1) you are unaware of its investigation and (2) disclosing the existence of its investigation will cause harm, the agency would be permitted to invoke the (c)(1) exclusion and inform you that no investigatory records exist. 

Court opinion issued June 14, 2016

Pebble Ltd. v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency (D. Alaska) -- following in camera review of 145 documents, ordering agency to release, in whole or in part, twenty-three documents that had been withheld under the deliberative process privilege.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.