FOIA News: FBI releases surveillance video of Baltimore protests

FBI releases 'complete collection' of surveillance videos from Baltimore protests, unrest

By Kevin Rector, Baltimore Sun, Aug. 4, 2016

The FBI has released its "complete collection" of surveillance footage from several nights of protests and unrest after the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore last year.

The video, released after Freedom of Information Act requests were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and The Baltimore Sun, shows large crowds marching en masse through Baltimore's streets at certain points and breaking with a curfew in place at the time at others. At one point, it shows a large number of police squad cars milling around a small crowd of people. At another point, the streets below appear empty.

The quality of the video — hours and hours of it — varies. And as noted by the ACLU's Nathan Freed Wessler and Naomi Dwork on Thursday, "the magnification isn't enough to identify individual faces."

Read more here.

Court opinion issued August 2, 2016

N.Y. Times Co. v. U.S. Dep't of the Treasury (S.D.N.Y.) -- ruling that the Office of Foreign Assets Control properly withheld a memoranda as predecisional and deliberative under Exemption 5, but that the agency failed to show that it conducted an adequate search for the "governing legal protocol" that plaintiff had actually requested.  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

FOIA News: Ninth Circuit agrees to rehear FDA case

9th Circuit to reconsider case over FDA records request

By Jessica Dye, Reuters, Aug. 4, 2016

A federal appeals court on Wednesday agreed to rehear en banc an appeal from an animal welfare group over its request for unredacted egg-production and safety records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not elaborate on its reasons for granting the Animal Legal Defense Fund's petition for en banc review. But the panel's original April opinion had urged the full court to take up the case in order to determine what summary-judgment standard should apply to actions involving the Freedom of Information Act.

[A copy of the order is available here]

[A copy of the April 2016 opinion is here]

Court opinions issued July 29, 2016

Am. Immigration Lawyers Ass'n v. Exec. Office for Immigration Review (D.C. Cir.) -- reversing district court's decision that the agency may categorically withhold under Exemption 6 the names of all immigration judges who are the subject of misconduct complaints; reversing the district's decision that the agency may redact information as non-responsive from a document deemed responsive to request; affirming district court's decision that records documenting the resolution of misconduct complaints need not be affirmatively disclosed under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2)..

Pinson v. U.S. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) the Federal Bureau of Prisons properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold third-party information from "Special Administrative Measures," memoranda, but failed to prove that Exemptions 7(E) and 7(F) applied to those records; (2) BOP properly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold third-party information from memoranda concerning inmate deaths; and (3) BOP properly relied on Exemption 5 and 6 to withhold portions of memorandum describing unsuccessful nominee for BOP Director.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinion issued July 26, 2016

Gahagan v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs. (E.D. La.) -- finding that: (1) USCIS's revised Vaughn indices were not detailed enough to prove that Exemption 5 applied to four documents; (2) USCIS discharged its FOIA obligations with respect to remaining requested records, including properly invoking Exemptions 5 and 7(E), and; (3) plaintiff did not establish that USCIS should be held in civil contempt.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.  

FOIA News: DOJ loses Exemption 6 case in D.C. Circuit.

DOJ Can't Shield Names of All Immigration Judges Who Face Complaints, DC Circuit Rules

By Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal, July 29, 2016

The U.S. Department of Justice cannot indiscriminately keep secret the names of immigration judges who are the subject of misconduct complaints, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled on Friday.

The Justice Department redacted the names of immigration judges in 16,000 pages of documents produced in response to a public records request. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the

D.C. Circuit said DOJ must go back and weigh judges' privacy interests against the public's right to the information.

"Given the variety in types of complaints and circumstances of individual immigration judges, not every judge has the same privacy interests at stake and not every complaint would equally enlighten the public about 'what their government is up to,'" Judge Sri Srinivasan wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel.

Read more here.

Copy of opinion here.

FOIA News: Clinton resists deposition to ask who urged using private server

Clinton resists deposition to ask who urged using private server

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, July 29, 2016

Lawyers for Hillary Clinton say her recent comment that someone "recommended" she use a private email system while secretary of state is no reason to subject her to a sworn deposition in a pending federal lawsuit about State Department records.

Just hours after Clinton wrapped up her speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in Philadelphia, Clinton's legal team submitted an unexpected legal filing to a federal judge in Washington Friday morning, arguing that Clinton's statement in a televised interview aired Sunday does not bolster a conservative group's drive to depose her.

"Secretary Clinton’s recent statement is completely consistent with her many other statements on this topic," longtime Clinton lawyer David Kendall wrote in a pleading filed with U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan.

"It was recommended that it would be convenient, and I thought it would be. It’s turned out to be anything but," Clinton told Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" during a joint interview with new running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)

On Monday, the group pressing the Freedom of Information Act suit in front of Sullivan, Judicial Watch, sent Sullivan a transcript of the interview. The organization also argued that Clinton's statement was yet another indication that questions remain about why Clinton chose to use the private server located in the basement of her home rather than the State Department's official systems.

Read more here.

FOIA News: A FOIA Fish Story

Author Says FOIA Suit Yielded Results

By Barbara Wallace, Courthouse News Service, July 28, 2016

A federal lawsuit moved the U.S. Department of Commerce to hand over thousands of pages of withheld documents needed to write a book, the environmental activist and author said Thursday.   

Writer, fisherman and environmental activist Alan Stein sued the Commerce Department under the Freedom of Information and Administrative Procedures Acts in July 2015. He claimed the department and two of its agencies — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Office of the Inspector General — had stonewalled his requests for documents he needed for a book he was writing.

Last year, Stein told Courthouse News the planned book required materials from an investigation of Arnie Fuglvog, a former fishing vessel operator and fisheries official who spent time in prison for making false statements in fishing quota reports.

Read more here.

FOIA News: OGIS Issues Compliance Report on Secret Service

OGIS Releases Assessment of Secret Service FOIA Program

OGIS Blog, July 27, 2016 

Our compliance assessment includes observations and recommendations for the United States Secret Service’s FOIA program. (NARA identifier 6520033)

Today we are releasing a report on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) program at the United States Secret Service (USSS), the fifth in our series of assessments of FOIA programs at components of the Department of Homeland Security. Like other OGIS reports on agency FOIA program assessments, the report includes findings and recommendations about the USSS FOIA Program.

Read more here.

Q&A: Anticipation is keeping me waiting

Q.  What is the time frame to get a response after mailing my FOIA request?

A.  A federal agency has 10 days to acknowledge receipt of your request and 20 business days from the date of receipt to make a final determination.  If unusual circumstances exist, the agency may extend its response time for an additional 10 business days.  Additionally, an agency may toll the response deadline once if it needs to clarify your request or multiple times in order to resolve fee issues.