FOIA News: State Department to release Clinton emails recovered by FBI

State Department to turn over emails recovered from Clinton server

By Laura Koran, CNN, Aug. 15, 2016

The State Department has agreed to provide the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch with all official emails sent or received by Hillary Clinton that were recovered from her private email server by the FBI investigation.

The agreement was announced in a court filing and State Department Director of Press Relations Elizabeth Trudeau confirmed the decision in a statement to CNN. The State Department's attorneys will provide a proposed production schedule next week.

The State Department has not said whether it will release these emails to the public, as it did with the nearly 55,000 pages of work-related emails Clinton provided last year.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Aug. 11, 2016

Rodriguez v. U.S. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- finding that the supplemental declaration filed by the Executive Office for United States Attorneys demonstrated that the agency conducted a reasonable search for certain grand jury information concerning plaintiff's criminal case in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinions issued Aug. 10. 2016

Va.-Pilot Media Cos. v. Dep't of Justice (E.D. Va.) -- awarding plaintiff $100,000 in attorneys' fees and costs, reducing the requested amount by $27,857.50 for excessive time spent on the fee petition, unreasonably hourly rates for certain support staff, and time spent on administrative proceedings.  

McAtee v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec. (D. Mont.) -- deciding that the Executive Office of United States Attorneys properly withheld various grand jury information pursuant to Exemption 3.

Pinson v. U.S. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- concluding that the Bureau of Prisons properly relied upon Exemptions 7(E) and 7(F) to withheld in full records about third-party inmates even though they had signed release authorizations; further finding that BOP failed to adequately search for public comments to certain proposed agency regulations, but that it adequately searched for records responsive to plaintiff's remaining requests.  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

FOIA News: BAE Systems seeks to intervene in State Dep't FOIA suit

BAE Systems moves to enter State Department FOIA fight

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, Aug. 11, 2016

Two large defense contracting firms are seeking to enter a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit where the Associated Press is demanding details on a settlement the State Department reached with one of the companies over export control violations.

BAE Systems plc, a British company, and BAE Systems Inc., its U.S.-based affiliate, filed motions in federal court in Washington Thursday asking to intervene in the case.

The companies, successor firms to the former British Aerospace, told U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon that they're concerned the case could lead to the release of confidential information about the companies and could discourage businesses from entering into settlement talks in similar cases

Read more here.

Q&A: hip hip, HIPAA!

Q.  I am researching water-related deaths (for example, swimming, boating, falling or being swept into lake), and I want to get information about the sobriety of the victims.  What I am looking for is whether they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they died.  I have been denied a FOIA [in Michigan] when I asked for toxicological results in writing.  Also, I have been told verbally that HIPAA laws would prevent release of such information.  

A. The HIPAA Privacy Rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) generally provides that the health information of deceased individuals is protected from disclosure for 50 years.  The following HHS guidance explains how the Privacy Rule works.  Further, HHS guidance indicates that unless state law mandates the disclosure of the information you seek, a state agency covered by HIPAA would be required to protect it in response to a freedom of information request. 

FOIA News: Email shows Mills was told of key Clinton FOIA request

Email shows Mills was told of key Clinton FOIA request

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, August 10, 2016

A newly-released email message shows that Hillary Clinton's State Department Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills was alerted within days in December 2012 when a liberal watchdog group requested records describing all the email accounts used by Clinton.

Six months later, State sent a letter to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington saying no records could be found. A State Department inspector general report issued in January described the episode as part of a pattern of "inaccurate and incomplete responses" to FOIA requests.

The incident is noteworthy because had State's response been more thorough, Clinton's exclusive use of a private email server as Secretary of State could have been exposed years before it became public in March 2015.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Aug. 8, 2016

Andrus v. U.S. Dep't of Energy (D. Idaho) -- ruling that: (1) plaintiff, the former Governor of Idaho, failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to one of his five requests concerning the disposal of nuclear waste; (2) agency failed to adequately explain its Exemption 5 withholdings and ordering it to submit documents for in camera review; (3) plaintiff properly challenged agency's decision under Administrative Procedure Act because DOE failed to follow a regulation that requires release of documents if in "public interest" notwithstanding the applicability of FOIA exemptions.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

FOIA News: National Reconnaissance Office Redacts Paper That Was Public Four Years Ago

National Reconnaissance Office Redacts Paper That Was Public Four Years Ago

By Matt Novak, Gizmodo, August 9, 2016

If you’re one of the country’s most important spy agencies, you’d probably have a pretty strict list of what documents to keep secret, right? Well, judging from my latest FOIA request, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) might just be winging it.

Back in April, I filed a Freedom of Information request for a list of history papers held by the NRO, the American intelligence agency tasked with keeping an eye on the globe from satellites in space. I was expecting to get more information than had already been released to other organizations like Government Attic back in 2012. And a couple of days ago, I did. But I also received evidence that the FOIA redaction process can be pretty random—seemingly subject to the whims of whatever FOIA officer is assigned to the task of looking at your FOIA request that day.

In the response to my request for a bibliography of history papers housed at NRO, the intelligence agency fully redacted the title of a paper that had been made public in a previous release just four years earlier.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Judicial Watch releases 296 pages of State Department records

Judicial Watch Uncovers New Batch of Hillary Clinton Emails

Judicial Watch, August 9, 2016

Judicial Watch today released 296 pages of State Department records, of which 44 email exchanges were not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to 171 of new Clinton emails (not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department).  These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department

The new documents reveal that in April 2009 controversial Clinton Foundation official Doug Band pushed for a job for an associate. In the email Band tells Hillary Clinton’s former aides at the State Department Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin that it is “important to take care of [Redacted]. Band is reassured by Abedin that “Personnel has been sending him options.” Band was co-founder of Teneo Strategy with Bill Clinton and a top official of the Clinton Foundation, including its Clinton Global Initiative.

Included in the new document production is a 2009 email in which Band, directs Abedin and Mills to put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and Clinton Foundation donor Gilbert Chagoury in touch with the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon.  Band notes that Chagoury is “key guy there [Lebanon] and to us,” and insists that Abedin call Amb. Jeffrey Feltman to connect him to Chagoury.

Read more here.

FOIA News: State Dep't under siege for Bill Clinton's schedules

New Clinton email fight: Bill Clinton's schedules

An RNC lawsuit is trying to force release of the records, but it may not gain traction before the election.

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, Aug. 9, 2016

Republicans have opened a new front in the sprawling legal war over the release of State Department emails: a battle to open up thousands of pages of schedules for former President Bill Clinton.

But the clock is ticking down on the GOP's hopes to use the trove of details on Clinton's post-presidency against his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, before the November election.

The records turned up recently in response to a broad-ranging Republican National Committee Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for all emails between various aides to Hillary Clinton during her four-year tenure as secretary of state and certain private Web domains used by the Clintons, the Clinton Foundation and related organizations.

State turned over 14 pages of heavily redacted Bill Clinton schedules to the RNC in June amid a smattering of other records. Just about the only substantive information left in the daily calendars for the former president were weather forecasts for the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, New York.

Read more here.