FOIA News: Reporter Demands Info on Guantanamo Money

Reporter Demands Info on Guantanamo Money

By Britain Eakin, Courthouse News Service, Oct. 26, 2016

A Miami Herald reporter who has covered the Guantanamo prison camp for 15 years sued the Pentagon on Monday, claiming it stonewalled her request for information about $340 million in upgrades, new construction and staffing in years to come, despite President Obama's long-stated goal of closing the prison.

Carol Rosenberg asked the Department of Defense and its U.S. Southern Command about its plans to spend more than $340 million at Guantanamo in the next five years, she said in her federal FOIA complaint.

"Despite the shrinking prison population, the Obama Administration's stated intent to close the base, and presidential candidate [Hillary] Clinton's support for closing the base, evidence suggests that the level of staffing at Guantanamo is nearing a historic high," the complaint states.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Episode III -- Return of the Drones

Another Round Over Drone Secrecy Hits Second Circuit

By Adam Klasfeld, Courthouse News Service, Oct. 25, 2016

Refereeing the third round of the same transparency fight, the Second Circuit left court-watchers in suspense over whether it would shine a light on the government's reasons for targeting U.S. citizens abroad in drone strikes.     

Two years ago, the American Civil Liberties Union scored a clean knock-out in the first round that revealed an important document about the government's so-called targeted-killing program, but the government had the civil-rights group on the ropes in the sequel, in which it protected the vast majority of its records.

After an hour-long Second Circuit match-up on Tuesday, the fate of the final chapter of the trilogy — which centers on the fight to disclose 59 more documents — is anybody's guess.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Recap of FOIA Advisory Committee meeting

FOIA committee mulls Section 508 responsibilities

By Meredith Somers,  Federal News Radio, Oct. 25, 2016

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act is meant to act as a curb ramp for access to federal information and communication technology, but for some Freedom of Information Act stakeholders, 508 is more like a pothole.

That debate on whether 508 is an aid for open government or a crutch for agencies to lean on to avoid releasing information was highlighted during the Oct. 25 National Archives and Records Administration’s Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee meeting.

Officials with the U.S. Access Board —which is charged with providing standards under Federal Acquisition Regulation —told committee members a final rule for Section 508 is under review at the Office of Management and Budget, which will hopefully clear up questions around compliance.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Oct. 24, 2016

Hedrick v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- ruling that the FBI conducted an adequate search for records concerning plaintiff, including his prosecution for the child pornography offenses, and that the agency properly redacted information about third parties pursuant to Exemption 6 and 7(C).

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

Q&A: The Real Thing?

Q.  I requested and received some financial information from the VA involving the dollar amount of transaction fees paid to our company, per year, under specific identified contracts.  You would think we had that information, but payment is collected and distributed by a third party and our accounting was managed by an outside source.  We believe that our vendor under-reported the collection of fees and diverted those.  Accordingly, we went to the agency and through a FOIA request asked for a summary by year of fees paid. Those fees turned out to exceed those reported by our vendor.  For purposes of litigation, how do I authenticate the validity of the data?

A.  The Department of Veterans Affairs can attest under seal or certify that the records are true copies.  The agency will charge a fee for this service.  For details, contact the FOIA office that processed your request.

FOIA News: Dep't of State employee pleads the 5th in Clinton email case

State IT official repeatedly takes Fifth Amendment in Clinton email lawsuit

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, Oct. 24, 2016

A retired State Department information technology official asserted his Fifth Amendment rights more than 90 times during a deposition Monday in a civil lawsuit related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, according to the conservative group that brought the litigation.

In August, a federal judge ordered John Bentel — former director of the Information Resources Management staff in Secretary of State Clinton's office — to submit to a sworn deposition in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch.

When ordering the questioning of Bentel, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan noted that Bentel told the House Benghazi Committee last year that he had no recollection of being told about Clinton's private server, but emails that have become public in the past year or so showed he was informed about issues related to the server.

Read more here. 

Court opinions issued Oct. 21, 2016

Heartland Alliance Nat'l Immigrant Justice Ctr. v. DHS (7th Cir. 2016)  -- affirming district court's decision that Exemption 7(E) protected information relating to Tier III terrorist organizations, defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act in 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)(vi)(III). 

Freedom Watch v. U.S. Dep't of State (D.D.C. 2016)  --  denying plaintiff's Rule 60 motion after determining that the agency performed a reasonable search of documents located by the FBI from Hillary Clinton's personal email.  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: Office of Special Counsel partially updates FOIA regs

The Office of Special Counsel has finalized FOIA regulations that update and clarify its procedures for the submission of requests and appeals, according to a Federal Register notice to be published on Monday, October 24, 2016.  The agency issued its proposed regulations in May 2016, and therefore they do not reflect the updates mandated by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016.

[Note: I submitted comments to OSC on behalf of America Rising LLC, which is referred to in the notice as the "first commenter."]

FOIA News: More Damn Emails

State Department Releases 110 Clinton Emails

By Byron Tau, Wall St. J., Oct 21, 2016, 

The State Department released another 110 emails from Hillary Clinton on Friday, mostly dealing with routine business from her time as secretary of state.

Under a court order as part of several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the agency, the State Department made public about 240 pages of correspondence from Mrs. Clinton’s tenure in office, which ran from 2009 to 2013.

The emails were recovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of its now-closed investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton or her aides mishandled classified information. The FBI closed the case without recommending any charges.

Read more here. 

Court opinion issued Oct. 19, 2016

Worldnetdaily.com v. U.S. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- concluding that the government properly relied upon Exemption 5 to withhold a memorandum that recommended no charges against the law enforcement officials involved in the fatal shooting of Miriam Carey at the U.S. Capitol in 2013.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.