Q&A: No Money No Problems?

Q.  I have been denied credit based on erroneous information gathered by "Clarity Services" in Florida and "Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions Bureau LLC, Riskview Consumer Inquiry Department," in Atlanta, GA.  I want to see their documentation regarding my alleged repossession, garnishments, and judgments they claim I had.

A.  The above-referenced entities are private companies and thus are not subject to freedom of information laws.  If you wish to dispute your credit report, you might consider the following guidance from the Federal Trade Commission. 

FOIA News: Judicial Watch asks judge to release videos in Clinton email case

Judicial Watch asks judge to release videos in Clinton email case

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, Dec. 5, 2016

A conservative group that played a key role in legal battles over access to Hillary Clinton's emails is asking a federal judge to release videos of depositions top Clinton aides and other State Department officials gave in connection with the litigation over her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Judicial Watch filed a motion Monday with U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, asking him to unseal the testimony in light of the fact that the presidential election is over and the arguments against release seemed to be based on the videos becoming fodder in the White House race. Transcripts of the testimony were released soon after it was given, but the recordings have never been published.

"The sole reason for sealing the recordings in the first place was to avoid their misuse during the 2016 campaign season. Now that the election is over that reason no longer exists," Judicial Watch attorney Michael Bekesha wrote. "The release of the recordings will not only allow the public to better understand Secretary Clinton’s email practices, it will also provide the public with a more complete picture of the discovery taken in this case."

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 2016

Dec. 1, 2016

Competitive Enter. Inst. v. U.S. Dep't of State (E.D. Va.) -- finding that agency properly redacted communications concerning U.N. Climate Conference in Paris pursuant to Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege), with the exception of certain portions of two documents consisting of merely factual statements.

Ocasio v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that DOJ's Office of Inspector General properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to categorically withhold all records of agency's investigation into FBI's response to plaintiff's complaint of criminal conduct by a third party.

Nov. 30, 2016

Argus Leader Media v. USDA (D.S.D.) -- following a bench trial, concluding that the agency failed to carry its burden under Exemption 4 to prove that disclosure of certain "food stamp" data would cause substantial competitive harm to individual grocery stores participating in the agency's program.  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: Detroit Free Press petitions SCOTUS on mugshots

Mug Shots Are Not Secret Records, Detroit Paper Tells Supreme Court

New petition urges justices to reverse Sixth Circuit ruling that exempts booking photos from FOIA.

By Marcia Coyle,  The Nat'l Law J., Dec. 2, 2016

The Detroit Free Press is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a court decision that restricts public access to the mug shots of federal criminal defendants.

Booking photos provide an "important window" into the government's exercise of its police powers, the media outlet said in its petition in Detroit Free Press v. U.S. Department of Justice.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in July ruled that Congress intended to exempt mug shots from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act because of "possible embarrassment and the existence of the internet."

The full Sixth Circuit, in its 9-7 decision, said booking photos fell within an exemption of the public-records law that allows law enforcement records to be kept secret if public disclosure “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invocation of personal privacy.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: Here are the journalists fighting for federal public records

Here are the journalists fighting for federal public records

By Benjamin Mullin and Alexios Mantzarlis, Poynter, Dec. 2, 2016

Media executives are fond of making big speeches about the importance of press freedom. But which organizations are actually spending time and money on it?

A new, searchable list from The FOIA project, a initiative from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, provides a partial answer. Earlier this week, TRAC published The News Media List, a sortable readout of the news organizations and journalists that have filed lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act.

To compile the list, staffers at The FOIA Project spent a year combing through its database of nearly 9,000 plaintiff names for cases filed in federal courts since 2001. They flagged cases with media plaintiffs to come up with an initial list that includes 369 individual journalists and news organizations.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Judge rules against Center for Public Integrity in cybersecurity lawsuit

Judge rules against Center for Public Integrity in cybersecurity lawsuit

Center for Public Integrity, Nov. 29, 2016

A U.S. District Court Judge has denied the Center for Public Integrity’s request for access to a taxpayer-funded study about cybersecurity vulnerabilities at the Federal Election Commission.

The court’s decision comes more than 13 months after the Center for Public Integrity sued the FEC for access to the security study, which the FEC commissioned following a Center investigation revealing how Chinese hackers infiltrated the FEC’s computer systems.

The 44-page document — known within the FEC as the “NIST study” — in part provides recommendations on how to fix the FEC’s problems and bring its computer systems in line with specific National Institute of Standards and Technology computer security protocols. The study cost $199,500 to produce.

...

The Center for Public Integrity is reviewing its options, including whether to appeal the decision last week from U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FERC and Int'l Trade Comm'm revise FOIA regs without public comment

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the International Trade Commission issued final rules today that revise their FOIA regulations effective January 3, 2017.   Neither agency solicited public comments before updating their regulations.  

Q&A: Burning down the house

Q.   Is the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) subject to FOIA regulations? Is Fannie Mae required to produce documents in response to a FOIA request?

A.  Fannie Mae is a private entity under the conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.  This means that Fannie Mae need not respond to FOIA requests submitted directly to it, but its records might be subject to FOIA requests submitted to FHFA.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has held that Fannie Mae records are not subject to FOIA if FHFA has neither read or relied upon them, nor integrated them into its files. See Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Fed. Housing Fin. Agency, No. 10-5349, 2011 WL 3375576 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 5, 2011). 

FOIA News: Judge rules that food stamp sales figures are public

Judge rules that food stamp sales figures are public

By Jonathan Ellis, Argus Leader, Nov. 30, 2016

A federal judge has ruled that the Obama administration must disclose the annual sales amounts that retailers in the federal food stamp program earn each year.

District Judge Karen Schreier ruled that disclosure of annual sales amounts that retailers earn by participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would not cause competitive harm to the hundreds of thousands of grocers, convenience stores, big-box retailers and others that participate in the $74 billion program.

Schreier’s ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Argus Leader Media against the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the SNAP program. In 2011, the paper filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the annual sales amounts of every business in the nation that participates in SNAP. USDA refused to release the data, and the paper filed suit in 2011.

Read more here.

FOIA News: OSHRC proposes revisions to FOIA regs

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (“OSHRC”) is proposing revisions to its FOIA regulations, according to a notice published today in the Federal Register.  The proposed revisions reflect statutory amendments set forth in the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, changes to existing procedures, and updates to contact information.

The deadline to submit comments is December 20, 2016.