Cohens v. FBI (N.D. Cal.) -- dismissing pro se prisoner's complaint (with leave to amend) because it failed to allege that plaintiff "made a request to the FBI, that a request was denied, or that records were improperly withheld."
Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
The National Archives and Records Administration's Office of Government Information Services published a notice in today's issue of the Federal Register announcing the next scheduled meeting of the Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee. The meeting will be held on April 20, 2017, from 10:00am to 1:00pm EDT. You must pre-register to attend before April 18, 2017. The notice and further detail are available here.
McCash v. CIA (N.D. Cal.) -- finding that FBI properly relied upon Exemption 7(E) to withhold records showing how agency uses an investigative database.
Judicial Watch v. U.S. Dep't of State (D.D.C.) -- ruling that State Department improperly relied upon deliberative process privilege to withhold factual summaries within two documents concerning September 11, 2012 attack on the United States Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
By Dell Cameron, Daily Dot, Mar. 21, 2017
Users of a popular online service that helps the public acquire legal access to government records face new hurdles when petitioning NASA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The National Aeronautics Space Administration has begun rejecting public records requests from users of FOIA request-filing service MuckRock, who don’t provide what the agency calls a “personal mailing address,” even though the requirement appears to have no basis under the law.
MuckRock, founded in 2010, has helped its members (including the Daily Dot) file more than 28,000 FOIA requests at federal, state, and local agencies. Its staff also frequently publishes articles based on government records they uncover through FOIA. On Tuesday, for example, MuckRock released a batch emails from the Office of Government Ethics, revealing the agency’s frustrations after failed attempts to communicate with the Trump transition team in an effort to stem potential conflicts of interest.
Read more here.
By Kelcee Griffis, Law360, Mar. 21, 2017
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s backlog of unprocessed Freedom of Information Act requests continued to grow during 2016, driven largely by an avalanche of individual immigration-related requests, a new report released on Monday indicates.
In an annual report released on Monday, DHS said it received about 16 percent more FOIA requests in 2016 than in the previous fiscal year, raising the amount of unprocessed requests from 35,374 in fiscal year 2015 to more than 46,788 in fiscal 2016.
Read more here. (subscription)
Agencies Began Posting Their 2017 Chief FOIA Officer Reports During Sunshine Week
Dep't of Justice, Office of Info. Pol'y, Mar. 21, 2017
Over the course of Sunshine Week last week, agencies across the government began posting their 2017 Chief FOIA Officer Reports. For anyone unfamiliar with these reports, they’re annual narratives on agencies’ efforts to improve the administration of the FOIA at their agencies in five key areas: applying the presumption of openness; ensuring that there are effective systems in place for responding to requests; increasing proactive disclosures; increasing the utilization of technology; and improving timeliness and reducing backlogs.
Read more here.
With Sunshine Week ending on March 18, the staff of FOIA Advisor -- Allan Blutstein, Kevin Schmidt, and Ryan Mulvey -- share observations on the week's events.
A. The highlight for me was the release of Max Galka's analysis of FOIA users, which seemed to be the most retweeted FOIA item of the week. A shame that the House hearing on transparency was postponed, but the Senate Judiciary Committee stepped up by issuing information requests to OIP, OGIS, and OMB. I had expected OIP to issue its summary of annual FOIA reports, as it usually does during Sunshine Week, but at least the 2016 data was available on FOIA.gov. Speaking of FOIA data, next year I think we might see the total number of requests approach or topple 900,000. Bets anyone?
K. There were 788,769 requests in FY 2016 according to FOIA.gov. With the increase in requests from the likes of the ACLU, environmental groups, and MuckRock users, I'd take the over on 900,000. In 2017, I'd also take the over on the AP report that the Obama administration spent $36.2 on legal costs for FOIA cases in FY 2016.
R. I agree with Kevin. The Obama Administration saw an uptick in public interest in the FOIA, undoubtedly due in part to its poor record on transparency, but I think the Trump Administration will witness an even more significant growth of requester activity and bolder efforts to frustrate disclosure at the agencies. I had hoped that DOJ-OIP would provide the public with an update of the "release to one, release to all" guidance. Maybe it will be included in the forthcoming agency "toolkit"?
Senate Judiciary, as we reported a few days ago, is also interested in the status of that guidance. I'm hoping this means that further FOIA reform is a possibility in the new Congress. There's certainly more that could be done to follow-up on last year's FOIA Improvement Act.
A. Congress typically does not take up FOIA legislation in successive years, but since House Oversight was at least interested enough to schedule a hearing, you might very well get your wish, Ryan. In the meantime, the majority of agencies haven't even updated their FOIA regulations in compliance with the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, as the National Security Archive reported earlier last week. And we're still waiting for DOJ to repeal and replace Attorney General Holder's 2009 FOIA memo.
K. I thought MuckRock's FOIA March Madness 2017 was a pretty interesting take on the usual agency response time FOIA project. We'll have to keep an eye out on how that turns out. The bad news from last week was a District Court decision that said the Office of Science and Technology Policy was not required to search the private email account of their former policy director despite the presence of work-related emails. I'm sure Ryan has plenty to say on that.
R. Indeed, Kevin. I've published a blog piece on the recent developments in the district court. Judge Kessler's consideration of CEI's metadata argument is simply wrong. Certain types of metadata can form an integral part of an electronic record and, accordingly, should be disclosed under the FOIA. If former Director Holdren's work-related email records contained integral metadata that didn't transfer over to the duplicate copies on OSTP's servers, then I don't think the agency should be able to avoid searching that Woods Hole account. The district court's ruling really takes some of the bite out of the D.C. Circuit's important decision.
NOAA Says Temperature Study Docs Protected in FOIA Suit
Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Law360, Mar. 20, 2017
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Friday asked a D.C. federal judge to toss Judicial Watch’s lawsuit alleging NOAA violated a federal information disclosure law by failing to turn over emails related to the measurement of global temperature data.
NOAA said there’s no validity to Judicial Watch’s argument that the Freedom of Information Act’s “deliberative process” exemption cannot apply to deliberations among scientists, or that even if the privilege did apply, that NOAA’s alleged misconduct precludes its application.
Read more here.
Who files the most FOIA requests? It's not who you think.
Cory Schouten, Columbia Journalism Review, Mar. 17, 2017
JOURNALISTS, you probably think FOIA requests are about you.
But for the most part, they’re not. Journalists today comprise only a small fraction (7.6 percent) of requests under the Freedom of Information Act, a 1966 law enacted to help reporters hold the federal government accountable.
These days, businesses, law firms, and individuals are more prolific users of FOIA, according to the largest-ever analysis of FOIA request logs. Data guru Max Galka’s FOIA Mapper project set out to determine who uses the law by mining 229,000 requests directed to 85 government agencies.
Read more here.
The second best disinfectant: FOIA-inspired cocktails
Beryl Lipton & JPat Brown, MuckRock, Mar. 17, 2017
Holding the government accountable is thirsty work. Which is why to close out Sunshine Week, MuckRock put together this list of transparency-inspired tipples to make those GLOMAR rejections go down smoother.
Read more here.