FOIA News: Liberal Activists Are Bombarding Trump With New FOIA Lawsuits

Liberal Activists Are Bombarding Trump With New FOIA Lawsuits

Ethan Barton, The Daily Caller, May 31, 2017

Liberal activists are bombarding President Donald Trump with Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuits seeking to force the executive branch to release documents The Daily Caller News Foundation’s (TheDCNF) Investigative Group has learned.

More than 250 FOIA lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration since the President’s Jan. 20, 2017, inauguration – a 27 percent increase from last year and a 61 percent increase compared to the same timeframe following former President Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration, TheDCNF analysis found.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Media-Filed Suits Seek Records from the Trump Administration

Media-Filed Suits Seek Records from the Trump Administration

The FOIA Project, May 31, 2017

Numerous reporters and news organizations have already taken federal agencies to court seeking government records from the Trump administration. Details on all media-filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits filed through the initial four months of the Trump administration are now available in the second edition of The Media List.

Forty-five new FOIA lawsuits filed by 60 media plaintiffs have been added since the December 1, 2017 edition was posted.

The complete Media List compiles information on each news organization and reporter since 2000 who filed a FOIA federal lawsuit. The updated list, with filings through May 19, 2017, now covers 436 media plaintiffs and provides current details about each suit.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DHS Provides New Insight into FOIA Processing

DHS Provides New Insight into FOIA Processing

Nat'l Archives, The FOIA Ombudsman, May 31, 2017

As you might have heard, the Federal government received a record-breaking number of FOIA requests in Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 – 788,769 requests. Did you know, though, that one of the more than 100 Federal agencies and departments that process FOIA requests accounts for almost 40 percent of that total? In FY 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) received 325,780 requests.

In addition to receiving an overwhelming amount of the FOIA requests sent to the Federal government, during FY 2016 DHS also handled about 40 percent of the requests processed by the federal government (DHS processed 310,549 of the 759,842 requests processed in FY 2016). DHS’s backlog – 46,788 – also accounts for about 40 percent of the FY 16 Federal government backlog.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued May 30, 2017

Envtl. Integrity Project v. EPA (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court's decision that EPA properly withheld confidential commercial information pursuant to Exemption 4, rejecting appellant's argument that Exemption 4 is superseded by Section 308 of the Clean Water Act.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: EFF Suing FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants

Why We're Suing the FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants

Electronic Frontier Foundation, May 31, 2017

Sending your computer to Best Buy for repairs shouldn’t require you to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights. But that’s apparently what’s been happening when customers send their computers to a Geek Squad repair facility in Kentucky.

We think the FBI’s use of Best Buy Geek Squad employees to search people’s computers without a warrant threatens to circumvent people’s constitutional rights. That’s why we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today against the FBI seeking records about the extent to which it directs and trains Best Buy employees to conduct warrantless searches of people’s devices. Read our complaint here [PDF].

EFF has long been concerned about law enforcement using private actors, such as Best Buy employees, to conduct warrantless searches that the Fourth Amendment plainly bars police from doing themselves. The key question is at what point does a private person’s search turn into a government search that implicates the Fourth Amendment. As described below, the law on the question is far from clear and needs to catch up with our digital world.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ affirms that resignation letters of U.S. Attorneys are categorically exempt; no search or review required

Justice Department didn't read letters they refused to release

By Adam Silverman , Burlington Free Press, May 31, 2017

The Justice Department decided to keep secret on privacy grounds the resignation letters from nearly 50 U.S. attorneys ousted by the Trump administration without first reading any of the letters, public records show.

Justice Department lawyers in March denied a Burlington Free Press request under the federal Freedom of Information Act for copies of the letters, on grounds that the information in the documents was so "inherently personal" that they should be exempt from release.

But notes that Justice Department staff created while processing the FOIA request show their conclusion was based only on an assumption.

"The records being sought seem to be inherently personal and would be withheld," reads a section of the processing notes, which the Burlington Free Press obtained through a separate FOIA request. The analyst who first reviewed the request consulted with a supervisor, who agreed, according to the notes, "and advised to respond with a blanket denial."

Read more here. 

FOIA News: FRTIB Implements New FOIA Regulations

The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board published a final rule implementing new FOIA regulations in today's issue of the Federal Register.  The changes are meant to incorporate recommendations from the Office of Government Information Services and reflect amendments required by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016.  The new regulations are effective immediately.

Court opinions issued May 25-26, 2017

May 26, 2017

The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten v. U.S. Dep't of Veterans Affairs (D. Conn.) -- concluding that: (1) agency failed to conduct an adequate search for certain records regarding compensation scheme for injuries caused to veterans by contaminated water at Marine Corps base; (2) agency failed to show that Exemption 6 applied to qualifications of agency employees.

May 25, 2016

Cause Action v. IRS (D.D.C.) -- determining that agency performed reasonable search for any records indicating that Executive Office of the President made unauthorized requests for tax return information.

Bloomgarden v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- finding that plaintiff was entitled to attorney's fees and costs given the government's "obdurate behavior that unnecessarily prolonged [the] litigation, but reducing award from $154,885 to $45,518 because of limited success, duplicative efforts, and improper billing techniques. 

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: Buzzfeed obtains 40 years of government employment records

We're Sharing A Vast Trove Of Federal Payroll Records

By Jeremy Singer-Vine, Buzzfeed News, May 24, 2017

Today, BuzzFeed News is sharing an enormous dataset — one that sheds light on four decades of the United States’ federal payroll.

The dataset contains hundreds of millions of rows and stretches all the way back to 1973. It provides salary, title, and demographic details about millions of U.S. government employees, as well as their migrations into, out of, and through the federal bureaucracy. In many cases, the data also contains employees’ names.

We obtained the information — nearly 30 gigabytes of it — from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Now, we’re sharing it with the public. You can download it for free on the Internet Archive.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA Lawsuits Reach Highest Level Recorded In 25 Years

FOIA Lawsuits Reach Highest Level Recorded In 25 Years

The FOIA Project, May 23, 2017

The latest available case-by-case records from the federal courts show that Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits challenging the withholding of records have risen since President Trump assumed office. The number of recorded FOIA filings in April climbed to 63 – the highest level recorded for at least 25 years. And although the month is not complete, additional filings during May appear headed even higher with 60 new FOIA lawsuits already filed.

If the pace of FOIA filings during the first seven-plus months of this fiscal year continues at the same rate, FY 2017 will see upwards of 579 FOIA suits filed. This would be up from 512 such suits filed during the last fiscal year of the Obama Administration.

Read more here.