Eleson v. Tippen (E.D. Cal.) -- recommending dismissal of lawsuit after finding that U.S. Postal Service conducted reasonable search and provided plaintiff with all records that it could locate. Of note, the magistrate judge determined that it was not improper for agency to refer plaintiff to website (to which plaintiff, a prisoner, had no access) because plaintiff had not specified preferred format of production.
Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
Update: One FOIA Request Another Day
Gideon Grudo, FOI FYI, June 12, 2017
After six months of filing one Freedom of Information Act request each weekday, I’ve learned a lot — though not necessarily from the records I asked for.
In January, I launched One Freedom of Information Request a Day(1FOIRaDay), an open records project that aims to test the federal government’s compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. Since then, through a crash course in the FOIA process, I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of how the system works (or doesn’t work).
Read more here.
By David McCraw, N.Y. Times, June 12, 2017
Time has not been kind to the Freedom of Information Act.
It was enacted more than 50 years ago to give citizens the right to obtain documents from federal agencies. Not long after it went into effect, the consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote a law review article titled “The Freedom From Information Act” denouncing the law as weak and ineffective.
Five decades later, not much has changed. Last year, on the 50th anniversary of FOIA, a veteran media lawyer concluded in a law review article that Mr. Nader had been proved right over time. He dismissed FOIA as “deeply flawed — in fact, its terms have allowed agencies to defeat the very purpose of the act.”
Read more here.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation published a final rule to amend the agency's FOIA regulations in today's issue of the Federal Register. These changes are meant to implement the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016. The agency did not solicit public comment, and the new regulations are effective immediately.
By Scott Maucione, Federal News Radio, June 12, 2017
The Defense Department is sending its ideas to Congress for the next legislative cycle and they include a larger than normal bump in pay for service members as well as some changes to government transparency.
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FOIA changes
The Pentagon is making another push to clamp down on the information it shares with the public.
The legislative proposals tweak what information can be shared through the Freedom of Information Act to exempt military tactics, techniques, procedures and rules of engagement.
This isn’t the first time DoD tried to get a pass on this information.
Read more here.
Q. I submitted a FOIL request to a New York state agency at the end of March 2017. The agency hasn't completed processing my request, but claims that it cannot locate any responsive records. I sent the agency copies of some documents related to the communications that I'm requesting. It still claims it cannot find anything. What can I do next?
A. The New York Department of State Committee on Open Government provides extensive guidance on its website about New York State's Freedom of Information Law, including the text of the statute, Frequently Asked Questions, and a helpful summary guide - "Your Right to Know." As a preliminary matter, you may want to consult these resources to learn about requesting agency records in New York.
You indicated that the agency hasn't issued its determination on your request, so you likely need to file an appeal for failure to respond in a timely manner. Under New York state law, an agency typically has between five and twenty business days to provide you with a response. If the agency has, in fact, issued its determination, but claims it cannot locate any responsive records, you still need to file an appeal and explain why you think the agency failed to conduct an adequate search. Attaching evidence such as the records you already sent to the agency would be helpful in such an appeal. Following the agency's determination on your appeal, you could then seek judicial relief in state court. You may also consider continuing to work with the agency to locate the requested records or, alternatively, contacting the Committee on Open Government to request an advisory opinion on your case.
The National Archives and Records Administration published a notice containing details for the next meeting of the FOIA Advisory Committee in today's issue of the Federal Register. That meeting will be held on July 20, 2017, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. Pre-registration to attend is required by 5:00 pm on July 18, 2017.
Am. Ctr. for Law & Justice v. U.S. Dep't of State (D.D.C.) -- permitting plaintiff to amend Complaint to allege that agency has policy or practice of forcing requesters to sue to obtain FOIA responses.
Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
Schwartz v. DEA (2nd Cir.) (summary order) -- affirming district court's decision that certain video footage of drug interdiction raid in Honduras was not protected by Exemption 7(E).
Baldwin v. SBA (D.D.C.) -- dismissing pro se plaintiff's suit because he sought answers to questions and not access to agency records.
Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
By Benjamin Mullin, Poynter, June 9, 2017
Many journalists know the feeling: There could be a cache of documents that might confirm an important story. Your big scoop hinges on one question: Will the government official responsible for the records respond to your FOIA request?
Now, thanks to a new project from a data storage and analysis company, some of the guesswork has been taken out of that question.
Want to know the chances your public records request will get rejected? Plug it into FOIA Predictor, a probability analysis web application from Data.World, and it will provide an estimation of your success based on factors including word count, average sentence length and specificity.
Read more here.