FOIA News: Enviros Hit DOI With FOIA Suit Over Coal Communications

Enviros Hit DOI With FOIA Suit Over Coal Communications

By Kat Sieniuc, Law360, June 20, 2017

The Center for Biological Diversity on Tuesday hit the federal government with a lawsuit in D.C. district court, accusing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management of withholding public records related to the Trump administration’s decision to end a moratorium on new coal mining leases on federal lands and alleging officials might have held secret meetings with the coal industry.

Read more here (subscription required).

Court opinion issued June 19, 2017

Facebook v. IRS (N.D. Cal.) -- dismissing plaintiff's claim seeking production of agency documents in electronic, native-file format with metadata because plaintiff's FOIA request did not specify format of production.  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: Veterans Affairs official files FOIA request on whistle-blower

Veterans Affairs official files FOIA request to spy on whistle-blower

By Pete Kasperowicz, Washington Examiner, June 20, 2017

A Department of Veterans Affairs official has taken the novel step of filing a Freedom of Information Act request against her own VA department in order to learn what a whistleblower has been saying about her.

The whistleblower is Scott Davis, a well-known VA official who has testified in Congress and has made several TV appearances about the troubled VA. He told the Washington Examiner on Monday that he was stripped of some of his final duties in his Atlanta job, weeks after warning that retaliation against whistleblowers is on the rise at the VA.

The other VA official is Angel Lawrence, director of the Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta. Lawrence filed a FOIA request to obtain any email Davis might possess that was sent between Lawrence and any other VA employee.

Read more here.

FOIA News: CFTC to update FOIA regs

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued an interim final rule to amend certain provisions of its FOIA regulations.  The revisions will incorporate changes mandated by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, incorporate changes in the Commission's administrative structure, and streamline or correct inaccurate text.  Comments are due by August 21, 2017.   

FOIA News: FBI withholds Comey's memos under Exemption 7(A)

The FBI Won't Release Comey's Trump Memos Because They're Part Of "Law Enforcement Proceedings"

BuzzFeed News requested the memos written by former FBI Director James Comey on his interactions with the president via the Freedom of Information Act.

By Claudia Koerner & Jason Leopold, BuzzFeed News, June 16, 2017

BuzzFeed News requested the memos written by former FBI Director James Comey on his interactions with the president via the Freedom of Information Act.

The FBI will not release memos written by former director James Comey on his interactions with President Trump because they're part of a "pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding."

BuzzFeed News requested the memos under the Freedom of Information Act. At least one of the memos is unclassified. But, the FBI said, the memos' release could "reasonably interfere with enforcement proceedings," and it decline[d] to release any of the memos — including the one that's unclassified.

Read more here.

FOIA News: D.C. Circuit clarifies tension between Exemption 4 and Clean Air Act

A copy of the D.C. Circuit opinion discussed in the article below is available here.

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To Disclose or Not to Disclose? D.C. Circuit Resolves Clash Between FOIA's Exemption 4 and Section 308 of the Clean Water Act

Anthony R. Holtzman, Nat'l  Law Review, June 15, 2017

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently issued a significant decision addressing the interplay between a confidentiality provision in the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), known as “Exemption 4,” and a conflicting public disclosure provision in Section 308 of the Clean Water Act.  The opinion reveals that, in some instances, federal agencies may rely on Exemption 4 to refrain from publicly disclosing confidential commercial and financial information that they received from regulated entities, even though it appears that, under a provision in another statute, they are required to disclose the information.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued June 13, 2017

Murphy v. U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (N.D.W.Va.) -- concluding that plaintiff was prevailing party due to agency's "multiple inadequate disclosures" and awarding plaintiff $552.54 for reasonable expenses.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

FOIA News: FTC adopts new routine use for disclosures to OGIS

The Federal Trade Commission published a notice of routine use to amend its Privacy Act system of records notice to permit the disclosure of FOIA request and appeal records to the Office of Government Information Services in today's issue of the Federal Register.  This is being done to facilitation OGIS's mediation services.  The FTC is also making separate technical revisions to the relevant notice's records disposition section.  These amendments are effective June 15, 2017.  One public comment was received prior to publication.

FOIA News: Chief FOIA Officers Meeting - July 27

The National Archives and Records Administration's Office of Government Information Services published a notice for the next Chief FOIA Officers' Council meeting in today's issue of the Federal Register.  The meeting will take place on Thursday, July 27, 2016, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm EDT.  Attendees must pre-register by July 25.  Additional details are available on OGIS's website and OIP's website.

FOIA News: Dispute Resolution, A "Team Sport"

Dispute Resolution: It's a Team Sport

Nat'l Archives & Records Admin., The FOIA Ombudsman, June 14, 2017

As we have discussed before, OGIS is not the only entity that requesters can go to for help with the FOIA process. In fact, agencies were directed to create FOIA Requester Service Centers and appoint FOIA Public Liaisons in December 2005 – about two years before passage of the bill that created our office.

Since we opened our doors to assist FOIA requesters in September 2009, we have worked closely with FOIA Public Liaisons to ensure our customers have the information they need to help resolve FOIA disputes. For example, we have turned to FOIA Public Liaisons to provide us with estimated dates of completion, information about their agencies’ record-keeping systems, and much more.

Now, thanks to a question that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Information Policy (OIP) included in the latest version of agency Chief FOIA Officer Reports, we have an even better understanding about how agency FOIA Public Liaisons assist the public with the process.

Read more here.