FOIA News: Oral arguments held on OLC 's legal opinions

DOJ Says FOIA Suit For Legal Advice Is Too Broad

By Bryan Koenig, Law360, July 18, 2017

The U.S. Department of Justice urged a D.C. federal judge in oral arguments Tuesday to dismiss as too expansive and unspecified a suit accusing the Office of Legal Counsel of treating its advice as broadly exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

The Campaign for Accountability lawsuit seeking a check for all “controlling legal advice” fails, DOJ attorney Daniel Schwei said, in part because it doesn’t specify particular OLC opinions that have been improperly withheld, and the opinions should generally be treated as policy advice that merely informs government decisions, rather than directs it in working law that must be made public.

Read more here (registration required).

FOIA News: TIGTA Releases Report on IRS Record Management

Summary courtesy of Cause of Action Institute:

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (“TIGTA”) released an important report yesterday that detailed the Internal Revenue Service’s (“IRS”) inconsistent and inadequate records retention policies over recent years. The audit had been requested in March 2016 by the House Committee on Ways and Means.  TIGTA, the IRS’s watchdog, concluded that the agency had failed to “comply with certain Federal requirements that agencies must ensure that all records are retrievable and usable for as long as needed.”  In other words, TIGTA took the IRS to task for having ignored the requirements of the Federal Records Act (“FRA”) and the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”).

Read Cause of Action Institute's blog here.

Read the TIGTA report here.

FOIA News: CREW to Get Mar-A-Lago Visitor Records

CREW to Get Mar-A-Lago Visitor Records

Press Release, July 17, 2017

As part of ongoing litigation brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the National Security Archive (NSA) and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will turn over visitor logs for President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. CREW will publicly release the visitor logs upon receiving them by September 8th.

“The public deserves to know who is coming to meet with the president and his staff,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. “We are glad that as a result of this case, this information will become public for meetings at his his personal residences—but it needs to be public for meetings at the White House as well.”

CREW, NSA and Knight sued for the release of visitor logs from the White House, Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower. DHS claims to have no records of visitors at Trump Tower. The lawsuit is ongoing for the White House.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Federal pensions might become subject to FOIA

Legislation Would Make Retired Federal Employee Pensions Public Information

By Ian Smith, FedSmith, July 15, 2017

Legislation has been introduced in the House to make the pension information of retired federal employees public information subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Taxpayer Funded Pension Disclosure Act (H.R. 3200) was introduced in the House this week by Ron DeSantis (R-FL).

In an editorial in the Washington Examiner, DeSantis said that the cost of providing pensions to retired federal workers is over $100 billion, yet there is currently little transparency to the information.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued July 12, 2017

Baker v. FBI (7th Cir.) -- affirming district court's decision that names of FBI agents and Chicago police officers involved in an investigation were protected from disclosure pursuant to Exemption 6 and 7(C).

N.Y. Legal Assistance Grp. v. U.S. Dep't of Educ. (S.D.N.Y.) -- ruling that agency properly withheld certain records, but not others, concerning repayment of student loans pursuant to Exemptions 5 and 7(E).  Notably, the court opined that records concerning the enforcement of contracts did not meet the "law enforcement" threshold of Exemption 7(E).

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.  

FOIA News: Clinton's State Department FOIA Expert Goes After Trump

Hillary Clinton's State Department FOIA Expert Goes After Trump White House

Betsy Woodruff, Daily Beast, July 13, 2017

The Justice Department turned over paperwork Thursday morning showing that Attorney General Jeff Sessions didn’t tell the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador when he applied for his security clearance.

The revelation came because a new watchdog group successfully sued for Sessions’ clearance application under the Freedom of Information Act—though the document they got was heavily redacted.

The Justice Department says Sessions wasn’t obligated to tell the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador because he had them in his capacity as a U.S. senator. But Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, the watchdog group that got the DOJ to release the document, said Sessions should have revealed the meetings.

“We are not talking about the ambassador from the Vatican or from Canada,” he said. “We are talking about the ambassador from Russia, about whom there is common knowledge there are significant espionage concerns. You should not get cute with questions from the FBI related to national security.”

Evers would know. After all, he helped the State Department manage FOIA requests on Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Casual Friday at the CIA

It took the CIA four years to release its policy on casual Friday

JPat Brown, MuckRock, July 13, 2017

Back in 2013, MuckRock’s Mara Berg requested office apparel guidelines from several federal agencies, including the CIA. One by one, these agencies responded, and we even wrote about their respective acceptance of short pants, but true to form, the CIA kept delaying, and delaying, and delaying …

Read more here.

FOIA News: FEC has withheld documents concerning Lois Lerner and others for years

FEC Has Kept Documents About Democrats Secret For Years

Ethan Barton, Daily Caller, July 12, 2017

Federal Election Commission (FEC) officials have withheld public documents for years, some of which would expose details about Democrats’ taxpayer- and foreign-funded travel, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.

The FEC — which includes three commissioners each from Democratic and Republican parties — has withheld records related to 17 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed more than three years ago, according to an agency document obtained by TheDCNF. Of the 17, 10 have been pending for nearly four years, another will be five this year and the oldest turned six in June.

The requested documents span a variety of topics, ranging from communications regarding former FEC official Lois Lerner, the central figure in the IRS targeting scandal, to internal communications and commission policy documents.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ releases redacted page of Sessions' SF-86 form

DOJ releases portion of Sessions' security clearance form sought in FOIA lawsuit

By Laura Jarrett & David Shortell, CNN, July 13, 2017

The Justice Department released a section of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' security clearance form in response to a federal lawsuit Thursday, resurfacing questions surrounding his contacts Russian officials that the former Republican senator has previously tried to put to rest.

Read more here

Court opinion issued July 11, 2017

Gerhard v. BOP (D.D.C.) --  finding that Federal Bureau of Prisons performed an adequate search and provided plaintiff with all requested records, but awarding plaintiff litigation costs due, in part, to agency's dilatory search.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.