Powell v. U.S. Dep't of Treasury (D.D.C.) -- concluding that Office of Foreign Assets Control performed reasonable search for records pertaining to plaintiff over thirty-year period.
Middle Eastern Forum v. U.S. Dep't of the Treasury (D D.C.) -- holding that IRS improperly refused to search for third-party records, noting that plaintiff's request sought only "non-return" information and that it was reasonably described.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
June 30, 2018
Braun v. USPS (D.D.C.) -- finding that agency performed reasonable searches for investigatory records concerning plaintiff and that agency properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 3, 6, and 7(C).
June 29, 2018
N.Y. Times v. CIA (S.D.N.Y.) -- ruling that CIA properly relied on Exemption 1 and 3 in refusing to confirm or deny existence of records concerning program to arm Syrian rebels, and that public statements by President Trump and U.S. Army general did not constitute official acknowledgments of program.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
On FOIA’s birthday, FOIAonline goes dark for a bit - here’s our plan
By Michael Morisy, MuckRock, July 3, 2018
The team behind FOIAonline has been hard at work on “FOIAonline 3.0,” an upgraded version of the federal government’s official FOIA portal. It looks like that work is about to pay off: FOIAonline’s banner indicates that the new site will launch July 9. But there’s a catch: From July 3rd until that launch, FOIAonline will be completely down.
Yup, that means that on FOIA’s 52nd birthday, FOIAonline will be getting a facelift.
Read more here.
The Postal Regulatory Commission issued a final rule today pertaining to the agency's treatment of non-public information. The agency proposed the new rules in February 2018 and received three public comments.
Judge: Trump tweet did not declassify CIA program for Syrian rebels
By Josh Gerstein, Politico, July 2, 2018
A tweet from President Donald Trump disputing aspects of a news report about a CIA program to aid Syrian rebels did not declassify the program or undermine the government’s legal authority to keep details about it secret, a federal judge ruled in an opinion released Monday.
U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Carter Jr. rejected arguments that Trump effectively confirmed the existence of the program when he used his Twitter account last July to counter a Washington Post story that reported Trump’s decision to end the effort and suggested that the move was a concession to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad,” Trump wrote, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
...
Armed with Trump’s statements, The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding details of the program, then sued when the CIA did not immediately respond.
Read more here.
LAF v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs (N.D. Ill.) -- holding that plaintiff adequately pled that agency has unlawful practice of processing first-party requests for veterans claims files solely under Privacy Act.
Am. Civil Liberties Union v. DOD (S.D.N.Y.) -- ruling that White House press secretary's public statements precluded CIA from refusing to confirm or deny existence of certain records concerning government raid in Yemen.
Heffernan v. HHS (D.D.C.) -- determining that agency did not show that it performed reasonable searches for two of four categories of records concerning NIH's Department of Spiritual Ministry, and that agency adequately justified its use of Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege) to withhold all disputed records except for draft press release.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
Shapiro v. DOJ (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court's decision that FBI properly withheld records pertaining to deceased Internet activist Aaron Swartz pursuant to Exemptions 3, 6, 7(C), and 7(E), but remanding portion of case pertaining to redacted records disclosed to plaintiff following appellate oral arguments.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 available here.
Q. Can I request all documents and emails containing my name and address from Indiana Child Protective Services that they have from this year ?
A. I am not sufficiently familiar with Indiana's Access to Public Records Act (APRA) to predict with certainty how the agency would likely process your request. I suspect, however, that you would not be able to obtain records of any complaints or pending investigations about you, for example, nor records of third parties in which you are merely mentioned. For a more informed answer, you might wish to contact a lawyer licensed to practice in the State of Indiana or Indiana's Public Access Counselor, which provides free assistance to the public concerning records access laws.
Margaret B. Kwoka, First-Person FOIA, 127 Yale L.J. 2204 (2018)
ABSTRACT:
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) embodies a radical notion. By allowing any person to request any records for any reason, it was meant to open up government for all to see. Investigative journalists, watchdog groups, and concerned citizens would all jump at the chance to hold officials accountable and unearth secretive government actions. The numbers seem to support a FOIA success story: after all, the government now consistently receives over 700,000 FOIA requests a year.
As it turns out, however, it is not journalists and nonprofits who are making hundreds of thousands of requests. In my previous article, FOIA, Inc., I documented how commercial requesters have dominated the FOIA landscape at some agencies, particularly large regulatory agencies. In doing so, they have transformed FOIA into a sort of giveaway to businesses, to the potential detriment of those whose requests promote government oversight.
Read more (as well as the article) here.
Advocates File FOIA Suit Over Family Separation Information
Nicole Narea, Law360, June 27, 2018
Law360 (June 27, 2018, 5:56 PM EDT) -- Immigrant advocates filed a suit against the Trump administration Wednesday in Washington, D.C., federal court seeking to compel the government to respond to its Freedom of Information Act requests for information regarding family separation policies, guidance and data.
The suit was filed in response to immigration agencies’ failure to respond to FOIA requests made April 3 by the American Immigration Council, National Immigrant Justice Center, Women’s Refugee Commission, Kids in Need of Defense, and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.
They had petitioned for documents describing how noncitizen families are processed at the border, training materials on separating families, and complaints related to family separation, as well as data on the number of families that have been separated and the number of adult family members referred for prosecution.
Read more here.