Mon., Mar. 11, 2019
10am-noon: Dep’t of Justice Sunshine Week celebration
Tues., Mar. 12, 2019
6:30pm-8:30pm: D.C. Open Government Coalition summit
Wed., Mar. 13, 2019
9:30am: House Oversight & Reform committee hearing, “FOIA: Examining Transparency Under the Trump Administration”
Fri., Mar. 15, 2019
10am-noon: Fairfax County Government FOIA Training
Bernhardt’s Interior Already Implementing Political Review of Public Records Responses
By Jayson O’Neill, Western Values Project, March 7, 2019
Just one day before a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators sent a letter to Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt requesting that the department reconsider and scrap a proposed rule that would limit public records requests, Western Values Project (WVP) received a notice from Interior that a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request would be delayed to allow a political appointee to review the response.
The email, which has been redacted by WVP to protect personal information, indicates that WVP’s request has been completed but was ‘forwarded to our Solicitor’s Office for next level review.’ This is the first indication known to WVP that Interior has created a new political review process for all of the department’s public records since Interior’s leadership installed political appointee and former Koch-employee Daniel Jorjani to oversee the department’s FOIA program in November 2018.
Read more here.
Beagles v. DOL (D.N.M.) -- finding that: (1) plaintiff failed to administratively appeal withholdings from certain records concerning his former employer; (2) DOL properly withheld third-party information pursuant to Exemption 6; and (3) plaintiff was neither eligible nor entitled to attorney’s fees, despite agency’s five-year delay in adjudicating his administrative appeal.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Dubious Record for Highway Safety Agency in Public Information Lawsuits
By Eli Wolfe, FairWarning, Mar. 7, 2019
Since 2007, there have been 12 lawsuits seeking records from NHTSA, according to a review of records from the Justice Department and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which collects federal data. Three cases are pending, but the other nine ended in court rulings or settlements requiring NHTSA to produce records for plaintiffs. None of the lawsuits ended in a judgment in NHTSA’s favor.
“They just plow forward with these cases for reasons that I don’t fully understand,” said David Sobel, an attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation who has represented plaintiffs in most of the cases.
Read more here.
Seife v. U.S. Dep't of State (S.D.N.Y.) - - ruling that: (1) State Department performed adequate search for “on background” press briefing transcripts produced by agency, but inadequately searched for joint press briefing transcripts produced by other agencies; and (2) agency’s reliance on Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege) and Exemption 6 was proper in part and improper in part.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. GSA (D.D.C.) -- determining that information about FBI’s headquarters building could not be withheld from agency’s “Findings and Determination” document pursuant to deliberative process privilege because the information was not pre-decisional.
Abakporo v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- ruling that government improperly relied on Exemption 3, in conjunction with Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, to withhold “dates on which the term of the grand jury that returned an indictment against [plaintiff] was extended, as well as any court orders relating to those extensions.”
Jackson v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that agency performed reasonable search for records pertaining to plaintiff’s criminal case and that it properly withheld third-party information pursuant to Exemption 6.
Gizmodo Media Grp. v. FBI (S.D.N.Y.) -- deciding that FBI conducted adequate search for records about Roger Ailes, founder of Fox News, by performing index search of its Central Records System.
Cochran v. DHS (D. Md.) -- finding that FEMA conducted reasonable search for certain records pertaining to security clearance of plaintiff, a former FEMA employee.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
GSA ordered to release FBI HQ details previously redacted in FOIA request
By Jory Heckman, Fed. News Network, Mar. 6, 2019
A district court judge has ordered the General Services Administration to release appraisal information about the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover Building, as well as offers GSA received for the property.
GSA had previously redacted that information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Tuesday’s ruling from D.C. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper followed a ruling he made last December, ordering GSA to do a “more comprehensive search” for FBI headquarters records.
Read more here.
In a letter sent to the Department of the Interior today, Congressman Elijah Cummings and U.S. Senators Leahy, Grassley, and Cornyn urged the Department to reconsider its proposed FOIA rule because it appeared to “restrict public access to DOI’s records and delay the processing of FOIA requests in violation of the letter and spirit of FOIA.” The Department’s proposed rule drew more than 60,000 public comments.
McGehee v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- determining that FBI performed reasonable search for records concerning the Jonestown Massacre and that it properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 1 and 7(C).
New Orleans Workers’ Ctr. for Racial Justice v. ICE (D.D.C.) -- ruling that government failed to perform adequate search for records concerning agency’s “Criminal Alien Removal Initiative, ” and that it failed to provide sufficient information to allow the Court to evaluate the propriety of its withholdings under Exemptions 5, 6, 7(C), and 7(E).
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Just ahead of Sunshine Week, the Department of Justice has posted its fiscal year 2018 FOIA report. Among other data, DOJ reported that it received a total of 96,875 requests, an 18 percent increase from the previous year, and that it processed 91,383 requests. Notably, the number of DOJ’s backlogged (i.e., overdue) requests increased 35 percent, from 12,863 requests in FY 2017 to 17,411 requests in FY 2018. The Department incurred $83.9 million in processing and litigation costs and collected only $28,000 in fees.