FOIA News: Commission of Fine Arts proposes revisions to FOIA regulations

The Commission of Fine Arts published an interim final rule, along with a request for public comments, concerning revised FOIA regulations in today’s issue of the Federal Register. The CFA last updated its FOIA regulations in 1986. The proposed revisions, which are effective June 1, 2019, incorporate all FOIA-related amendments that have passed over the past thirty years. Public comments are due by May 20, 2019.

Court opinion issued Apr. 15, 2019

Rose v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- dismissing plaintiff’s lawsuit because Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosive had no record of receiving of plaintiff’s request, which was addressed to a facility that moved ten years ago.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: Argument preview for Exemption 4 SCOTUS case

Argument preview: Justices to consider meaning of “confidential” in Freedom of Information Act

By Mark Fenster, SCOTUSblog, Apr. 15, 2019

The U.S. Department of Agriculture issues specialized debit cards to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits recipients. Although the data that USDA gathers under SNAP are not quite so rich and revealing as those collected by private credit- and debit-card issuers, they do include commercial information about the retail grocery stores at which SNAP recipients purchase their groceries. The Argus Leader newspaper (based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota) requested this data under the Freedom of Information Act to further its investigative reporting into SNAP-related fraud. Its appeal of USDA’s denial of its request landed twice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit before reaching the Supreme Court, where the justices will hear oral argument on April 22.

Read more here.  

Court opinion issued Apr. 12, 2019

Rose v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- dismissing plaintiff’s lawsuit because Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosive had no record of receiving of plaintiff’s request, which was addressed to a facility that moved ten years ago.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinions issued Apr. 11, 2019

Bartko v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- finding that EOUSA properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold third-party information from three criminal case files, but that it failed to adequately explain its search for emails.

Poitras v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiff’s request for attorney’s fees after finding that: (1) plaintiff had self-interested motives to seek records concerning her repeated border and airport detentions; and (2) withholdings by agencies were proper, let alone reasonable.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: House committee seeks more money for Interior’s FOIA program

Dems want additional funds to meet FOIA 'transparency goals'

Scott Streater, E&E News, Apr. 12, 2019

The Democratic chairmen of the House Natural Resources and Oversight and Reform committees are asking appropriators to increase funding for the Interior Department program that handles Freedom of Information Act requests

Read more here (accessible with free trial subscription).

Court opinion issued Apr. 10, 2019

Wessler v. DOJ (S.D.N.Y.) -- concluding that U.S. Marshals Service improperly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold medical records of federal pretrial detainees who died in the agency’s custody.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: NASA proposing revisions to FOIA regulations

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration published a proposed rule in today’s issue of the Federal Register. The rule would make changes to the agency’s FOIA regulations, in accordance with the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016. Public comments must be submitted on or before May 28, 2019.

Court opinion issued Apr. 9, 2019

Wolk Law Firm v. NTSB (E.D. Pa.) -- concluding that: (1) cell phone video of airplane cockpit was protected by Exemption 3 in conjunction with 49 U.S.C. § 1114(c)(1); (2) agency was required to produce documents concerning the chain-of-custody of airplane wreckage; (3) agency properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 2, 4, 5, and 6.

Jordan v. DOL (W.D. Mo.) -- denying plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration after finding that the agency disclosed to plaintiff the “very documents he sought in one of the formats he sought.”

Rogers v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- ruling that plaintiff’s civil forfeiture settlement agreement with IRS barred FOIA plaintiff’s request to Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys for related records, declining to extend D.C. Circuit’s 2017 holding regarding validity of FOIA waivers set forth in criminal plea agreements.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: EPIC loses bid for expedited release of Mueller report

A Judge Won't Order The Justice Department To Speed Up Releasing The Mueller Report

A judge ruled Tuesday that a group that sued for the report failed to show they'd suffer "irreparable harm" if they waited until after Attorney General Bill Barr releases a redacted version of Mueller's report.

By Zoe Tillman, BuzzFeed, Apr. 9, 2019

A federal judge in Washington, DC, ruled Tuesday that he will not order the Justice Department to speed up its timeline for releasing special counsel Robert Mueller's report and other records related to the investigation.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Mueller's report, had asked the judge to issue an injunction requiring the government to release the report to the public by April 15, or whenever Attorney General Bill Barr sent it to Congress — whichever date was sooner. They also wanted an order requiring DOJ to "immediately" produce any executive summaries that went along with the report.

Read more here.