Aguirre v. U.S. Nuclear Reg. Comm’n (S.D. Cal.) dismissing plaintiff’s amended complaint because plaintiff failed to show that he had appealed agency’s initial adverse response.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
The Department of Justice was forced to file a corrected brief in the D.C. Circuit after learning that the conclusion section of its brief mistakenly asked the court to affirm, rather than to reverse, the district court’s decision in Cable News Network v. FBI. Slip of the tongue or use of template language gone awry?
The Federal Register made available today for pre-publication inspection the Office of Management and Budget’s notice for revisions to the Uniform Freedom of Information Act Fee Schedule and Guidelines. OMB finalized its fee schedule and guidelines in 1987, and has never updated them. The agency now seeks to revise them in light of various legislative and judicial developments. Public comments will be accepted over the next thirty days. The notice is scheduled for publication on May 4, 2020.
NY Times v. FCC (S.D.N.Y) -- finding that agency improperly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold certain server log data associated with electronic submission of public comments regarding agency’s proposal to repeal “net neutrality” rules; further finding that agency failed to demonstrate that producing requested information was unreasonably burdensome.
Rodriguez v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that agency performed adequate search for records of grand jury that indicted plaintiff, but that agency’s Vaughn Index did not provide sufficient information for court to determine propriety of agency’s use of Exemption 3 to withhold all records.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
The FOIA Advisory Committee has released an agenda, presentation slides, and three handouts in advance of its virtual meeting on May 1, 2020. The Committee will next meet on June 4, 2020.
What is the ‘deliberative process’ privilege? And why is it used so often to deny FOIA requests?
By Ryley Graham, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Apr. 30, 2020
In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments in a case concerning the application of the “deliberative process” privilege of the federal Freedom of Information Act, a provision of the law that has long been criticized as a catch-all exemption for denying public records requests.
The case, Machado Amadis v. Department of Justice, has yet to be decided. But it represents one of the first opportunities for a federal appellate court to interpret amendments Congress made to FOIA in 2016, specifically what’s known as the “foreseeable harm standard,” which lawmakers intended, in part, to curtail the use of the deliberative process privilege.
Read more here.
Scott v. IRS (S.D. Fla.) denying plaintiff’s request for discovery because plaintiff failed to follow applicable discovery rules, failed to show any bad faith by the agency, and the request was overbroad, vague in part, and fell outside scope of limited discovery sometimes permitted in FOIA cases.
Zavalunov v. BOP (M.D. Pa.) -- ruling that Federal Bureau of Prisons performed adequate search for requested ICE detainer and properly redacted third party information pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C).
Strahan v. NOAA (D. N.H.) -- concluding that plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies for six of seven of his requests, and that agency was not required to create excel spreadsheet containing information that was publicly available on website.
Colgan v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- remanding matter to FBI after finding that: (1) agency failed to perform reasonable search in response to plaintiff’s 30-part request; and (2) agency’s Vaughn Index lacked sufficient detail to permit review of claimed exemptions and sampled documents had 64 percent error rate.
DBW Partners v. USPS (D.D.C.) -- determining that USPS properly relied on Exemption 3 in conjunction with the Postal Reorganization Act to withhold large portions of Inspector General report concerning USPS’s resellers program and negotiated service agreements, but ordering release of certain portions after performing in camera review.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
The Department of Justice has informed the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the FBI’s FOIA staff, known as the Records/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), will resume limited operations on April 29. RIDS personnel will be divided into three teams and only one team will be allowed to work on any given day, according to DOJ’s court filing (available in part on Twitter here).
The Navy Has Officially Released the UFO Videos
We were never supposed to see them.
By Andrew Daniels. Popular Mechanics, Apr. 27, 2020
The U.S. Navy has officially published three famous UFO videos, wich leaked several years ago.
In 2019, the Navy confirmed the legitimacy of those videos—which show bizarre encounters between Navy fighter pilots and “unexplained aerial phenomena,” but said they were never intended for public release.
Popular Mechanics interviewed several Navy pilots who said they saw a longer, better video of the encounter than the one released to the public.
The U.S. Navy has officially published three videos that show UFOs are genuine, several years after the notorious clips first leaked online and properly ushered in the UFO renaissance. Last year, the Navy confirmed the three videos, taken by Navy pilots, indeed show “unexplained aerial phenomena,” but the service also said the footage should have never been released to the public in the first place.
Read more here.
Dep’t of the Navy, Gov’t Info. Specialist (GS-11), Washington, DC, closes 4/27/2020
Dep’t of the Treasury, Att'y-Advisor (GS-15), Washington, DC, closes 4/27/2020
Citizenship & Immigration Serv., Gov’t Info. Specialist (GS-07-09), Missouri, closes 4/29/2020
Dep’t of the Air Force, Gov’t Info. Specialist (NH-3), Utah, closes 4/29/2020
Occupational Safety & Health Admin., Gov’t Info. Specialist (GS-09), Multiple locations, closes 4/30/2020
Sec’y of Defense, Gov’t Info. Specialist (GS-13), Virginia, closes 5/4/2020
Fed. Aviation Admin., Gov’t Info. Specialist (FV-1), Washington, DC, closes 5/11/2020