FOIA News: SBA will now release certain information about PPP borrowers

In Turnabout, Small Business Administration Says It Will Disclose Names of Big PPP Borrowers

Disclosures will be made for loans above $150,000 under pressure from Congress

By Ryan Tracy, Wall St. J., June 19, 2020

Bowing to bipartisan pressure in Congress, the Trump administration said it would release the names of borrowers who received Paycheck Protection Program loans of $150,000 or more, accounting for about 75% of funds lent through the program.

The Treasury Department and Small Business Administration said Friday they would disclose business names, addresses, demographic data, number of jobs supported and other details. Specific loan amounts won’t be disclosed, but the government will place each loan in one of five size categories ranging from $150,000 to the maximum loan amount of $10 million, the agencies said.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ releases additional material from Mueller report

Mueller Report Redactions on Roger Stone Are Revealed

The Justice Department had kept them secret while it was investigating Mr. Stone. He was later convicted of seven felonies and sentenced to prison.

By Sharon LaFraniere, NY Times, June 19, 2020

The Justice Department released information on Friday about President Trump’s friend and former campaign adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. that it had previously redacted from the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The newly disclosed material dealt largely with efforts by the Trump campaign to discover what material WikiLeaks had obtained that could be damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Stone was at the forefront of the campaign’s effort to contact WikiLeaks, the chosen repository of Russian government for a trove of Clinton campaign emails and other documents that its operatives stole in an attempt to boost Mr. Trump’s election chances.

Read more here.

FOIA News: IRS protects email addresses of tax preparers

Tax Preparer Email List Shielded From FOIA Bid, IRS Says

By Theresa Schliep, Law360, June 17, 2020

The IRS correctly rejected a tax professional's Freedom of Information Act request for a list of people with preparer identification numbers and their email addresses because public records law shields that information, the agency told a D.C. federal court.

Email addresses of individuals with preparer tax identification numbers, or PTINs, that were sought by Michael Rosedale are exempt from FOIA disclosure requirements because that information could compromise the personal privacy of the preparers and their customers, the Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday. The agency's filing requested summary judgment that would end the case.

Read more here (accessible with free trial subscription).

Court opinion issued June 16, 2020

Tremaine v. U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (W.D. Wash.) -- concluding that agency failed to perform reasonable search for records about agency’s policies or practices of finding aliens inadmissible for entry to the United States based on their involvement in foreign cannabis businesses.

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

FOIA News: OGIS publishes review of FOIA websites

More than 60 percent of agency FOIA websites reviewed by the Office Of Government Information Services in May and early June failed to mention whether the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting agency FOIA processing. See additional details here.

FOIA News: ICYMI, 9th Circuit orders release of injury reports

Judge Rules OSHA Can Release Employer Injury Records

By Bindu Gross & John Artz, Nat’l Law Review, June 16, 2020

On June 4, 2020, Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in The Center for Investigative Reporting v. Department of Labor that employers’ injury and illness records, submitted to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), are not confidential and can be released if requested through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Read more here.

FOIA News: Congressmen want Veterans Affairs to reduce request backlog

Lawmakers want VA to address backlog of FOIA requests from vets, advocates

By Nikki Wentling, Stars & Stripes, June 15, 2020

Two veterans in Congress introduced legislation Monday that would force the Department of Veterans Affairs to respond to a backlog of requests made through the Freedom of Information Act, many from veterans themselves and advocacy groups.

Reps. Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., and Max Rose, D-N.Y., accused the department of lacking transparency. They said technology issues at the VA have prevented the agency from responding to hundreds of FOIA requests for information. The bill would require the VA to fix the IT issues and reduce its backlog of FOIA requests by 75% within three years.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued June 12, 2020

Risenhoover v. U.S. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- ruling that State Department performed adequate search for a directive issued to de facto Embassy of the United States in Taiwan and properly withheld cables pursuant to Exemption 1.

Sai v. TSA (D.D.C.) -- issuing technical amendments to its May 29, 2020 memorandum opinion and order

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

FOIA News: Pentagon over-withholding subcontracting info

American Small Business League Prevails in Pentagon Freedom of Information Case

Judge says Government didn’t comply with Order

Business Wire, June 15, 2020

U.S. District Judge William Alsup Friday handed another victory to a small business advocacy group, the American Small Business League (“ASBL”), holding that the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice didn’t comply with his previous orders requiring them to disclose their ratings of major defense contractors and the Justice Department’s communications with defense contractors’ lawyers.

Judge Alsup’s ruling is the latest in a long-running, David-versus-Goliath struggle between ASBL and the two federal agencies. The government has already had to pay ASBL $500,000 in attorney’s fees in the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) case.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued June 5, 2020

Am. Small Business League v. DOD (N.D. Cal) -- following in camera review, concluding that: (1) agency’s Exemption 4 redactions from government’s compliance reports remained overbroad, specifically “most of the government’s analysis”; and (2) agency was improperly relying on Exemption 5’s common-interest doctrine to withhold communications predating its joint-defense agreement with Sikorsky Aircraft.

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