FOIA News: DHS's FOIA processes under scrutiny

Delays Underlie Most FOIA Suits against DHS, Report Says

FEDweek, Aug. 6, 2020

Nearly four-fifths of suits brought against DHS under the Freedom of Information Act cite missed deadlines for responses, an IG report has said, far more than other grounds such as the adequacy of the searches performed or the department’s decision to invoke an exception under the FOIA.

The report noted that law requires agencies to respond within 20 business days to routine requests and gives an additional 10 for more complex requests. When an agency does not respond to a request within the pertinent timeframe a requester may file suit.

Read more here.

Read OIG’s report here.

FOIA News: Amicus brief filed in SCOTUS Exemption 5 case

On August 3, 2020, a coalition of journalism groups, led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed an amicus brief supporting the appellee in the Supreme Court case U.S. Fish & Wildlife v. Sierra Club. The central dispute in this case concerns records withheld under Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege.

FOIA News: Lawmakers seek to protect feds who file FOIA requests

Leahy Introduces The Federal Employee Access To Information Act To Protect Federal Employees From Retaliation For Filing FOIA Requests

. . . Helping Preserve FOIA as a Tool to Expose Government Wrongdoing

Press Release, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), along with Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, introduced the Federal Employee Access to Information Act to ensure that federal employees are able to use the nation’s premier transparency law, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), without reprisal.  

FOIA helps expose government wrongdoing and abuses, and Leahy believes that federal employees must be free to use FOIA in the same way as other citizens.  This legislation would prohibit retaliation against federal employees for filing and pursuing FOIA requests

Read more here.

FOIA News: DHS & DOD seek FOIA tech upgrades

DHS, DISA look to clouds for FOIA management

GCN, Aug. 4, 2020

The Department of Homeland Security's Privacy Office is looking for an enterprisewide cloud-based workflow solution to help its DHS process Freedom of Information Act requests and improve data reliability and consistency.

According to a July 31 solicitation, DHS receives more FOIA requests than any federal agency -- approximately 385,000 FOIA, privacy and other requests -- almost 40% of all requests within the federal government, with the scope of each search ranging from one page to one terabyte of records. While DHS was able to substantially increased the number of requests processed over the last 10 years, however, it has not been able to keep pace with the growth in demand, according to its March 2020 Backlog Reduction Plan: 2020 - 2023

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Aug. 3, 2020

Butt v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- determining that EOUSA performed adequate search for records concerning plaintiff except for excluding U.S. Attorney from search, and that agency properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5’s attorney work-product privilege.

Liounis v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- on remand from the D.C. Circuit, ruling that government performed reasonable search for grand jury records pertaining to plaintiff’s criminal case.

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

FOIA News: Reporter investigating politicization of FOIA

On July 31, 2020, frequent FOIA requester and Buzzfeed reporter Jason Leopold announced on Twitter that he was investigating the politicization of FOIA and, to that that end, he is asking government employees to contact him with tips.

Fo readers interested in the related issue of “sensitive review,” that is, the practice of giving FOIA requests extra scrutiny, my former colleagues at Cause of Action Institute have been uncovering documentation of that practice since 2013: https://causeofaction.org/sensitive-review/.

Court opinion issued July 31, 2020

Day v. U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury (D.D.C.) -- finding that plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies because he was unable to demonstrate that his request was received by IRS, which averred that it never received it.

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

FOIA News: FOIA personnel taxed by workload, survey reveals

Stacks on Stacks: Survey Shows Increased FOIA Requests Still a Challenge

By Jim Gil, Ipro, July 31, 2020

Today’s eDiscovery Blues cartoon gives a nod to our colleagues working in government agencies processing FOIA requests. By law, all federal agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 20 business days, unless there are “unusual circumstances.”

The number of requests per year has continued to rise over the past decade, with 858,952 requests in FY 2019 alone, according to the DOJ. Along with this rise in requests, comes an increase in data to search through. So not only are more requests coming in, there is a larger data landscape to sift through in order to find relevant documents.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued July 30, 2020

Eakin v. DOD (W.D. Tex.) -- granting plaintiff’s motion to amend his complaint to include FOIA request for additional Individual Deceased Personnel Files of World War II service members even though scheduling order’s amendment deadline in pending lawsuit lapsed three years ago.

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

FOIA News: Gov't FOIA jobs available

• DHS/ICE, Paralegal Specialist (GS 9), Florida, closes Aug. 3, 2020

• DHS/ICE, Supervisory Gov’t Info. Specialist (GS 14), DC, closes Aug. 6, 2020

• EPA, Gov’t Info. Specialist (GS 12-13), Virginia, closes Aug. 7, 2020

• Dep’t of the Army, Gov’t Info. Specialist (GG 12), Maryland, closes Aug. 7, 2020

• DHS/FDA, Gov’t Info. Specialist (GS 13), Maryland, closes Aug. 11, 2020 (or first 100 applications)

• Nat’l Transp. Safety Bd., Gov’t Info. Specialist (GS 13), DC, closes Aug. 13, 2020