FOIA News: "Food for Thought" seminar on Oct. 22

The American Society of Access Professionals will virtually host a “Food for Thought” training seminar on October 22, 2020. The keynote speakers will be Bradley White, DHS, and Michael Morisy, Muckrock, who will discuss the recommendations of last term’s FOIA Advisory Committee. See here for more details.

FOIA News: HHS seeks experienced FOIA personnel

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is looking to hire two Supervisory Government Information Specialists for its headquarters office in Washington, D.C. The deadline to apply is Friday, October 23, 2020. See vacancy announcement here.

FOIA News: Information technology and FOIA

FOIA officials confront pandemic challenges in meeting records requests

By Jory Heckman, Fed. News Network, Oct. 19, 2020

The rush to mandatory telework in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic laid bare the state of agencies’ investment — or lack thereof — in IT infrastructure.

That same lesson holds true for agency offices tasked with fulfilling Freedom of Information Act requests at a time when employees, in some cases, have limited access to records while teleworking, especially if a FOIA request queries sensitive or classified records.

In some cases, agencies have enabled remote access for some FOIA processing tools, but not enough that would allow this work to be completed by employees working from home.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Court demands more info on Trump's tweet re: Mueller Report

U.S. judge: Do Trump’s tweets or White House lawyers speak for president on declassifying entire Russia probe?

By Spencer S. Hsu, Wash. Post, Oct. 16, 2020

A federal judge rebuked the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office on Friday for dismissing without explanation President Trump’s “emphatic and unambiguous” tweets ordering the declassification of all documents in the government’s probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax,” the president tweeted Oct. 6. “Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”

Trump’s blanket statement came the day after he returned to the White House from three days of treatment for the novel coronavirus at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The tweet has since created a headache for government lawyers in pending open-records lawsuits filed by news organizations seeking fuller disclosure of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report and investigative materials.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Agency FOIA training on artificial intelligence

UPCOMING EVENT ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR FOIA PROFESSIONALS

DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Oct. 16, 2020

OIP is pleased to announce an upcoming “Artificial Intelligence 101” session for agency FOIA professionals presented by the Chief FOIA Officer (CFO) Council Technology Committee.  This session will be held remotely on Thursday November 5, 2020 at 10am.

Across the government, agencies are exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-adjacent technologies, such as technology assisted review, can be leveraged to fulfill agency missions and better serve the public.  Leveraging these technologies holds great potential to improve efficiency and accuracy in agency FOIA administration.  

Read more here.

FOIA News: Chief FOIA Officers Council meeting

The Chief FOIA Officers Council met for the first time this year on October 14, 2020. The meeting agenda, presentation slides, and video are available here.

FOIA News: Group Files 'Largest FOIA of All Time'

Group Files 'Largest FOIA of All Time'

By Matthew Gault, Vice News, Oct. 16, 2020

Reclaim the Records—a group of activist genealogists, historians, journalists, teachers—has filed what may be the largest Freedom Of Information Act Request of all time. The group wants the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to release billions of digital images and their associated metadata to the public.

NARA is a government agency that preserves and archives the American government’s historical records. It’s also supposed to increase public access to those records. To accomplish that goal, NARA partnered with private companies such as genealogical website Ancestory.com to digitize and upload census records, immigration records, and other historical documents. 

Digitizing these records is a massive task, one NARA likely couldn’t accomplish on its own. In exchange for its help, NARA granted the private companies limited exclusivity to the records. That means that billions of documents related to America’s history are behind paywalls on sites like Ancestry, FamilySearch, and Fold3.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Oct. 15, 2020

Petrucelli v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- determining on renewed summary judgment that Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys performed adequate search for certain records pertaining to plaintiff’s criminal case.

Whittaker v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- concluding on renewed summary judgment that FBI properly withheld results of plaintiff’s “National Agency Check” pursuant to Exemption 7(E),

Block v. FTC (D. Mass.) -- ruling that: (1) agency failed to provide sufficient information to permit court to determine whether records pertaining to agency’s 2019 settlement with Facebook were properly withheld pursuant to Exemption 4; (2) agency properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold identifying information of Facebook employees and of individuals “of investigative interest,” except for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose investigation was officially acknowledged by two FTC Commissioners.

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

FOIA News: Office of National Drug Control Policy implements new FOIA regulations

The Office of National Drug Control Policy, a component of the Executive Office of the President, published a final rule in today’s issue of the Federal Register implementing new FOIA regulations. The updates are intended to comport with the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 and revised best practices. THe new regulations are effective October 19, 2020.

FOIA News: Federal Reserve to update FOIA regs

The Federal Reserve has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would amend the Federal Open Market Committee’s FOIA procedures. Comments may be submitted on or before December 14, 2020.