Court opinion issued Oct. 20, 2020

Spadaro v. U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (2nd Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that the Department of State properly relied on Exemption 3, in conjunction with section 222(f) of Immigration and Nationality Act, to withhold records about government’s revocation of plaintiff’s visa. In a separate summary order, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision that the FBI properly withheld records pertaining to plaintiff pursuant to Exemption 5’s deliberative process and attorney work-product privileges.

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

FOIA News: Court rules that Trump tweets were not a declassification order

U.S. judge accepts White House statement as rescinding Trump tweet calling for full declassification of Russia probe

By Spencer S. Hsu, Wash. Post, Oct. 21, 2020

A federal judge on Wednesday accepted a White House statement as rescinding President Trump’s tweets that called for the “total Declassification” of all documents in the government’s investigation of Russia’s intervention in the 2016 U.S. election.

But U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton in D.C. chided the president for his carelessness, saying the commander in chief’s words caused confusion on a matter of national security.

“It is unfortunate that we are in this situation because, obviously, whenever there’s a reference to the declassification of classified information, the words spoken should be artfully spoken so there’s no ambiguity as to what the intention was,” Walton said. “Obviously that’s not what occurred here.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: Trump tweets were not a declassification order, says White House

Meadows says Trump did not order declassification of Russia documents

By Morgan Chalfant, The Hill, Oct. 20, 2020

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Tuesday that President Trump’s tweets about declassifying documents related to the Russia investigation were not an order to declassify or release further documents.

Meadows said in a sworn declaration in federal court that Trump’s tweets earlier this month instead merely referred to the authority given to Attorney General William Barr by the president last year to declassify material related to the Russia investigation.

“The President indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents,” Meadows wrote in the declaration filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.

“The President’s statements do not require altering any redactions on any record at issue in these or any other cases, including, but not limited to, any redactions taken pursuant to any discretionary FOIA exemptions,” he added.

Read more here.

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.