FOIA News: FBI draws court's ire over McCabe records

Judge slams FBI over stonewalling request for McCabe documents

By Jeff Mordock, Wash. Times, Nov. 4, 2020

An irritated federal judge Wednesday grilled the FBI for dragging its feet on her order to produce emails and text messages from former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that may show conflicts of interest with his wife’s political campaign.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said she simply did not understand why the FBI is slow-walking document production even after a May ruling ordering it to produce the materials.

Brenda Gonzales Horowitz, an attorney for the FBI, said the bureau is producing 500 pages a month, a number Judge Chutkan slammed as “unacceptable.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: 9th Circ. Says FOIA Info Can Count As Corrective Disclosure

9th Circ. Says FOIA Info Can Count As Corrective Disclosure

By Jon Hill, Law360, Nov. 3, 2020

The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday revived a proposed investor class action accusing the since-rebranded BofI Holding Inc. of securities fraud, ruling that the publication of information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request can count as a corrective disclosure for loss causation pleading purposes.

Read more here (subscription).

FOIA News: OSTP issues final FOIA regulations

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has published a final version of its FOIA regulations, which incorporates the changes made by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016. The new regulations are effective on December 4, 2020.

FOIA News: Jobs, jobs, jobs

• Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/OIG, Gov’t Info. Specialist, Wash. D.C., GS 9-11, closes 11/5/20

• Dep’t of Justice/Criminal Div., Gov’t Info. Specialist, Wash, D.C., GS-9, closes 11/6/20

• Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, Gov’t Info. Specialist, Sioux Falls, ND, GS 11-12, closes 11/10/20

• DHS/Coast Guard, Gov’t Info. Specialist, Wash. D.C., GS 13-14, closes 11/12/20

• Dep’t of the Army, Gov. Info. Specialist, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, GS-12, closes 11/12/20

• U.S. Postal Serv., Gov. Info. Specialist, Wash., D.C., EAS-21, closes 11/13/20

FOIA News: Recap of SCOTUS FOIA argument

Justices Fret Over FOIA Evasion but Debate Sierra Club Standard

By Ellen M. Gilmer, Bloomberg Law, Nov. 2, 2020

• Broad coalition back environmentalists in case

• Dispute involves government records under FOIA

The U.S. Supreme Court seemed wary Monday of limiting government disclosure requirements, but unsure where to draw the line in a complex clash over Endangered Species Act records.

The case, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, has big implications for government transparency, in environmental contexts and beyond. It attracted even broader interest as newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett sat for oral argument for the first time.

Hearing the case remotely, Barrett and her colleagues pressed both sides to explain what legal test the high court should apply when deciding whether draft documents are subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The dispute centers on federal wildlife agencies’ draft opinions that a proposed EPA regulation would harm endangered species.

Read more here.

A transcript of the oral argument is here.

FOIA News: SCOTUS to hear FOIA case on Monday

See a preview of the case, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, from SCOTUSBlog here, as well as the case material here. A transcript of the oral argument will be made available on same day here.

Court opinions issued Oct. 30, 2020

Brennan Ctr. for Justice at NYU Sch. of Law v. Dep’t of Commerce (D.D.C.) -- granting in part plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction and ordering agency to process three items of plaintiff’s request regarding the 2020 U.S. census and to produce Vaughn indices by January 11, 2020.

Prot. Democracy Proj. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- granting in part plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction and ordering DOJ to confer with plaintiff on schedule to produce agency communications with the United States Postal Inspection Service regarding USPIS’s participation in any voting fraud task force.

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

FOIA News: Enviros and industry fight feds in Supreme Court FOIA case

Enviros and industry fight feds in Supreme Court FOIA case

By Pamela King, E&E News, Oct. 30, 2020

Should the public have access to documents that show why the federal government changed its stance on the impact an EPA rule would have on vulnerable species?

That's the question the Supreme Court will set out to answer Monday in the case Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, which deals with a Freedom of Information Act request for documents underpinning a 2014 rule for cooling water intake structures at power plants.

At the heart of the battle is a draft biological opinion in which FWS found that a proposed version of the rule would jeopardize endangered species. EPA ultimately revised the rule, and FWS determined that the new version posed no harm.

But the Sierra Club will argue next week that the public has the right to know what changed.

Read more here.

FOIA News: NLRB reports FOIA processing stats

In a press release issued today, the National Labor Relations Board reported that its FOIA branch “responded within 20 working days to 82% of FOIA requests and 100% of FOIA appeals” in fiscal year 2020. The NLRB further reported that “FOIA backlogs were reduced from 35 requests at the end of FY 2019 to 3 requests at the end of FY 2020, which is a decrease of 91%.” Neither the agency nor DOJ has yet posted NLRB’s FY 2020 annual report.

FOIA News: FOIA lawyer wanted by FBI

The FBI’s FOIA litigation unit is looking to hire an attorney. The deadline to apply is November 30, 2020. See vacancy announcement here.