Q&A: Par for the course?

Q. Can I use FOIA to obtain Foreign Service Institute School of Professional and Area Studies curriculum and syllabi? I do not think this information is classified, but rather “For Official Use Only.”

A. The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is a component of the Department of State. Thus, FSI records are subject to FOIA requests. Whether the content of those records can be released in full or in part, however, is not something that I can accurately predict. I have not found a federal court opinion in which access to FSI course material was disputed. Note that you would not be the first person to make such a request. Here is a request that was filed about three weeks ago:

Q. As this is my first FOIA request, what is a typical window for expecting a response? Further, will I receive a response from the State Department no matter what, even if it’s to say my request cannot be filled?

A. The State Department is notoriously slow in responding to FOIA requests. In fiscal year 2019, the Department took an average of 119 days to complete "simple" requests and an average of 307 days to complete "complex" requests. And the pandemic has worsened the Department's response times. The Department should first send you an "acknowledgment" letter and assign a reference number to your request. That is supposed to occur within 10 business days, but in my experience it's likely to take one month or more. Even if all of the records you requested are exempt, the Department will (eventually) issue a substantive response identifying the FOIA exemptions and notifying you of your appeal rights.

Court opinion issued Nov. 12, 2020

Am. Civil Liberties Union v. Dep’t of Def. (S.D.N.Y.) - on renewed summary judgment, and following in camera review ordered earlier this year, ruling that defendant agencies properly withheld certain military orders; there was no official acknowledgment because the records at issue were “clearly more specific than any information previously disclosed by the Government.”

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

FOIA News: Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission to Update FOIA Regulations

SUMMARY:

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) is amending its regulations implementing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The amendments to the FOIA regulations concern minor issues that have arisen since the regulations were last revised in 2016.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Recap of artificial intelligence meeting

OIP HOSTS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EVENT FEATURING CFO COUNCIL TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE WORKING GROUP

DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Nov. 10, 2020

More than 400 federal government employees and contractors attended a presentation featuring the Chief FOIA Officers (CFO) Council Technology Committee working group on artificial intelligence (AI), held virtually on November 5, 2020.  The event, "Artificial Intelligence 101," provided agency Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) professionals a primer on different types of AI and AI-adjacent technologies, key terms, and possible applications to the FOIA process.  It also allowed attendees to share information regarding currently-utilized technologies with each other.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIAonline to be offline for maintenance

The government’s FOIA website FOIAonline will be offline for planned maintenance from 6:00 AM on November 11, 2020 through 6:00 PM November 15, 2020.

FOIA News: VHA claims 50 percent backlog reduction

VHA cuts FOIA backlog in half, thanks to telework infrastructure

By Jory Heckman, Fed. News Network, Nov. 10, 2020

Agency Freedom of Information Act professionals, like much of the federal workforce, have spent much of this year rethinking the way they do their jobs under mandatory telework.

The Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy, back in May, encouraged agency FOIA offices to seek out IT workarounds to keep running, “even at a diminished pace,” during the pandemic.

Six months after that memo, Michael Sarich, FOIA director for the Veterans Health Administration, said the agency had an “incredible year” and cut its case backlog by more than half. The goal of processing 600 cases in its backlog, he said, helped unify staff around a goal during a challenging time for the federal workforce.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Nov. 9. 2020

Swick v. Dep’t of the Army (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, ruling that Army performed adequate search for plaintiff’s psychiatric evaluation but not for her personnel file, which Army averred was maintained by the National Personnel Records Center.

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

Court opinions issued Nov. 5, 2020

Smart-Tek Servs. v. IRS (9th Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that IRS performed adequate search for plaintiffs’ employment, corporate, and partnership tax returns, and holding that records of alter ego companies—which were commingled with plaintiffs’ records during FOIA processing and withheld by IRS under Exemption 3—were not responsive to plaintiffs’ requests.

WP Co. v. SBA (D.D.C.) -- determining that SBA failed to demonstrate that Exemptions 4 and 6 protected the names of loan recipients and amounts borrowed from the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Disaster Loans program. In reaching its decision, the court noted that the SBA had notified loan applicants that such information would be disclosed upon request.

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

FOIA News: SBA must disclose PPP loan records, court rules

Pandemic Loan Programs Borrower Info Must Be Released by SBA

By Porter Wells, Bloomberg Law, Nov. 5, 2020

• SBA has disbursed $717 billion to support economy

• Names, loan amounts sought through public records requests

The Small Business Administration must release detailed information about the businesses that received loans from the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, including the names of those recipients and the precise amount of each loan, a federal judge in Washington said Thursday.

Read more here.

Breaking: D.D.C Rules that SBA Must Disclose All PPP Recipients

WP Company LLC v. U.S. Small Business Administration (D.D.C.) — “The Court will grant the news-organization Plaintiffs’ Cross Motion for Summary Judgment and CPI’s Cross-Motion for Partial Summary Judgment and order that Defendant release the names, addresses, and precise loan amounts of all individuals and entities that obtained PPP and EIDL COVID-related loans by November 19, 2020.”

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