FOIA News: Fiscal year ends Friday. Enter FOIA request contest!

As FOIA personnel look forward to the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2022, we remind our readers to submit by that date their best guesses as to how many FOIA requests the government received over the past 12 months. We’ll give away gifts cards for the three closest entrees— or play just for the fun of it! See our earlier post for full details.

Court opinions issued Sept. 21, 2022

Freeman v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- granting FBI’s unopposed renewed summary judgment and finding that agency properly withheld internal secure fax numbers pursuant to Exemption 7(C) and intranet and internal web addresses pursuant to Exemption 7(E).

Black Hills Clean Water Alliance v. U.S. Forest Serv. (D.S.D.) -- granting plaintiff’s discovery request regarding agency’s search notwithstanding lack of unusual circumstances and D.C. Circuit precedent disfavoring routine discovery.

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

Court opinion issued Sept. 20, 2022

Bader Family Found. v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ. (D.D.C.) -- deciding that: (1) agency failed to conduct adequate search for emails concerning school disciplinary policies by neglecting to use reasonable search terms and not searching a non-government email account to which responsive emails had been sent; and (2) agency properly relied on Exemption 6 to redact cell phone number and non-government email address.

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

Court opinions issued Sept. 19, 2022

Leopold v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- holding that Exemption 8 protected in full an independent monitor’s 1,000-page compliance report concerning HSBC and that no non-exempt information could be reasonably segregated and released, including “background information or a table of contents.”

Kuzma v. DOJ (W.D.N.Y.) -- (1) adopting magistrate judge’s report and recommendation that FBI performed adequate search and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 7(D) and 7(E); (2) rejecting magistrate’s finding that FBI improperly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) and ruling that FBI made reasonable effort to ascertain whether individuals whose names were withheld were still alive; and (3) rejecting magistrate’s conclusion that plaintiff’s entitlement to attorney’s fees was limited to the timeframe in which the Complaint was filed through FBI’s first release of records.

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

FOIA News: FOIA Advisory Committee is off and running

FOIA Advisory Committee Organizes into Three Subcommittees

By Kimberlee Ried, FOIA Ombudsman, Sept. 19, 2022

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee shared information and heard ideas from previous Committee terms to organize itself into three subcommittees for the 2022-2024 term. 

Each subcommittee is led by two co-chairs, one of whom is a federal employee, the other a representative from the requester community. The subcommittees will do much of the work of the Committee, which consists of 20 FOIA experts — 10 government FOIA professionals and 10 requester community representatives appointed by Acting Archivist of the United States Debra Steidel Wall.  

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Sept. 16, 2022

Ctr. for Immigration Studies v. USCIS (D.D.C.) -- holding that plaintiff’s request seeking all emails sent and received by three senior officials over a nine-month period —a total of 1.6 million pages—was unduly burdensome and need not be processed.

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

Court opinion issued Sept. 15, 2022

Franklin v. United States (5th Cir.) -- in relevant part, deciding that district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff attorneys’ fees because “the public gains no benefit” from disclosure of records concerning plaintiff’s tax penalties.

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

Court opinion issued Sept. 14, 2022

Hooker v. U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs (D.D.C.) -- dismissing case brought by former Department employee and vexatious litigator after finding that Department performed reasonable search for requested document, which was ultimately produced after plaintiff filed suit.

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

FOIA News: OIP issues FOIA-Privacy Act Guidance

OIP ISSUES GUIDANCE ON FOIA-PRIVACY ACT INTERFACE

DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Sept. 15, 2022

Today, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) published new guidance on the interface between the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act.  This guidance provides practical insight for agency FOIA professionals who process access requests for Privacy Act records.  Both the Privacy Act and FOIA are long-established mechanisms for individuals to seek access to government records.  The Privacy Act and FOIA can overlap, and it is critical that FOIA professionals understand this interface to make disclosure determinations that provide requesters the full scope of access to which they are entitled under both statutes. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA Ruling Yields New Argument For Challenging Exemption 4

FOIA Ruling Yields New Argument For Challenging Exemption

By John McCarthy, Anuj Vohra, and Dan Wolff, Law360, Sept. 14, 2022

Last month, in Seife v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit became the first appellate court to address a significant question regarding Exemption 4 left unanswered by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2019 FOIA decision in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media.

Read more here (accessible with free trial subscription).