Via Email from Reporters Committee:
Hello,
As of today, August 1, 2023, iFOIA is retired. Thank you for more than 10 years of support!
As a reminder, we recommend FOIAMachine and MuckRock as free alternatives to iFOIA.
If you were an iFOIA user and you want to stay connected with the Reporters Committee, you will need to proactively sign up for our newsletters and updates.
Thank you for using iFOIA!
Sincerely,
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
On July 28, 2023, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a final rule with proposed amendments to the agency’s Freedom of Information Act regulations, which were last updated in 2007. The proposed revisions are “due to organizational changes and subsequent amendments to the FOIA.” Comments are due on or before August 28, 2023.
Down Law Grp. v. U.S. Coast Guard (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) Coast Guard did not conduct adequate search for certain records concerning the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill clean-up, because agency erroneously narrowed scope of plaintiff’s first request and failed to sufficiently explain its search methodology; and (2) agency failed to show how Exemption 6 protected the names of Coast Guard personnel who were given awards for their service in connection with the oil spill response, rejecting agency’s explanation that disclosure would subject personnel to harassment and violence.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
McCann v. USCIS (E.D. La.) -- deciding that: (1) agency failed to sufficiently explain how it searched for records pertaining to plaintiff; (2) agency conducted adequate segregability analysis, noting that agency’s Vaughn Index was “detailed and meticulous”; and (3) ICE properly processed 16 pages referred to it from USCIS, but ICE failed to account for a 17th page that USCIS reportedly referred to it.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
The Freedom of Information Act needs to be modernized
By Curtis Schube & Gary Lawkowski, The Hill, July 24, 2023
In the past few weeks, the explosive contents of an email sent by former chief medical adviser and COVID guru Anthony Fauci, discussing the possible origins of COVID-19, have come to light. That email was part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Like many of the documents in the response, the CDC had completely redacted the email. The redaction rendered the response virtually useless despite it clearly being in the public interest. Only the action of the House Oversite Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic brought the contents of the email to light. It leaves one to wonder, is FOIA living up to its intended purpose?
Read more here.
The U.S. Trade Representative will update its FOIA regulations regarding expediting processing, according to a notice scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on July 25, 2023. Specifically, USTR will adopt two examples from DOJ’s guidance as to what qualifies as a “compelling need”: (1) the failure to obtain requested records on an expedited basis could reasonably be expected to pose an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual; and (2) with respect to a request made by a person primarily engaged in disseminating information, there is urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged Federal Government activity.
Public comments will be accepted for 30 days from the notice’s publication date.
Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program v. DHS (D. Mass. 2023) -- determine that: (1) government neglected to adequately search for records concerning ICE's use of solitary confinement in immigration detention centers; (2) government failed to show that certain redacted emails and memoranda were pre-decisional under Exemption 5 or that factual materials in expert reports were Inextricably Intertwined with policy making recommendations; and (3) government properly relied on Exemption 7(E) to withhold four types of records concerning detainees.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Rocky Mountain Wild v. BLM (D. Colo.) -- finding that: (1) Bureau of Land Management’s supplemental filings established that agency had properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege and met the foreseeable harm standard with respect to withheld records concerning a field office’s amendment of its “Resource Management Plan”; (2) BLM’s supplemental search, which yielded additional responsive records, was adequate; and (3) BLM properly relied on Exemption 6 to redact two newly discovered pages, but it failed to explain how Exemption 5 redactions on one page met the foreseeable harm standard.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Am. First Legal Found. v. U.S. Dep't of Agric. (D.D.C.) -- holding that 14 agencies properly relied on Exemption 5’s presidential communications privliege to withhold in full strategic plans each agency had prepared “in response to an Executive Order regarding promoting access to voting Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and head of the Domestic Policy Council within the White House”; further holding that White House Special Counsel adequately showed foreseeable harm by identifying potential chilling effects on confidential and canid presidential decision-making, consistent with other rulings withun the Circuit.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Daniel J. Metcalfe, who in 1981 co-founded the Department of Justice’s Office of Information and Privacy (now Office of Information Policy), has authored a 792-page book entitled Inside Justice: Secrecy at Work. Available this October, the book is described by its publisher as “at once a candid, highly readable memoir infused with sly humor, a deeply researched and argued call to action, and an unprecedented history of government secrecy that only one person could provide.”
Mr. Metcalfe left DOJ/OIP in 2007 after serving as its co-director for 24 years and as its sole director after Richard Huff retired in 2005. He shortly thereafter joined American University’s Washington College of Law and ran the school's Collaboration on Government Secrecy, which was an educational project devoted to openness in government.