FOIA News: CNN sues DOJ for Biden interview recordings

CNN sues for access to tape of Biden’s interview with investigators in classified docs probe

By Katelyn Polantz & Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN, Apr. 4, 2024

CNN has sued for access to recordings of federal investigators’ interview with President Joe Biden in the now-closed probe over his handling of classified documents.

The interview has become one of the most notable and politically controversial parts of special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation, which concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Biden with criminal mishandling of records after his vice presidency. In a final report, Hur called Biden, 81, “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The Justice Department released transcripts of Biden’s interview after Hur’s report was made public in February, but the department also has recordings.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Radio interview with GAO about FOIA backlogs

What to do about those ever-rising FOIA request backlogs

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests keep rising every year. Some agencies have trouble responding to them on time, leading to growing backlogs.

Tom Temin, Fed. News Network, Mar. 27, 2024

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests keep rising every year. Some agencies have trouble responding to them on time, leading to growing backlogs. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Justice Department bureau that oversees FOIA activity could improve its guidance on how to get out from under backlogs. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with GAO’s Director of Strategic Issues, Jay McTigue.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Give us a sense of FOIA activity. Has it been on the rise? And tell us more about the level of backlogs some agencies, anyhow, are seeing?

Jay McTigue Sure. We looked back over the last decade looking at data from 2013 up through 2022, and we found that backlogs government wide have nearly doubled to a little bit over 200,000 at the end of fiscal year 2022. This reflects a long term trend, a persistent challenge for federal agencies.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA Bootcamp at Yale University

Yale Law School will host a FOIA Bootcamp in person on March 26, 2024, with journalist Nate Jones and criminal defense investigator Nathan Tempey. See more details here.

FOIA News: OIP announces upcoming training

OIP Announces Upcoming FOIA Trainings Dates

By DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Mar. 21, 2024

Today, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) announces new dates for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) training for April through July.  As part of its responsibility to encourage agency compliance with the FOIA, OIP offers numerous training opportunities throughout the year for agency FOIA professionals and individuals with FOIA responsibilities. 

* *. *

The courses and dates scheduled for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2024 are:

Introduction to the Freedom of Information Act
April 3, 2024

Processing a Request from Start to Finish
April 10, 2024

Procedural Requirements, and Fee and Fee Waivers Training
May 7, 2024

Litigation Training
May 21, 2024

Administrative Appeals, FOIA Compliance, and Customer Service Training
May 23, 2024

Exemption 1 and Exemption 7 Training
June 4, 2024

Exemption 4 and Exemption 5 Training
June 12, 2024

Privacy Considerations Training
July 9, 2024

Continuing FOIA Education Training
July 11, 2024

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA Advisory Committee announces three meetings

The FOIA Advisory Committee will meet virtually three more times to conclude its 2022-2024 term:

1. April 4, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. eastern time (ET);

2. May 9, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET; and

3. June 13, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.

See more details in the notice scheduled to be officially published in the Federal Register on March 21, 2024.

FOIA News: FOIA discussion at Marquette University

On April 2, 2024, Marquette University will host a discussion entitled “The Fight for FOIA: A Conversation About the State of Government Transparency.” The panelists are Professor Margaret Kwoka, USA Today reporter Nick Penzenstadler, and New York TImes reporter Mark Walker. See more details here.

FOIA News: DOJ seeks comments on FOIA business standard

On March 18, 2024, the Department of Justice published a request in the Federal Register seeking comments on the proposed Freedom of Information Act business standards that have been created in support of Federal shared services. This is the first set of FOIA standards being developed and input will be used in formulation of business standards for federal agency FOIA case management systems.

Electronic comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal, www.regulations.gov, and written comments must be postmarked, on or before May 17, 2024.

FOIA: Reporters Committee Releases Analysis on Use of "Glomar"

We FOIA’d every federal agency for their ‘Glomar’ responses. Here’s what we learned.

By Shawn Musgrave and Adam A. Marshall, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Mar. 15, 2024

In the summer of 2022, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press started an ambitious project to remedy the informational deficit surrounding Glomar, using (of course) FOIA requests. Specifically, the Reporters Committee wrote FOIA requests asking for response letters from agencies to requesters that included a number of phrases associated with the Glomar response and sent between fiscal years 2017 and 2021. The requests also gave agencies the option to simply report the number of Glomar responses issued each fiscal year, along with the exemption they were tied to. The Reporters Committee submitted the request to every federal department, agency, and subcomponent thereof across the government, totalling hundreds of submissions.

…

As of Jan. 12, nearly 300 federal agencies or components thereof responded to the Reporters Committee’s FOIA requests by providing data about their use of Glomar denials over the five fiscal years from 2017 through 2021. Combined, these agencies issued a total of more than 5,000 Glomar responses during this period.

Just over a third of agencies that responded identified at least one Glomar denial during this period. The remaining agencies replied they had no responsive documents and/or had not issued a Glomar denial during this period.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Chief FOIA Officers Council meeting

The Chief Freedom Officers Council will meet for this first time in 2024 on April 17th, according to a notice published in the Federal Register. The virtual meeting is open to the public. Additional details about the meeting, including the agenda, will be available on the Chief FOIA Officers Council website.

FOIA News: Recap of NARA's Sunshine Week event

Sunshine Week Panel Addresses Impact of AI on Open Government

By Cara Moore Lebonick, National Archives News, Mar. 15, 2024

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2024 – Sunshine Week is an annual nonpartisan celebration of the importance of publicly available records and the practice of open government to drive civic engagement. In recognition of the week, on March 14, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) hosted a panel discussion titled, “Artificial Intelligence: The Intersection of Public Access and Open Government.”

In recognition of the Sunshine Week, on March 14, the National Archives hosted a panel discussion titled, “Artificial Intelligence: The Intersection of Public Access and Open Government.” National Archives photo by Susana Rabb.

Director of the Office of Government Information Services Alina Semo kicked off the event and introduced Deputy Archivist of the United States William Bosanko.

Read more here.