FOIA News: Radio interview with creator of FOIA comedy show

On December 10, 2024, Tom Temin, the host of The Federal Drive on WFED radio, interviewed Cutis Raye, the creator of the “FOIA Love” comedy show. Listen to the interview or read the transcript here. Upcoming performances are in Washington, D.C. on December 11th and 12th.

FOIA News: Access to intelligence records

Using FOIA to Access Intelligence Community Records

By NARA/OGIS, FOIA Ombuds Observer (No. 2025-02), Dec. 9, 2024

Requesters regularly contact the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) about their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for access to records held by the Intelligence Community (IC), a group of 18 federal government agencies that collect, analyze and deliver intelligence and counterintelligence to U.S. leaders. As with any FOIA request, requesters need to know which agency holds the records they seek and how to submit a request.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Dec. 6, 2024

Pub. Health & Med, Professionals for Transparency v. FDA (N.D. Tex.) -- denying FDA’s summary judgment motion after concluding that the agency’s search for records pertaining to Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine improperly omitted the agency’s Emergency Use Authorization file.

Intercept Media v. Nat’l Parks Serv. (S.D.N.Y.) -- determining that: (1) agency’s investigation into whether an employee wrongfully killed a gray wolf qualified as “law enforcement” for Exemption 7 purposes, because the results of the investigation could have resulted in criminal liability; (2)(a) subject of investigation had no privacy interest in the details about the incident he disclosed to the media; (b) despite subject’s low rank, public interest in disclosure outweighed subject’s limited privacy interest in non-public investigatory details; (3) agency properly withheld identifying information about third parties, such as the complainant, witnesses, suspected co-conspirators, and other third parties, pursuant to Exemption 7(C); and (4) based on court’s in camera review of disputed records, agency was required to segregate and disclose non-identifying information pertaining to third parties.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report Dec. 9, 2024

Federal positions closing in the next ten days

Att’y Advisor, Dep’t of Transportation/PHMSA, GS 14, Wash., DC, closes 12/9/24 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./NIH, GS 11-13, Montgomery Cnty., MD, closes 12/9/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./NIH, GS 11-13, Montgomery Cnty., MD, closes 12/9/24 (public).

Sup. Gov’t Info. Specialist, GS 9, Dep’t of the Air Force, Offutt AFB, NE, closes 12/9/24 (non-public).

Sup. Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Educ., GS 15, Wash., DC, closes 12/10/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, GS 11-12, Salt Lake City, UT, closes 12/10/24 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./USCIS, GS 13-15, remote, closes 12/11/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 12, Dublin, GA, closes 12/13/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, GS 11-12, Austin, TX, closes 12/13/24 (non-public).

Mgmt. & Program Analyst, Nat’l Archives & Records Admin/OGIS, GS 12-13, College Park, MD (non-public)

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 12, Columbia, MO, closes 12/16/24 (agency only).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 12, Salt Lake City, UT, closes 12/16/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 11, Jamaica Plain, MA, closes 12/17/24 (agency only).

Gen. Att’y, Consumer Products Safety Comm’n, GS 11, Bethesda, MD, closes 12/16/24 (public).

Federal positions closing on or after Dec. 20, 2024

Gen. Att’y, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./USCIS, GS 13-15, Camp Springs, MD, closes 12/20/24 (non-public).

Att’y Advisor, Dep’t of Justice/Pardon, GS 13-15, Wash., DC, open until filled (public).

FOIA News: DOJ extends nomination deadline for FOIA awards

Deadline Extended: Nominate FOIA Professionals for the 2025 Sunshine Week FOIA Awards

DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Dec. 5, 2024

**Deadline Extended to Friday, December 13, 2024**

The Department of Justice, Office of Information Policy (OIP) is pleased to announce that nominations are open for the 2025 Sunshine Week FOIA Awards, recognizing the contributions of FOIA professionals from around the government.  As the Attorney General recognized in his FOIA Guidelines issued in March 2022, “[t]he federal government could not process the hundreds of thousands of FOIA requests that are received every year without its dedicated FOIA professionals.”  Agency FOIA professionals are at the center of ensuring successful FOIA administration and we look forward to celebrating the work of these individuals from around the government.  For this year’s event, OIP is seeking nominations for five categories of awards:

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Dec. 2, 2024

Berlant v. U.S. Election Assistance Comm’n (D. Or.) -- determining that: (1) agency performed adequate search for various records pertaining to its accreditation of voting system test laboratories (VSTLs); (2) agency properly relied on Exemption 4 to withhold certain records submitted by VSTLs, because those entities customarily kept those records documents private; moreover, the agency provided express and implied assurances to VSTLs that such records would remain confidential; and (3) agency properly invoked Exemption 6 to withhold work phone numbers of two former employees, as well as contact and insurance information of third parties.

Am. First Legal Found. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- in case involving spreadsheet of enforcement actions taken against certain non-citizens, ruling that: (1) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold names of non-citizens, docket numbers, and full dates of birth, but that it had not justified the blanket withholding of birth months and years, residential addresses by city, state, and country, or gag, cartel, terrorist group affiliations, and monikers; rejecting plaintiff’s threshold argument that non-citizens have no privacy rights under FOIA, noting that plaintiff’s position was unsupported by the statute’s text and case law and would lead to absurd results; and (3) ICE properly invoked Exemption 7(E) to withhold precise addresses where at-large, non-citizens could be located, but it did not justify withholding city, state, and country data; further, ICE properly withheld operational details about its past and future attempts to locate non-citizens under Exemption 7(E), as well as “‘apprehension locations of non-citizens attempting to enter the U.S. illegally”; however, ICE fell short with respect to its Exemption 7(E) withholdings of the names of gang, cartel, and terrorist group affiliations, and monikers.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

FOIA News: FOIA Advisory Committee meets on Dec. 5th

The federal FOIA Advisory Committee for the 2024-2026 term will meet on December 5, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Meeting materials and a livestream link are available here.

Monthly Roundup: November 2024

Below is a summary of the notable FOIA court decisions and news from last month, as well as a look ahead to FOIA events in December.

Court decisions

We identified and posted 11 decisions in November. Of note—for its length at least—is the 79-page opinion issued in Washington Blade v. DOL (D.D.C. Nov. 4, 2024), which devotes two dozen pages to the government’s foreseeable harm explanations (accepting most of them for the deliberative process privilege, but not for attorney-client privilege).

Top news

On November 7, 2024, the Chief FOIA Officers Council met for the second time this year. See a recap from OGIS here.

The 50th anniversary of the 1974 FOIA amendments was observed on November 1, 2024, with panel discussions and a job fair at George Washington University Law School.

December calendar

Dec. 4, 2024: DOJ/OIP Procedural Requirements and Fees Training

Dec. 5, 2024: FOIA Advisory Committee meeting

Dec. 6, 2024: Nomination deadline for DOJs 2025 Sunshine Week FOIA Awards

Dec. 11, 2024: DOJ/OIP Exemption 1 and Exemption 7 Training

Dec. 11-12, 2024: FOIA Love comedy and bluegrass show, Washington, DC

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report Dec. 2, 2024

Federal jobs closing in the next 10 days

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Peace Corps, FP 2-3, Wash., DC, closes 12/5/24 (or 75 applications) (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Peace Corps, FP 2-3, Wash., DC, closes 12/5/24 (or 75 applications) (non-public).

Lead Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./FDA, GS 14, remote, closes 12/5/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/OJP, GS 12-13, Wash., DC., closes 12/6/24 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Interior/BSEE, GS 12-13, multiple locations, closes 12/6/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 11-12, Los Angeles, CA, closes 12/6/24 (non-public).

Federal jobs closing on or after Dec. 13, 2024

Att’y Advisor, Dep’t of Justice/Pardon, GS 13-14, Wash., DC, no closing date (public).

Court opinions issued Nov. 26, 2024

Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research. v. NIH (4th Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision after finding that: (1) agency’s failure to meet FOIA’s response deadline for issuing a final determination did not preclude summary judgment in agency’s favor or warrant any additional relief for appellant; (2) agency established with “sufficiently detailed” declarations that it performed adequate searches for records concerning the submission and withdrawal of sequencing data regarding the origin of COVID-19; (3) agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to redact draft Q&A in response to a foreign news article, as well as draft responses to a congressional inquiry; and (4) agency properly relied on Exemption 6 to redact contact information of NIH employees and the identity of a Wuhan University researcher, rejecting appellant’s “attenuated” argument that disclosure would promote the public’s knowledge about the origin of the pandemic.

Walker v. Donovan (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiff’s motion for attorney’s fees stemming from request for Air Force’s investigatory records concerning plaintiff; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that the lawsuit was a catalyst for the release of records, in part because the Air Force began processing plaintiff’s request “well before [plaintiff] initiated his lawsuit”; accepting agency’s explanation that delays were due to “its other duties, including processing [plaintiff’s] FOIA appeal, ‘staffing issues and the press of other business in the Air Force Operations Agency FOIA office,’ . . . and significant telework constraints during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.