Court opinion issued Feb. 21, 2025

Hvistendahi v. DOJ (S.D.N.Y.) -- in case concerning an Office of Inspector General’s report about personal misconduct of FBI employees overseas, concluding that: (1) FBI established that dates and locations of the misconduct, as well as the direct quotations from OIG interviews, implicated personal privacy interests under Exemption 7(C), but those interests were outweighed by a “significant public interest” in disclosure; and (2) FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold the “unsubstantiated allegations against FBI officials and the reasons why OIG found them unsubstantiated.”

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued Feb. 20, 2025

Am. Oversight v. DOJ (D.D.C.) — denying plaintiff’s request expedited processing in a case concerning access to volume two of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on the possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago; holding that the motion for preliminary injunctive relief did not establish how the relief sought (specifically, disclosure of the report before any Senate confirmation vote on Kash Patel) would alleviate any ostensibly irreparable harm, in large part because another court has already enjoined DOJ from releasing the report “no matter what exemption decisions it makes”; questioning also whether the requester’s motion even seeks the type of injunctive relief permitted in the FOIA context.

The Brady Ctr. to Prevent Gun Violence v. FBI (D.D.C.) — determining that the FBI failed to show that disclosure of an agency’s standard operating procedures for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System would enable individuals to circumvent the law for purposes of Exemption 7(E); reserving judgment on the FBI’s segregability analysis until after the agency renewed its summary judgment motion or altered its withholdings; granting summary judgment to the FBI on non-contested information withheld under Exemption 5 and Exemption 7(E).

Magassa v. TSA (D.D.C.) — ruling that: (1) TSA properly relied on Exemption 3 in conjunction with 49 U.S.C. § 114(r) to withhold records concerning the plaintiff, a former employee of Delta Airlines whose security credentials were revoked; (2) TSA properly invoked Exemption 3 in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records indicating whether plaintiff is on a federal watch list; and (3) TSA substantiated its Exemption 5’s attorney-client and attorney work-product privilege redactions for records generated during the course of administrative proceedings concerning the plaintiff’s revoked security credentials.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

FOIA News: CFO tech committee issues white paper

New White Paper on FOIA Data from Chief FOIA Officer Council Technology Committee’s Working Group

BY DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Feb. 24, 2025

A white paper issued by the Chief FOIA Officer (CFO) Council Technology Committee’s Data Working Group (DWG) has been posted to FOIA.gov.  The white paper summarizes the DWG’s work, which included interviews with other FOIA programs to gain a better understanding of how they utilize data in managing their operations and how FOIA programs respond to FOIA requests for data.

Read more here.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report Feb. 24, 2025

The 90-day hiring freeze imposed by the White House on January 20, 2025, has significantly reduced the number of fillable government FOIA positions. Below are vacancies that appear to be exempt from the freeze.

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, GS 9, Fort Jackson, SC, closes 2/26/25 (non-public)

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, GS 12, Fort Belvoir, closes 2/28/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, GS 11, Fort Belvoir, closes 2/28/25 (non-public).

Att’y-Advisor, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./USCG, GS 13-14, Wash., DC, closes 3/3/25 (public).

Att’y-Advisor, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./OGC, GS 14-15, Wash., DC, closes 3/12/25 (public).

Att’y-Advisor, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./OGC, GS 13-15, Wash., DC, closes 3/12/25 (public).

FOIA News: HHS posts FY 2024 FOIA report

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2024. Below are the significant metrics.

• 51,800 requests received, up 11.3 percent from 46,530 requests received in FY 2023.

• 49,271 requests processed, up 4.5 percent from 47,038 requests processed in FY 2023

• 12,685 requests in backlogged status, a 12.6 percent increase from 11,256 backlogged requests in FY 2023.

• 730 appeals in backlogged status, up 14 percent from640 backlogged appeals in FY 2023.

• $66.1 million in processing costs and $14.1 million for litigation ($80.2 million in total), more than double the $39.7 million in total costs incurred in FY 2023.

  $752k fees collected for processing requests.

FOIA News: New email language may shield more USAID communications from public view

New email language may shield more USAID communications from public view

By Rebecca Heilweil, FedScoop, Feb. 20, 2025

Emails sent by employees of what remains of USAID now come with new language that could be meant to keep agency communications from public view. 

Two sources at the international development agency confirmed to FedScoop that emails sent from agency staff now contain the language “Sensitive But Unclassified.” The designation is used by federal agencies to denote a heightened responsibility to safeguard information. 

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Feb. 18, 2025

Feds for Freedom v. DOD (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment and concluding that “it need not response to the request because its scope is so unreasonably expansive that processing and responding to it would be unduly burdensome”; taking note of an agency declaration that stated complying with the request would implicate “over 1.2 gigabytes of records,” including “over 2,000 emails, each with attachments,” totaling more than “26,000 pages”; noting further these records would require “the most scrutinous review,” or “about 6,500 hours of work.”; finally, concluding “that the breadth of Plaintiff’s request is unreasonable in light of Plaintiff’s asserted purpose” for seeking records, namely, to “protect employee rights by confronting the federal government’s mandates requiring vaccination for COVID-19.”

Wilson v. FBI (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment and holding its “search was sufficient” and “invocation of FOIA exemptions . . . proper”; rejecting the requester’s argument that the agency improperly refused to employ desired search terms and to search in the FBI’s Electronic Surveillance and DELTA databases; with respect to Exemption 7(C), holding that the agency correctly withheld the names and identifying information of government investigators and third parties; with respect to Exemption 7(E), accepting the withholding of “an internal email address, non-public intranet addresses, and non-public phone numbers”; finally, holding that the agency’s use of Glomar was proper with respect to (1) national security and intelligence-related records protected by Exemptions 1 and 3, as well as records identifying individuals (2) in the witness security program, (3) on a watchlist, or (4) who are confidential sources.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

FOIA News: FOIA boot camp on March 4

Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic will host an in-person FOIA bootcamp with three journalists on March 4, 2025. Read more here.

FOIA News: T-minus 10, 9, 8 . . .

Federal agencies have until March 1, 2025 to post their annual FOIA reports for fiscal year 2024. None of the top five active FOIA agencies have posted their reports yet, namely Homeland Security, Justice, Veterans Affairs, National Archives, or Defense. Other departments on the clock include Agriculture, Health & Human Services, Housing & Urban Development, Labor, Transportation, and Treasury.

FOIA News: Layoffs hit privacy/FOIA personnel

CNN Made FOIA Request About DOGE—Only to Learn FOIA Staff Was Fired

"Definitely never seen this type of response to a FOIA request," quipped one journalist.

By Eloise Goldsmith, Common Dreams, Feb. 18, 2025

When CNN put in a Freedom of Information Act request with the Office of Personnel Management for information related to security clearances for billionaire Elon Musk and other personnel at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency who have been allowed access to sensitive or classified government networks, the outlet got an unexpected response.

"Good luck with that, they just fired the whole privacy team," an OPM email address wrote back, according to Tuesday reporting from CNN. An OPM official told the outlet that the federal government's human resources agency did not layoff the entire privacy team, but did not comment further on the matter.

"Definitely never seen this type of response to a FOIA request," quipped CBS News journalist Jim LaPorta reacting to the news on X.

Read more here.