FOIA News: The worst FOIA responses of 2025

The 2025 Foilies: Recognizing the worst in government transparency

By Elec. Frontier Found. & MuckRock News, Detroit Metro Times, Mar 13, 2025

The public’s right to access government information is constantly under siege across the United States, from both sides of the political aisle. In Maryland, where Democrats hold majorities, the attorney general and state legislature are pushing a bill to allow agencies to reject public records requests that they consider “harassing.” At the same time, President Donald Trump’s administration has moved its most aggressive government reform effort — the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — outside the reach of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), while also beginning the mass removal of public data sets.

One of the most powerful tools to fight back against bad governance is public ridicule. That’s where we come in: Every year during Sunshine Week (March 16-22) the Electronic Frontier Foundation, MuckRock, and AAN Publishers team up to publish The Foilies. This annual report — now a decade old — names and shames the most repugnant, absurd, and incompetent responses to public records requests under FOIA and state transparency laws.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Politics in the court?

‘Double Standard’: DC Court That Shielded John Kerry’s Staff Changed Its Tune When It Came To DOGE

By Thomas English, Daily Caller News Found., Mar. 13, 2025

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to disclose staff identities Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a liberal watchdog group.

The decision, issued by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, sharply contrasts a September ruling from the same court denying a nearly identical FOIA request by the conservative group, Power the Future (PTF), which sought staff information related to former Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry. The conflicting ruling prompted criticism of an alleged double standard in judicial decisions based on the political affiliations of the requesting organizations.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Requests and backlogs increased in FY 2024

Federal agencies received 1,501,432 FOIA requests in fiscal year 2024, according to data now available on FOIA.gov. This represents a 25 percent increase from FY 2023, when agencies received a total of 1,199,699 requests. Although agencies were able to process 1,499,265 requests in FY 2024, the number of backlogged requests at the end of the fiscal year was 30 percent higher than at the end of FY 2023 (267,056 vs. 200,843, respectively).

Other items of note:

• Agencies received 20,115 appeals, up 39 percent from 14,443 in FY 2023, and they processed 18,575 appeals.

• Backlogged appeals climbed 10 percent from 4,893 (FY 2023) to 5,382 (FY 2024).

• Total processing costs ($601 million), litigation-related costs ($55.39 million), and fees collected ($2.43 million), were about the same as FY 2023 figures: $610 million, $49 million, and $2.33 million, respectively.

• Total number of full-time FOIA staff increased from 4,844 in FY 2023 to 6,064 in FY 2024.

FOIA News: Top 10 targets for FOIA requesters in FY 2024

The Department of Justice has uploaded FOIA data reported by agencies for fiscal year 2024. Below are the agencies that received the most FOIA requests descending from one to ten.

1. DHS: 911,535 requests

2. Justice: 132,527

3. Veterans Affairs: 105,725

4. Defense: 61,858

5. HHS: 51,800

6. USDA: 24,722

7. Nat’l Archives: 22,590

8. State: 22,306

9. Transportation: 18,345

10. EEOC: 18,083

All ten of these agencies appeared in the top ten in FY 2023, with all but the top three changing positions. NARA slipped from 4th in 2023, when it received 62,505 requests. Defense and HHS each moved up one position from 2023; USDA rose from 8th; Transportation slipped from 7th; State rose from 10th; and EEOC dropped from 9th.

Court opinions issued Mar. 11, 2025

Ctr. to Advance Sec. in Am. v. USAID (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s unopposed motion for a stay due to the “extremely limited” number of “USAID personnel available to work on Freedom of Information Act” matters—specifically, “three direct hire FOIA staff” and “nine institutional support contractors”; noting that USAID “cite[d] no authority in support of its request” for a stay, but understanding the request to arise under Open America; noting further that “the Court is skeptical that an agency can avoid its obligations under FOIA . . . by simply implementing a reduction-in-force . . . [or] more generally, by reducing the agency’s overall FOIA staff ‘by half,’” especially when there are no “external impediments to meeting the statutory requirements, such as a lack of funding from Congress or an unanticipated volume of requests that has overwhelmed the FOIA office”; warning that the stay is entered in large part because it is unopposed and “that this decision should not be understood to forecast how the Court is likely to resolve an opposed request for a stay under similar circumstances or a request by Plaintiff to lift the stay.”

Malik v. DHS (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part the government’s motion for summary judgment, and denying the requester’s cross-motion; concluding, in large part, that the defendant-agencies conducted adequate searches for records concerning requester, notwithstanding the requester’s insistence they overlooked “materials which are known to exist”; upholding the agencies’ exemption claims based on the deliberative process, attorney-client, and attorney work-product privileges, as well as Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(E); yet also rejecting USCIS’s application of Exemption 7 to a “Memo for the Record” concerning the requester’s employment application because, as a “mixed-function agency,” the agency had failed to meet its burden to show how the record was “compiled for a law-enforcement purpose”; ordering USCIS to produce a supplemental affidavit addressing its law-enforcement functions vis-a-vis the contested memo or to proffer more detailed explanation for the applicability of Exemption 5.

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

FOIA News: FBI named worst FOIA respondent of the decade

Ten Years of The Foilies

A look back at the games governments played to avoid transparency

By Dave Maass, Elec. Frontier Found., Mar. 11, 2025

In the year 2015, we witnessed the launch of OpenAI, a debate over the color of a dress going viral, and a Supreme Court decision that same-sex couples have the right to get married. It was also the year that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) first published The Foilies, an annual report that hands out tongue-in-cheek "awards" to government agencies and officials that respond outrageously when a member of the public tries to access public records through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or similar laws.

A lot has changed over the last decade, but one thing that hasn't is the steady flow of attempts by authorities to avoid their legal and ethical obligations to be open and accountable. Sometimes, these cases are intentional, but just as often, they are due to incompetence or straight-up half-assedness.

Read more here.

FOIA News: NARA announces Sunshine Week event; silence at DOJ

The National Archives and Records Administration will host a virtual panel discussion on March 19, 2025, in observance of Sunshine Week. The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy announced in December that it would hold a Sunshine Week event on March 17th, but no further details about the program have been provided.

Speaking of DOJ, OIP has removed Bobak Talebian’s name and biography from its homepage, A staff profile updated on March 11, 2025, refers to Mr. Talebian as “Former Director” with dates of service from 2020 to 2025.

Court opinions issued Mar. 10, 2025

Brennan Ctr. for Justice v. U.S. Dep’t of State (S.D.N.Y.) -- deciding that: (1) department performed a reasonable search for certain documents referenced in President Trump’s 2017 travel ban; and (2) following in camera review of four documents, all but three pages of one document were fully protected by the presidential communications privilege and Exemption 1.

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. DOGE Serv. (D.D.C.) -- in most notable part, granting plaintiff’s request for expedited processing of various records from the U.S. DOGE Service (USDS) because the “preliminary record” indicated that USDS “likely” wields substantial independent authority from the White House and therefore is any agency subject to FOIA.

Kendrick v. DEA (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, determining that DEA performed adequate supplemental searches for records concerning pro se plaintiff’s criminal case.

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

FOIA News: Court rules DOGE must process FOIA request

DOGE likely subject to open records law, judge rules

By Zach Schonfeld, The Hill, Mar. 10, 2025

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is likely covered under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal judge ruled late Monday, rejecting the Trump administration’s position that the group does not have to respond to public records requests. 

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper found DOGE exercises substantial authority independently of the president, which makes it subject to FOIA. 

His finding was rooted in media reports detailing the group’s rapid efforts to dismantle parts of the federal bureaucracy, as well as some of President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s statements. 

“Canceling any government contract would seem to require substantial authority—and canceling them on this scale certainly does,” wrote Cooper, an appointee of former President Obama. 

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Mar. 6, 2025

Whitlock v. Dep’t of Def. (D.D.C.) — in case concerning federal corruption and bribery investigation involving the U.S. 7th Fleet, holding that: (1) government was entitled to summary judgment on issues uncontested by plaintiff, specifically that Navy conducted adequate searches and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 5, 6, and 7(C); (2) government was required to release all records withheld pursuant to Exemption 7(A) because the criminal cases it identified as relevant were closed, and it failed to explain how disclosure of each category of withheld records would interfere with any Naval enforcement proceedings; and (3) government was required to release all records withheld pursuant to Exemption 7(B) because it failed to show that disclosure of each category of withheld records “would, more probably than not, seriously interfere with the fairness” of Naval enforcement proceedings.”

Gov’t Accountability Project v. Dep’t of the Treasury (D.D.C.) — finding that agency failed to show that Exemption 4 protected a company’s application and license to sell oil in Syria, because company’s unsworn statements made during the submitter notice process constituted inadmissible hearsay and, in any event, were too “vague and conclusory” to establish that the company customarily and actually treated the documents as private; further finding that some evidence supported Treasury’s position, including confidential markings on the disputed documents, and therefore denying both parties’ summary judgment motions.

Gatore v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (D.D.C.) — in dispute concerning a request for attorney’s fees, ruling that: (1) only one of dozens of plaintiffs established an attorney-client relationship with moving counsel; (2) plaintiff was eligible for attorney’s fees as a prevailing party because agency had been ordered to release certain documents, rejecting agency’s argument that plaintiff needed to prove she received documents from her counsel; and (3) whether plaintiff was entitled to fees under four-factor test was unnecessary to decide owing to her counsel’s “total lack of billing judgment in this case . . . despite repeated warnings from this Court and other members in this District regarding the serious deficiencies of his billing practices.”

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