Court opinion issued May 15, 2025

Tovar v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- dismissing plaintiff’s claim against the Drug Enforcement Administration for access to records about himself on the ground that he failed to appeal the DEA’s denial before filing suit; rejecting as irrelevant the plaintiff’s argument that the DEA’s final response was untimely, as the agency cured any delay by issuing a final determination before the lawsuit was filed.

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

FOIA News: D.C. Circuit allows discovery against DOGE

Watchdog Effort to Obtain DOGE Records Can Proceed, Appeals Court Rules

The decision requires Elon Musk’s team to resume efforts to share information about its structure and day-to-day operations requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency must resume efforts to hand over internal documents about their operations to a nonpartisan watchdog group, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The order, issued by a three-judge panel in Washington, directs Mr. Musk’s team to answer questions and provide details the group requested under federal transparency laws, such as the Freedom of Information Act. The watchdog, the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, had sued to force the secretive unit to comply with its public records requests.

Read more here.

Jobs, job, jobs: Mid-week announcement May 14, 2025

The number of vacant FOIA positions in the federal government has been significantly reduced by the hiring freeze that took effect on January 20, 2025, and which recently was extended through July 15, 2025. Below are several private sector FOIA positions that might be of interest.

• Oversight Att’y, Democracy Forward, $90k-110k, Wash., D.C.

• FOIA Paralegal, Republican Jobs, $20-$40/hr., remote.

• FOIA Analyst, SAIC, salary unknown, Arlington, VA (Top Secret clearance required).

• FOIA Analyst, Peraton, $104k-$166k, McLean, VA (TS/SCI with Polygraph level clearance).

• FOIA Analyst, Ardent Eagle Solutions, salary unknown, Wash., D.C.

FOIA News: DOJ facing decision whether to release audio of Hur-Biden interview

Lawsuit Hangs Over DOJ Decision to Release Biden Audio

By Jim Mishler, Newsmax, May 11, 2025

The Department of Justice has until May 20 to decide whether to release potentially damaging audio from an interview former President Joe Biden had with a government attorney about handling classified documents.

A court set that deadline for action based on a lawsuit filed by the Oversight Project, which seeks to have the audio released to present a clearer picture of Biden's capacity during the October 2023 interview. Special counsel Robert Hur interviewed president and decided not to prosecute partly because Biden was "an elderly man with a poor memory."

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA discussion on use of artificial intelligence

Join the Society of Professional Journalists Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter on Monday, May 19, at 6 p.m. EDT for a discussion on AI and FOIA.

Axel Ebermann, president, New York Coalition for Open Government, and Irwin McCullough, co-founder, FOIA Friend, will discuss the pros and cons of integrating AI in the records requesting process and how journalists can use AI as a tool.

The session will be moderated by freelance journalist James Mae.

Register here for the free webinar.

See original announcement here.

FOIA News: FDA falling behind on FOIA requests, logs show

By Orca1, LinkedIn, May 7, 2025

April 2025 saw one of the lowest numbers of FDA FOIA requests closed in a single month, based on historical data from the FDA's FOIA log.

Every month, the FDA releases logs of what FOIA requests they have received and which ones have been processed or closed. The FDA's FOIA log is located here: https://lnkd.in/ex-MCsVX

The attached graph illustrates the monthly volume of FDA FOIA requests received and closed since the start of FDA FY 2023. Typically, these figures trend together.

However, a significant divergence occurred recently:
- March 2024: 1,062 requests received, 1,019 requests closed.
- April 2024: 1,054 requests received, only 414 requests closed -- a drop of nearly 60% in closures despite similar intake.

We recently discussed the FDA's reduction-in-force and its impact on agency professionals: https://lnkd.in/erE2ZY8X

This sharp decline in closed FOIA requests suggests the reduction-in-force is creating significant backlogs, which also directly affects industry and public access to information.

We hope this is a short-term issue and we will continue to monitor the FDA's FOIA processing throughput.

See original LinkedIn post here.

NB: The references to March 2024 and April 2024 in Orca1’s post are typographical errors (and should be 2025), according to FOIA Advisor’s review of the FY 2025 data posted by FDA. Thank you to a loyal reader for contacting us about this.

FOIA News: Senator Wyden wants info about HHS FOIA operations

Sen. Ron Wyden Seeks Answers on RFK Jr.’s Purge of FOIA Staff

By Rachana Pradhan, KFF Health News, May 8, 2025

The Department of Health and Human Services’ mass dismissals of workers who release government records “raise grave transparency, accountability, and privacy concerns,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday.

In a May 8 letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. provided exclusively to KFF Health News, Wyden, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, wrote that “it is hard to square your commitment to radical transparency” with HHS’ firing of workers who handled Freedom of Information Act requests.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Hot request topics at FDA, FTC, and SEC

Pharma Knock-Offs, a Secret Email Address, and a Smooth Spin of the Revolving Door

By John A. Jenkins, Law St. Media, May 7, 2025

Questions about GLP-1 weight loss drugs, DOGE, cryptocurrencies, and the past conduct of Trump’s regulatory nominees are among those in newly available Freedom of Information Act requests filed by media organizations with the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.  

FOIA requests targeting those hot-button topics were among 339 queries filed by the news media in the past month with the three key regulators, as tracked in as close to real time as possible by PoliScio Analytics’ competitive-intelligence database FOIAengine. 

Read more here.

Court opinion issued May 6, 2025

Conflict Kinetics, LLC v. Program Exec. Office—Simulation, Training, & Instrumentation (E.D. Va.) -- granting on mootness grounds Defense Department component’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claim that disputed government’s failure to respond at all, because DOD issued a final response two days after plaintiff filed its lawsuit; denying government’s motion to dismiss as moot count plaintiff’s claim objecting to records withheld under various exemptions, because that claim “is not an issue of this Court's jurisdiction, but one to be decided on the merits.”

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 May 5, 2025

Texas Pub. Policy Found. v. U.S. Dep’t of State (5th Cir.) -- reversing lower court in a 2-1 decision and holding that Exemption 6 did not protect the names and email addresses of rank-and-file State Department employees (i.e., non-policy makers) who were involved in developing President Biden’s emissions reduction target after rejoining the Paris Agreement; the majority found that the Department’s fears about potential harassment, doxing, or unwanted attention were not substantiated with credible evidence; that there was a significant public interest in understanding how government policy is formed, even when those involved are not senior officials; and that work-issued emails did not merit the same privacy protections as personal information; the dissent opined that Exemption 6 protected the names and email addresses of rank-and-file employees because their participation in “a high-profile and controversial matter” could expose them to harassment, whereas the rescinded nature of the emissions pledge weakened public interest in disclosure.

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- ruling that DHS properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold the identity of a Secret Service agent who had communicated with the founder of Oath Keepers concerning its potential presence at a September 2020 presidential rally; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that the communications at issue were created for political purposes rather than to fulfill the agency’s law enforcement mission; further, in weighing the agent’s privacy interests against any public interest in disclosure, the court rejected plaintiff’s argument that the agent acted improperly or that disclosure would shed additional light on Secret Service’s operations.

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