FOIA News: Happy birthday, FOIA

On this day fifty-nine years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act; its effective date was delayed to the following year. So, happy 59th or 58th birthday to FOIA, depending on how you count. See the statute’s legislative history here, courtesy of National Security Archive.

Court opinion issued June 27, 2025

S. Envtl. Law Ctr. v. Tenn. Valley Auth. (E.D. Tenn.) -- questionably holding that plaintiff lacked standing to pursue FOIA claim because it failed to present sufficient evidence of its purported informational injury, inexplicably relying on U.S. Supreme Court’s non-FOIA decision in Transunion LLC v. Ramirez.

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

Court opinion issued June 24, 2025

Levitt v. IRS (N.D. Ala.) -- deciding that: (1) IRS reasonably interpreted plaintiff’s request for “any and all correspondence related to the FPA [Final Partnership Adjustment] sent to both the Taxpayer and PR [Partnership Representative]” as seeking only correspondence actually sent to both parties; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that the phrase “sent to both the Taxpayer and PR” was merely a descriptor for the FPA itself, reasoning that plaintiff had already defined the term “FPA” earlier in the request; further noting that plaintiff could simply submit a new request if he wanted internal agency correspondence about the FPA; and (2) the fact that agency’s FOIA production did not include any records “that tend to prove or disprove that the Taxpayer or PR received the FPA,” as plaintiff requested, did not undermine the adequacy of IRS’s search.

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

FOIA News: Amtrak issues interim updates to FOIA regulations

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) has issued an interim final rule that updates its FOIA addresses, increase the FOIA fees on the fee schedule, and update procedures for filing FOIA requests. Of note, the rule increases fees for search and processing time from $38 per hour to $50 per hour. This rule is effective September 29, 2025. Comments must be received by August 29, 2025.

FOIA News: Bill Moyers, LBJ's press secretary and early FOIA supporter, dies at 91

Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary turned acclaimed TV journalist, dead at 91

By Frazier Moore, AP, June 26, 2025

Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas, died Thursday at age 91.

Moyers died in a New York City hospital, according to longtime friend Tom Johnson, the former CEO of CNN and an assistant to Moyers during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Moyers’ son William said his father died at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York after a “long illness.”

Moyers’ career ranged from youthful Baptist minister to deputy director of the Peace Corps, from Johnson’s press secretary to newspaper publisher, senior news analyst for “The CBS Evening News” and chief correspondent for “CBS Reports.”

Read more here.

NB: Mr. Moyers drafted a signing statement for President Johnson on enacting the FOIA on July 4, 1966. See Moyers’ version and LBJ’s handwritten edits here.

FOIA News: IRS staff reductions are delaying FOIA responses, reports Captain Obvious

Staffing Cuts Slow IRS FOIA Processing

By Lauren Loricchio, Tax Notes, June 25, 2025

The Trump administration’s workforce reorganization efforts are slowing down Freedom of Information Act processing at the IRS, which could lead to bigger backlogs.

Because so many employees participated in the deferred resignation program, “we have lost many of our experienced [FOIA functional coordinators] and new people are being trained to take over. This is causing a delay in processing the backlog of FOIA requests,” an employee in the IRS Disclosure Office told Tax Notes via email.

FOIA functional coordinators are the employees in each IRS business unit who search for records that are responsive to FOIA requests.

Records obtained by Tax Notes through a FOIA request show that the IRS also fired probationary employees in the office that administers its privacy and records policy and initiatives and ensures compliance with FOIA.

The records show that at least 25 employees in the IRS Office of Privacy, Governmental Liaison, and Disclosure (PGLD) accepted a deferred resignation program offer from the Office of Personnel Management. There were 665 employees in PGLD as of March 14.

According to the records, five government information specialists in PGLD were among more than 7,000 IRS employees fired in February after President Trump took office.

Read more here.

ICYMI, DOJ skips another FOIA Advisory Committee meeting

The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy failed to send a representative to the federal FOIA Advisory Committee’s meeting on June 12, 2025, the second consecutive committee meeting OIP has missed since its director was ousted in early March. OIP’s continued absence did not go unnoticed. Of note, OGIS director and Committee Chair Alina Semo jumped into a discussion about a draft recommendation aimed at OIP and remarked that “we obviously have a vacancy on the FOIA Advisory Committee which is occupied by the director of the Office of Information Policy. There is no director currently or acting directing. As I understand it they’re waiting for confirmation of a new associate attorney general to whom OIP staff reports . . . .” FOIA Advisory Committee Meeting, YouTube (June 12, 2025), https://www.youtube.com/live/59PYN88FCpw (45:14-45:38).

The President’s nominee for Associate Attorney General, Stanley Woodward, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 12-10 vote —coincidentally, on June 12, 2025. The bylaws of the FOIA Advisory Committee provide that government members “should”— not must—include “one representative from the Department of Justice, Office of Information Policy” (not necessarily the director) Thus, the Archivist of the United States could lawfully appoint an OIP staff member to temporarily serve on the committee if DOJ were interested in participating (which it clearly is not). Moreover, the Committee’s bylaws do not prevent AOTUS from filling OIP’s traditional seat with an employee from another agency. The FOIA Advisory Committee has lost four government members since its latest term began in September 2024. None have been replaced.

Court opinion issued June 23, 2025

Office of the Fed. Pub. Def. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) U.S. Marshals Service was required to release details about its trial-related security measures because it made “no effort to explain how their withholdings fall within the textual limit of being techniques, procedures, or guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions” under Exemption 7(E); and (2) USMS properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold an internal email because it involved judgment-based selection of facts concerning security staffing; further finding that USMS met foreseeable harm requirement by explaining that disclosure would chill future discussions about judicial security operations.

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

Court opinion issued June 20, 2025

Javino v. Hurd (D.D.C.) -- concluding that FBI properly relied on Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(D) to withhold the identity of an individual who plaintiff believes provided false information to the FBI about plaintiff’s actions at the U.S Capitol on January 6, 2021; granting summary judgment to the government regarding its search and its withholding of other requested records, because plaintiff failed to object.

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

Court opinion issued June 18, 2025

Sanchez Mora v. Customs & Border Prot. (D.D.C) — in a case transferred from the Northern District of California, granting the requesters’ motion for reconsideration to reinstate their claim against the Department of Homeland Security; accepting the requesters’ argument that “the transferring court ‘erred in construing FOIA’ too narrowly, as allowing a lawsuit only against ‘the component agency that received the records request’ and not the parent agency of that component”; noting to conclude “otherwise makes little practical difference and would incentivize the submission of duplicate FOIA requests to both parent agencies and any component that might retain responsive records, with concomitant inefficiencies and agency burdens in tracking and processing such duplicate requests.”

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