Court opinion issued July 24, 2025

White v. Dep’t of Agric. (E.D. Okla.) — denying the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; holding the agency failed to demonstrate the adequacy of its search because its supporting affidavit was “conclusory” and did not “identify the agency’s search terms, the type of search performed, and d[id] not aver that all files likely to contain responsive materials were searched”; rejecting also the requester’s arguments on search adequacy and whether the term “present time” in the temporal scope of the request at issue meant “through the date of production,” as opposed to the “date of the FOIA request.”

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 July 23, 2025

Eddington v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — denying the requester’s motion for attorneys’ fees; holding the requester was not eligible to recover fees because he did not substantially prevail; noting the requester “failed to show that [the] alleged disparity” between the processing time for his request, and the average time for fully processing a request at DOJ’s National Security Division in 2019, “establish[ed] [that] DOJ ‘suddenly accelerated’ processing [on his request] because [he] filed suit.”

Gun Owners of Am., Inc. v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment and denying the requester’s motion to lift a “temporary protective order” as moot; holding the agency properly applied Exemptions 3, 6, 7(C), 7(D), and 7(E), which plaintiff did not contest; after distinguishing the D.C. Circuit’s recent opinion in Human Rights Defense Center v. U.S. Park Police, holding further that the court retained inherent equitable authority to prohibit the requester from further dissemination of “inadvertently disclosed” information “‘related to the FBI and ATF’s warrantless NICS Monitoring Program’” and protected by Exemptions 3 and 7(E).

Heritage Found. v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment and holding that the agency conducted an adequate search; rejecting the requester’s argument that DOJ’s supporting declaration “lack[ed] sufficient specificity to establish that responsive data does not exist,” when the agency “would have [had] to sift through the available data, analyze it, drawn inferences from it, and create a new record” to fulfill the request; similarly rejecting the requester’s contention that the agency failed to inquire into where responsive data “‘may have already been compiled’ in some other form” because the hypothetical existence of such data was unsupported by any evidence.

Bothwell v. Dep’t of Justice (W.D. Okla.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment; holding that the agency conducted an adequate search because “DOJ has set forth in adequate detail the methods used to search the electronic files, the search terms used, and the specific record systems searched,” and that the requester did “not suggest . . . other search terms, search methods, or alternative records systems”; holding further that the agency properly used Exemption 6 to withhold “personal information, including [a] social security number, date of birth, and addresses in . . . SF-50s”; declining to provide the requester with declaratory relief or to recognize a private right of action for monetary damages; notably, rejecting the government’s attempt to dismiss the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under FRCP 12(b)(1) on mootness grounds because the agency had provided all responsive records.

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

FOIA News: Yale journal discusses D.C. Circuit decision

FOIA and Classification Procedures: Project For Privacy And Surveillance Accountability v. DOJ

By Bernard Bell, Yale J. on Reg., Notice & Comment, July 24, 2025

On July 18, a D.C. Circuit panel decided that an agency could invoke Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) Exemption 1 (the national security exemption), even though it had not met some of the procedural requirements related to classification set forth in Executive Order 13,526.  Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability v. Department of Justice, slip op. (D.C. Cir. July 18, 2025). Essentially, the panel distinguished some of the Executive Order’s procedural requirements from others ─ some must precede a proper classification, others governed agency obligations only after a document has been properly classified. The Court also made two other points of interest to those who follow FOIA.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Call for FOIA research proposals

Call for proposals: FOIA at 60 – Imagining the future of information access

Univ. of Florida, Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Info. Proj., July 22, 2025

The Journal of Civic Information is launching a Research Competition and Special Issue to mark the upcoming 60th anniversary of FOIA. Scholars, journalists, practitioners, advocates, and students are invited to submit innovative proposals exploring the future of access to public information and what transparency, accountability, and civic information should look like 60 years from now. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: OGIS Annual Open Meeting tomorrow

The Office of Government Information Services will hold its annual public meeting on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, from 11am to noon. Registration information, presentation slides, and a livestream link for this virtual meeting are available here.

Court opinion issued July 21, 2025

Ezeah v. Exec. Office for U.S. Att’ys. (D.D.C.) — granting in part the government’s unopposed motion for summary judgment; holding the agency “partly carried” its burden to demonstrate it conducted a search reasonable calculated to locate responsive records, but that it left unaddressed several items of the request; granting the government the opportunity to “fill in holes” in its explanation of its searches before entering partial judgment in favor of the requester.

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 July 18, 2025

Proj. for Privacy & Surveillance v. DOJ (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that six intelligence agencies properly relied on Exemption 1 in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records regarding the “unmasking” or “upstreaming” of 48 then-current or former members of congressional intelligence committees; rejecting requester’s argument that agencies were required to search for records before issuing Glomar responses or that those responses did not meet the criteria of Executive Order 13,526 or Exemption 1.

Fouts v. Exec. Office for U.S. Attorneys (S.D.N.Y.) -- denying pro se plaintiff’s motion to reconsider court’s order transferring plaintiff’s case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, because plaintiff “failed to demonstrate that the Court overlooked any controlling law or factual matter”; noting that plaintiff did not reside in the Southern District of New York and his complaint did not indicated that the disputed records were situated there.

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 July 17, 2025

Brodsky v. FBI (7th Cir.) -- affirming district’s court decision that FBI properly relied on Exemptions 3, 6, 7(C), 7(D), and 7(E) to withhold certain records concerning requester’s status as a confidential informant, as well to support agency’s Glomar response; declining to change the Circuit’s standard of review in FOIA cases, which calls for de novo review as to whether there was “an adequate factual basis to make a legally sound decision,” and then clear error review of “the court’s conclusions that the documents were properly withheld or redacted under the exemptions”; rejecting requester’s argument that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate Chevron deference in Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024) affects the weight a court may give to declarations made by agency officials in a FOIA case.

Gage v. EEOC (9th Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that agency properly issued an Exemption 3 Glomar response and that requests for “Gage’s charge file . . . were moot because the EEOC produced all non-exempt documents; further ruling that district court did not abuse its discretion by denying discovery.

Carlborg v. Dep't of Navy (S.D. Cal.) -- in case concerning records of plaintiff’s involuntary discharge from the military, determining that: (1) plaintiff’s FOIA claims arising from one batch of requests were precluded under the doctrine of res judicata, but that other claims were not; and (2) government established that it performed adequate searches in response to plaintiff’s multiple requests, and that the Navy was not required to create screenshots of records already produced to plaintiff; and (3) government properly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold the names, social security numbers, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, military rank, and signatures of third parties and government employees

Moslem v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- denying pro se inmate’s recusal motion because plaintiff’s claims of bias merely boiled down to allegations of judicial mistakes, which falls short of the disqualification standard set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 455; ruling that plaintiff did not have standing to challenge Tax Division’s response to a request identified in plaintiff’s Complaint, because the request was not submitted by plaintiff or by anyone claiming it was submitted on plaintiff’s behalf; and denying plaintiff’s various other requests for relief on both procedural grounds and 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 opinion issued July 16, 2025

Kinnally v. U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (S.D. Cal.) -- dismissing case as moot because plaintiff’s complaint sought only to compel production of records, which the agency ultimately released after lawsuit was filed; noting that plaintiff’s failure to respond to agency’s motion further supported dismissal without prejudice and without leave to amend the complaint.

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 July 15, 2025

Brown v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation (D.C. Cir.) — affirming the district court; holding that the FBI conducted an adequate search and properly interpreted a request for “witness accounts, narratives, or statements” to implicate, “in agency parlance,” only “formal witness interviews and memorialized FD-203 forms,” and not such materials as “records of 911 calls,” logs or recordings of “police radio communications,” or “raw recordings of witness interviews”; holding further that the FBI’s properly invoked Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(D); rejecting, specifically, the requester’s arguments that the agency had not satisfied the foreseeable-harm standard; finally, affirming the district court’s denial of in camera review.

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