FOIA News: Dep't of Energy Publishes "Still Interested" Notice in the Federal Register

The Department of Energy (“DOE”) has published its controversial “Still Interested” inquiry notice in the Federal Register. See 90 Fed. Reg. 39,187 (Aug. 14, 2025). According to the notice, the agency will be sending email correspondences to every requester with an open FOIA request filed before October 1, 2024, so long as that request is not in litigation. If the requester does not indicate his or her interest in the continued processing of the request by following the instructions contained in today’s notice, and responding within thirty days, the agency will administratively close the request. Part of the justification given for this step was the fact that DOE has been “inundated with requests from vexatious requesters and automated bots.” Requests pending at DOE field sites, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Federal Energy Regulation Commission are not subject to what some have termed this “en masse” still-interested inquiry.

FOIA News: "En Masse" Issuance of Still-Interested Letters at DOE Announced

Trump Administration Outlines Plan to Throw Out an Agency’s FOIA Requests En Masse

Jason Koebler, 404 Media, Aug. 13, 2025

The Department of Energy (DOE) said in a public notice scheduled to be published Thursday that it will throw out all Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sent to the agency before October 1, 2024 unless the requester proactively emails the agency to tell it they are still interested in the documents they requested. This will result in the improper closure of likely thousands of FOIA requests if not more; government transparency experts told 404 Media that the move is “insane,” “ludicrous,” a “Pandora’s Box,” and “an underhanded attempt to close out as many FOIA requests as possible.”

The DOE notice says “requesters who submitted a FOIA request to DOE HQ at any time prior to October 1, 2024 (FY25), that is still open and is not under active litigation with DOE (or another Federal agency) shall email StillInterestedFOIA@hq.doe.gov to continue processing of the FOIA request […] If DOE HQ does not receive a response from requesters within the 30-day time-period with a DOE control number, no further action will be taken on the open FOIA request(s), and the file may be administratively closed.” A note at the top of the notice says it is scheduled to be formally published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Aug. 11, 2025

Americans for Fair Treatment v. USPS (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, deciding that: (1) USPS’s “speculative” explanations failed to establish foreseeable harm that would result from disclosure of records withheld under the deliberative process privilege; (2) USPS properly invoked the attorney-client privilege and its foreseeable harm explanation was “enough to pass” despite being “broad in a generic sense”; and (3) agency did not provide enough information to demonstrate that it properly segregated information with reasonable specificity.

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 Aug. 8, 2025

Friends of the River v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs (D.D.C.) (Mag. J.) -- ruling that: (1) plaintiff was both eligible for attorney’s fees (which the agency did not dispute) and entitled to such fees because all four applicable factors favored plaintiff; noting that the agency acted unreasonably by obtaining a transfer of venue based on false facts and by failing to demonstrate foreseeable harm for pre-2016 requests after agreeing—and then being ordered—to do so; and (2) plaintiff would be awarded litigation costs and $491,676 in attorney’s fees, not $747,819 as requested, because Washington, D.C’s hourly rates applied (not San Francisco’s) and billing deficiencies warranted a further 20 percent reduction.

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 Aug. 7, 2025

Brook v. Holzerland (5th Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that requester’s FOIA claims against HHS were barred by the six-year statute of limitations, 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a); rejecting requester’s arguments that agency delay was a “continuing tort” that reset the filing deadline or that the agency misrepresented requester’s right to sue, thus warranting equitable tolling.

Korf v. U.S. Dep’t of State (S.D. Fla.) (Mag. J.) -- denying government’s motion for an Open America stay after finding that the agency both failed to show the exceptional circumstances existed and that it exercised due diligence in processing plaintiff’s request; further ruling that summary judgment briefing was not premature even though the government had not yet processed all responsive records, because plaintiff contested matters unrelated to withholdings, such as the adequacy of the agency’s search and the agency’s rate of processing.

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

FOIA News: Webinar for immigration FOIAs

The National Immigration Litigation Alliance will host a panel discussion on August 20, 2025, on how to file, appeal, and litigate immigration-related requests for records maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. See details here.

Court opinion issued Aug. 6, 2025

Driggs v. CIA (E.D. Va.) -- in case involving records about Americans allegedly held as prisoners of war following the Korean and Vietnam Wars, deciding that: (1) plaintiffs waived their right to challenge redactions to a partially declassified “Critical Assessment” based on their representations in two joint status reports that limited the parties’ disputed issues; (2) one plaintiff was precluded from challenging Exemption 1 and 3 redactions made to another report (“Review of the Charges”), because same plaintiff lost an earlier case involving same report; (3) government properly relied on Exemptions 1 and 3 to withhold the disputed report, and plaintiff’s allegations of bad faith in the creation of that report over 25 years ago were legally irrelevant.

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

FOIA News: How Private Detectives Use FOIA

FOIAengine Tracks Three Private Eyes on the Trail of Short-Seller Culper Research

By John Jenkins, Law St. Media, Aug. 6, 2025

Brian Willingham is a licensed private investigator in New York, ID# 1000149418.  He runs an investigative agency called Diligentia Group.  The company’s motto is “We Find Evidence That Normal People Can’t.”  

* * *

Apart from sharing a furtive line of work, all three detectives have something else in common:  They are using the federal Freedom of Information Act to conduct counter-surveillance on behalf of anonymous clients.

The use of FOIA proxy requesters is common and well known.  We first bumped into the above three investigators a few weeks ago, while researching our story about the activist short-seller Christian Lamarco; his firm, Culper Research; and the mysterious “Jeff Bourland.”  (See “Some Research Into Short-Seller Culper Research.”)   

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Aug. 4, 2025

Power the Future v. White House Council on Envtl. Quality (D.D.C.) -- finding that plaintiff’s request for all emails sent or received by one employee over nearly three years was “unreasonably burdensome” (and therefore not reasonably described as required by FOIA ), because the agency estimated that processing the request “would require 21,870 hours, or 911 workdays, if all current FOIA Specialists employed by the Agency processed the request full-time”; further taking into account that the agency employee held a “high-level position” and his emails “would likely implicate numerous FOIA exemptions and require time-consuming internal review and consultation with the White House Counsel’s Office.”

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- concluding the agency’s use of Glomar and its categorical withholding of any responsive documents under Exemptions 6 and 7(C) was unjustified; explaining “DOJ’s Glomar response was not justified here for two reasons”: (1) the information at issue is already in the public domain, having been disclosed in other ligation through testimony, and (2) there is no evidence that confirming or denying the existence of responsive records would cause any harm to privacy interests; explaining further that the agency’s categorical withholdings were inappropriate because the privacy interests at stake are diminished and the agency has “underplay[ed] the relevant public interest.”

Rute v. DOJ (E.D. Tex.) -- ruling that: (1) plaintiff failed to administratively appeal denials from DOJ’s Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and the Criminal Division, thus warranting dismissals of his claims against those agencies with prejudice; and (2) FBI properly refused to confirm or deny the existence of “public integrity investigations” against named third parties from Collin County, Texas; and (3) FBI failed to conduct adequate searches for records related to public integrity investigations against unnamed elected officials, attorneys, or law firms in Collins County, Texas, because the agency should have inputted the term “Collin County” into its Central Records System conjunction with the term “public integrity” to narrow the 800,000 results yielded by the latter term.

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

FOIA News: Tips for lowering FOIA fees

5 Tips for Slashing FOIA Costs (Including How One Reporter Lowered a Records Request Fee from $2,800 to Just $29)

By Rowan Philp, Global Investigative Journalism Network, Aug. 5, 2025

Reporters in many countries with freedom of information access (FOI) laws sometimes receive massive fee quotes from government agencies to retrieve, duplicate, redact, or export extensive public records they’ve requested.

“Emphasize that you don’t want to over-burden them… If something takes less time for them, it means less cost for you.” — Sharon Lurye, Associated Press data journalist 

But it turns out that, with a little research and negotiation, reporters can sometimes slash the cost of obtaining records bundles and speed up the government’s response in the process.

Experts say that reporters should not automatically accept large fees quoted by FOI officers, and should remember that these officials are typically concerned with their estimated time burden, and not the cost figure. Also, keep in mind that reducing the cost of your request by reducing their time burden will likely shorten the time until you receive the files you want.

Read more here.