FOIA News: As the fiscal year comes to a close, OIP issues more guidance on backlog reduction plans

OIP Issues Guidance on Backlog Reduction Plans for FOIA Offices

DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Aug. 22, 2025

The Office of Information Policy (OIP) released guidance this week on the benefits of and considerations for developing and updating agency backlog reduction plans.  A request is backlogged if it is pending past the FOIA’s standard 20- or 30-day response timeframes. Developing adaptable and sustainable plans to manage and reduce backlogs is a key part of agency FOIA administration.

The guidance is tailored to address considerations for agencies that are in the process of developing or updating their backlog reduction plans.  It explains the importance of involving key stakeholders, tailoring content based on component-specific needs, and obtainable goal-setting and accountability measures.  The guidance also stresses the importance of implementing and maintaining agency backlog reduction plans as living documents subject to modification as improvements to processes are made or changes in the law occur over time.  By implementing backlog reduction plans, agencies and requesters will benefit from institutionalized best practices of effective FOIA administration.

Read more here.

[Given shrinking FOIA staffs and rising requests, the coming fiscal year is likely to test the limits of even the best-crafted backlog plan. As T.S. Eliot warned, “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”]

FOIA News: DOJ revises "Procedural Requirements" of DOJ Guide

On August 15, 2025, the Office of Information Policy posted a revised version of the Procedural Requirements section of the DOJ Guide to the Freedom of Information Act. Those looking for recent case citations will be disappointed: the “updated” 94-page section “primarily includes case law, guidance and statutes up until June 30, 2023,” per OIP’s first footnote. True to its word, we found only one case from 2024 (see footnote 227) and none from 2025. The remaining changes are mostly citations to OIP guidance that the office updated in the last two years and to DOJ’s own FOIA regulations.

In the words of Alexander Pope, ‘Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.’”

Court opinion issued Aug. 20, 2025

Arden Row Assets, LLC v. IRS (D.D.C) -- finding that: (1) IRS properly withheld records of plaintiffs’ 2018 tax audits under the deliberative process privilege; rejecting plaintiffs’ argument that a “legally harmless” act of backdating records triggered a government misconduct exception, which the D.C. Circuit has never recognized; further noting that such an exception would apply only to "extreme” and “nefarious” misconduct, whereas the agency’s behavior was “more easily ascribed to ‘incompetence’”; (2) IRS properly withheld records under the attorney-client privilege and plaintiff failed to show that the crime-fraud exception applied, because the agency’s backdating was not illegal and there was no evidence of fraudulent intent; further, plaintiff forfeited its argument that the IRS committed subject-matter waiver of the attorney-client privilege by raising it for the first time in their reply brief, and in any event the disputed records were independently protected by the deliberative process privilege; and (3) IRS properly invoked Exemption 3 in conjunction with 26 U.S.C. § 6103(e)(7) to withhold tax return information whose release could impair federal tax administration; and (4) IRS correctly relied on Exemption 7(A) to protect records related to Arden Row’s ongoing Tax Court proceedings, as disclosure could interfere with enforcement by revealing the IRS’s strategies, evidence, and focus.

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. 19, 2025

Grigsby v. DOJ (N.D. Cal.) -- ruling that FBI properly denied expedited processing of more than seven thousand responsive pages concerning plaintiff, finding that his age, past indictments (resulting in acquittals), and decades-old medica coverage did not establish a “compelling need.”

S. Envtl. Law Ctr. v. Tenn. Valley Auth. (E.D. Tenn.) -- concluding that: (1) TVA conducted reasonable searches for various records sought in three requests, including by consulting with subject-matter agency experts; (2) TVA properly relied on Exemption 4 to withhold contractor’s billing rates, pricing strategies, and other commercially valuable information; (3) TVA properly relied on the deliberative process privilege to withhold draft documents (with comments and track changes), communications reflecting recommendations, critiques, and give-and-take discussions; (4) TVA properly withheld certain records pursuant to the attorney work-product and attorney-client privileges; and (5) TVA met the foreseeable harm and segregability requirements for withholdings under both exemptions.

Baker v. FDA (E.D. Cal.) (Mag. J.) -- recommending dismissal of action for lack of jurisdiction because the requests at issue were submitted by plaintiff as president of his company, not by plaintiff individually, and therefore plaintiff lacked standing to sue; further finding that substituting the company as plaintiff would not cure the defect, because the company’s principal place of business was outside the district in which the case 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: What I did this summer

Staff Spotlight: My Law Clerkship with OGIS

By Office of Gov’t Info. Serv. FOIA Ombuds, Aug. 19, 2025

The following blog post was written by Hala Shabaneh, the 2025 summer law clerk for the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) and a second-year law student at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School.  

This summer, I had the opportunity to serve as a law clerk at the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS). OGIS offers mediation services to resolve Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disputes and conducts compliance reviews across federal agencies. From my very first day, I was immersed in the unique legal and policy work that supports transparency and government accountability, and I quickly realized that OGIS occupies a distinctive space in the federal landscape. 

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Aug. 18, 2025

Lenz v. CIA (D D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment concerning the 1962 Stonehill raids in the Philippines, holding that: (1) the CIA properly withheld records concerning “a range of [CIA] functions and operations” pursuant to Exemption 1, finding its updated Vaughn Index and partial document releases sufficient, and concluding that classification was not invalidated by potentially illegal government conduct ; (2) the CIA properly relied on Exemption 3 in conjunction with 26 U.S.C. § 6103 to withhold third-party tax-identifying information, rejecting plaintiff’s unsupported claim that the information was already public; and (3) at the FBI’s request, the properly withheld the names and identifying information of “third parties of investigative interest” under Exemption 7(C) and foreign government agency information under Exemption 7(D), dismissing plaintiff’s speculation that a redacted name was a deceased person with no privacy interests.

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

FOIA News: Registration open for next FOIA Advisory Committee meeting

Registration is now open for sixth meeting of The federal Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee for the 2024-2026 term on September 11, 2025. Sign up here. Meeting materials will be posted here.

Court opinion issued Aug. 15, 2025

Ezeah v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- granting government’s unopposed motion for summary judgment after concluding that: (1) FBI conducted an adequate search for records concerning plaintiff, a pro se prisoner; (2) FBI properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 5, 7(C), and 7(E), and met both the foreseeable harm and segregability requirements; and (3) FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(C) in refusing to confirm or deny existence of complaints filed against the FBI agent who interviewed plaintiff.

ACLU v. ICE (C.D. Cal.) -- granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; finding that, despite the parties’ contentions, there were no genuine issues of material fact in dispute; concluding that, with respect to search adequacy vis-a-vis a portion of the request under litigation, ICE failed to provide an adequate justification for not following clear leads to further, “overlooked” responsive materials found in records produced to the plaintiff; concluding further that the agency improperly refused to conduct searches of other records locations and custodians which were reasonably held by plaintiff to contain responsive information; holding that the agency failed to properly follow-up with a component office that claimed it was unable to conduct a search in the first instance; noting, in that regard, that “as a policy matter, an agency cannot be said to have satisfied its burden under FOIA when a division within that agency, able to conduct a valid search, defers the search to another division, which is unable to conduct that search.”

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. 14, 2025

Louise Trauma Ctr. v. USCIS (4th Cir.) -- reversing district court’s decision and holding that: (1) plaintiff constructively exhausted its administrative remedies before filing suit for each of its requests, which USCIS acknowledged receiving but never otherwise responded to until litigation commenced; (2) agency’s post-litigation production of records did not moot plaintiff’s claims because agency did not produce all requested records and plaintiff disputed the withholdings; and (3) plaintiff was not required to file an administrative appeal to challenge agency’s post-lawsuit withholdings, noting that a contrary ruling would allow agencies “to engage in gamesmanship that would fundamentally undermine the FOIA timeliness requirement.”

Gilbert v. U.S. Air Force (D.D.C.) -- determining that: (1) the Air Force performed an adequate search for investigatory records concerning plaintiff, rejecting her contention of bad faith based on the delayed production of a key document; and (2) the Air Force properly relied on Exemption 3, in conjunction with the Inspector General Act of 1978, to withhold identifying information about a complainant, whose identity has not been made public through official disclosure.

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. 12, 2025

State of Georgia v. Dep’t of Justice (D.C. Cir.) — reversing the district court in principal part and entering judgment in favor of the government; holding, like the Fourth Circuit, that communications exchanged between an agency and private parties can nevertheless satisfy Exemption 5’s “inter-” or “intra-agency” threshold when those communications reflect “attorney work-product” shared “with aligned parties under a common-interest agreement rooted in shared interests and a need for confidentiality”; noting, in response to Georgia’s arguments, that caselaw on the consultant-corollary doctrine, while informative for reaching a functionalist reading of “intra-agency,” does not “reflexively control in the distinct context of this case”; holding further that, aside from two initial emails which predated the "memorialization of . . . [a] common interest agreement,” the remaining records were, in fact, properly covered by the attorney work-product privilege—an issue Georgia did not dispute—and DOJ had not waived that privilege.

Ctr. for Water Sec. & Cooperation v. Envtl. Prot. Agency (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment in a case involving records related to enforcement of the Clean Water Act; holding the agency appropriately withhold records—specifically, “spreadsheets containing information about different demographic entities” and their use to draft Financial Capability Assessment guidance—under Exemption 5, in conjunction with the deliberative-process privilege; noting that “population data and similar statistics,” while factual in nature, are here inextricably intertwined with agency analysis that reveals a deliberative decision-making process; holding further that the agency satisfied FOIA’s foreseeable-harm standard, in that it explained disclosure would “‘discourage experimentation’ and make it more difficult for the Agency to complete realistic assessments of possible enforcement policy”

Randhawa v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (E.D. Cal.) — recommending, in a magistrate judge report, in relevant part, that the plaintiffs’ FOIA claim should be dismissed for failure “to plead sufficient facts to establish a basis for relief”; noting plaintiffs never described “what information [they] sought . . . whether documents were provided . . . or how DHS’s response was inadequate”; noting further that plaintiffs’ “vague and conclusory two-sentence FOIA allegations are insufficient to establish a cognizable legal theory,” and that amendment would be futile, as it would not overcome mootness concerns due to plaintiffs’ failure to oppose DHS’s motion to dismiss.

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