FOIA Advisor

Court opinion issued Aug. 26, 2025

Court Opinions (2025)Ryan MulveyComment

Burleigh v. Fed. Commc’ns Comm’n (D.D.C.) — denying plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction; concluding plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate irreparable harm by explaining how the requested records were “‘time-sensitive and highly probative, or even essential to the integrity, of an imminent event, after which event the utility of the records would be lessened or lost’”; noting the requesters’ “complaints . . . [about needing] due expedition have largely been addressed by the grant of expedited consideration they have already received”; nevertheless opining that “plaintiffs’ consternation with the course of events since the lawsuit was filed is not wholly misplaced” since the agency has not been willing to provide a timeline for the completion of production and gave plaintiffs’ an “initial production” of “only 35 pages.”

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. 22, 2025

Court Opinions (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

Bolin v. NARA (D. Nev.) -- dismissing as moot plaintiff’s FOIA claim that NARA violated the statute’s reading room provision by failing by failing to digitize and publish JFK assassination records, because Executive Order 14,176 mandated full release and digitization of the JFK Collection.

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. 21, 2025

Court Opinions (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

Duda v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- in case concerning audio recordings related to FBI’s investigations of Emmett Till’s murder, ruling with respect to one recording that: (1) in camera review was needed to determine whether a source received an express or implied assurance of confidentiality, as the FBI claimed, because the court received a competing declaration from a former agency who originally obtained the recording; (2) FBI improperly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold identifying details of third parties mentioned on the recording, noting that the agency had no basis to use the “100-year rule” to determine whether any person was still alive; further finding that there was a profound public interest in understanding the government’s handling of “one of the most consequential acts of racial violence in American history”; and (3) rejecting as “inconceivable” the FBI’s conclusory segregability claim that only one minute of the 100-minute recording could be released, emphasizing that targeted redactions or voice modulation could protect third party identities.

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

FOIA News: OIP announces FY26 training thru Feb. 4th

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

OIP Announces New FOIA Trainings Dates for Fiscal Year 2026

By DOJ/OIP FOIA Post, Aug. 25 2025

Today, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) announces new dates for FOIA training during for the first half of Fiscal Year 2026.  As part of its responsibility to encourage agency compliance with the FOIA, OIP offers numerous training opportunities throughout the year for agency FOIA professionals and individuals with FOIA responsibilities. 

These courses are designed to offer training opportunities for personnel from all stages of the FOIA workforce, from new hires to the experienced FOIA professionals or FOIA managers.  OIP will continue to offer virtual training sessions that will be taught in real-time by OIP instructors.  We will announce more training opportunities for the spring and summer at a later date.  As Fiscal Year 2026 quickly approaches, we are excited to announce our upcoming virtual training courses. You can find these courses listed on OIP’s Training page.

The courses and dates scheduled so far for Fiscal Year 2026 are:

Virtual Annual FOIA Report Refresher and Quarterly Report Training
October 7, 2025

Virtual Chief FOIA Officer Report Refresher Training
October 15, 2025

Virtual Introduction to the Freedom of Information Act
November 5, 2025

Virtual Litigation Seminar 
November 12, 2025

Virtual Procedural Requirements and Fees Training
December 2, 2025

Virtual Exemption 1 and Exemption 7 Training
December 10, 2025

Virtual Exemption 4 and Exemption 5 Training
January 13, 2026

Virtual Privacy Considerations Training
January 21, 2026

Virtual Administrative Appeals, FOIA Compliance, and Customer Service Training
January 28, 2026

Virtual Advanced Freedom of Information Act Training
February 4, 2026

Read more here.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Fantastic Four

Jobs jobs jobs (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

Gov’t Info Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, Office of Info. Tech., GS 13, Wash. DC, closes 8/25/25 ((internal career transition only).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VBA, GS 13, location negotiable, closes 8/27/25 (internal career transition only).

FOIA Team Lead, ZemiTek, LLC (for USAID), $155,700.00 - $194,802.52, Wash. DC. closes 8/28/25 (public).

Gen. Att’y, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./ICE, GS 11-14, multiple locations, closes 9/2/25 (public).

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

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

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

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

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

Court Opinions (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

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

Court Opinions (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

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

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

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.