FOIA News: OGIS report exposes VA’s struggles with FOIA

On November 18, 2025, the Office of Government Information Services re-posted a September 26th compliance report evaluating the Department of Veterans Affairs’ FOIA program. The OGIS assessment, which was mandated by Congress, contains 10 findings and 15 recommendations, highlighting significant delays, confusing first-party request procedures, inconsistent reporting, and outdated technology.

See the OGIS blog post here.

P.S. Former VA FOIA director, Michael Sarich, commented on the report back in September.

[Updated 11/19/25]

FOIA News: Calculating response times, by DOJ

Calculating FOIA Response Times after the Government Shutdown

By DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Nov. 18, 2025

As federal employees return to work following the recent lapse in appropriations, OIP is aware that there are questions regarding whether the lapse in appropriations affects how agencies should count the number of days needed to respond to FOIA requests and administrative appeals. OIP has issued guidance to federal agencies in calculating FOIA response times for requests received during the government shutdown.

Agencies should use the automatically generated received date as the “date received” for electronic communication.  For physical mail, the date on which the mail was physically received by the FOIA office should control.  For most agencies, this means that the “date received” for physical mail will be the date that the government reopened, November 13, 2025. You can read the full guidance piece here.

OIP’s FOIA Counselor Service and Annual FOIA Report Team are available to answer any questions on this guidance or any other topic regarding FOIA administration by calling (202) 514-FOIA (3642).

FOIA News: OPM sued for Schedule F records

NTEU sues OPM for Schedule F records

The federal employee union said the government’s dedicated HR agency ignored an August Freedom of Information Act request pertaining to which positions agencies plan to convert to the controversial new job classification.

By Erich Wagner, Gov’t Exec., Nov. 17, 2025

The National Treasury Employees Union on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management, alleging that the federal government’s dedicated HR agency unlawfully ignored a public information request related to the looming implementation of Schedule F.

First devised during Trump’s first term, Schedule F is a new job classification within the government’s excepted service for “policy-related” positions. Since renamed Schedule Policy/Career, the initiative would convert potentially tens of thousands of career federal employees into the new category, effectively making them at-will employees.

Though the first iteration of Schedule F failed to get off the ground before Trump left office in 2021, he quickly signed an executive order reinstating the measure when he returned to the White House last January. OPM issued proposed regulations to implement the new job category in April; the publication of a final rule is expected later this year.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ updates reporting deadlines

Announcing Upcoming FY25 FOIA Reporting Deadlines (Updated)

By DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Nov. 14, 2025

With the new fiscal year underway, OIP’s Compliance Team is quickly preparing to jump into the FY25 reporting season.  Back on September 30, OIP announced the anticipated deadlines for agency report submissions for Fiscal Year 2025. Today, we are updating those deadlines for the 2025 Annual FOIA Reports and 2026 Chief FOIA Officer Reports.

Agencies are required to submit their Fiscal Year 2025 Annual FOIA Reports using the FOIA.gov Annual Report Tool.  OIP has also updated the Department of Justice Annual FOIA Report Handbook, a key resource that agencies should consult when compiling their Annual FOIA Reports.  Agency personnel responsible for completing their agency's report are encouraged to attend OIP's Annual FOIA Report Refresher Training on Thursday, November 20, 2025 [NEW DATE]. An updated Webex link will be emailed and made available on our blog mid-next week. If you have attended this training in previous years and feel confident to begin your submissions without attending this year’s session, we encourage you to begin the reporting process as soon as possible.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Nov. 12, 2025

Marin v. Driscoll (D.D.C.) -- concluding that the U.S. Army properly relied on Exemption 6 in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of disciplinary records concerning a named individual, as well as investigatory records of a unit that plaintiff tied with four named individuals; noting that plaintiff primarily sought records for use in his court-martial appeal and failed to show that disclosure would reveal significant government misconduct or involved senior officials; further, rejecting plaintiff’s argument that his receipt of certain documents during discovery undermined the agency’s Glomar response.

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

FOIA News: Government shutdown ends; FOIA processing resumes

Welcome back, feds. Some FOIA offices may have a lot of catching up to do after a 43-day partial government shutdown. Take heart, requesters. In fiscal year 2019, agencies still managed to process slightly more requests than they received despite a 35-day shutdown. See U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Info. Policy, Summary of Annual FOIA Reports for Fiscal Year 2019 (reporting 858,952 requests received; 877,964 processed).

Court opinion issued Nov. 10. 2025

Alford v. Collins (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) Department of Veterans Affairs performed an adequate search related to pro se plaintiff’s own benefits, vocational rehabilitation, and the agency’s handling of his prior requests for relief; (2) the VA properly withheld draft advisory opinions and internal deliberations under Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege, but it failed to justify other Exemption 5 withholdings and did not meet its segregability obligation for documents withheld in full; and (3) the VA properly relied on Exemption 6 to redact the names of low-level employees.

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

FOIA News: The Future of FOIA?

A newly launched post-apocalyptic website imagines a world decades into the future in which the “Authority Department of Border Management” oversees travel, commerce, and security between five “protected safe zones” following a global environmental collapse in 2041. Within this fictional universe, the site recounts the history of the Freedom of Information Act. In the Authority’s narrative, FOIA became a liability after the catastrophic event known as the Scorching. According to the site, unrestricted transparency contributed to major security failures, including incidents called the Phoenix Breach and the Omaha Infiltration, while also straining resources critical to survival. These factors led to the repeal of FOIA in 2042, as the Authority prioritized safety and stability over public oversight in the post-collapse world.

Following FOIA’s repeal, the “Information Access Act” was enacted to replace it, establishing strict controls over access to government records. Under the IAA, all documents are classified by default, and only personnel with the appropriate security clearance can view them. Judicial review was removed entirely, consolidating control over information within the Authority and framing secrecy as essential to maintaining the integrity and security of the protected zones.

It remains unknown who created this site.

FOIA News: DHS abandoned text preservation software, FOIA lawsuit reveals

To Preserve Records, Homeland Security Now Relies on Officials to Take Screenshots

Experts say the new policy, which ditches software that automatically captured text messages, opens ample room for both willful and unwitting noncompliance with federal records laws.

By Minho Kim, NY Times, Nov. 6, 2025

The Department of Homeland Security has stopped using software that automatically captured text messages and saved trails of communication between officials, according to sworn court statements filed this week.

Instead, the agency began in April to require officials to manually take screenshots of their messages to comply with federal records laws, citing cybersecurity concerns with the autosave software.

Public records experts say the new record-keeping policy opens ample room for both willful and unwitting noncompliance with federal open records laws in an administration that has already shown a lack of interest in, or willingness to skirt, records laws. That development could be particularly troubling as the department executes President Trump’s aggressive agenda of mass deportations, a campaign that has included numerous accusations of misconduct by law enforcement officials, the experts said.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Nov. 3, 2025

Viola v. DOJ (3rd. Cir.) -- affirming in part and vacating in part district court’s decision concerning records related to federal government’s prosecution of plaintiff-appellant, and holding that: (1) the district court properly dismissed plaintiff-appellant’s claim against a task force comprised of state and local government entities, because federal funding and oversight did not convert those entities into federal agencies; (2) the district court correctly found that EOUSA performed a reasonable search, but erred in concluding that the FBI’s search was adequate because the FBI failed to demonstrate that it searched all locations likely to contain responsive records; (3) the district court properly found that Exemptions 6 and 7(C) protected records related to third parties, except for EOUSA’s full withholding of certain trial exhibits, correspondence, and witness statements in full; and (4) the FBI’s withholdings under Exemption 7(D) were improvidently granted because the agency failed to provide sufficient evidence that its sources had an implied assurance of confidentiality; and (5) the district court incorrectly upheld FBI’s withholding of database search results under Exemption 7(E), because the agency’s use of that database was a routine technique and the agency failed to show a reasonable risk of circumvention of law.

Stevens v. Dep't of the Army (N.D. Ill.) -- in case concerning records related to Northwestern University’s proposed expansion into Lake Michigan, the court determined that: (1) the Army unreasonably referred plaintiff’s request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers without conducting its own search for records; and (2) plaintiff constructively exhausted her administrative remedies prior to filing suit and the Army’s subsequent referral of the request to the Wisconsin Army National Guard did not reset exhaustion requirements; and (3) the Wisconsin National Guard conducted a reasonable search of physical records related to a helicopter flight, but it did not adequately explain its search for electronically-stored records.

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