Court opinion issued Dec. 31, 2025

Skywriter Commc'ns v. U.S. Dep't of State (D.D.C.) -- holding that: (1) the State Department failed to adequately search for records concerning the 1979 assassination of the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan because it unreasonably limited its search to one bureau despite evidence that responsive records were likely located in other bureaus; and (2) the Department withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 1, 6, 7(C), 7(D), and 7(E), finding them largely proper, except that the Department needed to clarify whether any unclassified material was improperly withheld under Exemption 1.

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

FOIA News: More on DHS’s new FOIA rule

DHS trades paper FOIA requests for digital filings

Effective next month, the department said the change will increase its workers’ efficiency by speeding up initial data entry and related administrative tasks.

By Lindsey Wilkinson, FEDSCOOP, Dec. 29, 2025

The Department of Homeland Security will require people submitting Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act requests to do so electronically, rather than mailing them in, as directed by a new rule going into effect Jan. 22.

Paper requests can be tedious and time-consuming. The updated procedures are aimed at increasing workers’ efficiency by speeding up the initial data-entry processes and directing more time to searching and reviewing records corresponding to related requests, according to DHS. 

“This rule will not impose any new costs on the government or the public,” the department said in the final rule published last week. “Electronic submission via web portal is also more efficient than using the U.S. Postal Service and allows for better tracking of the submission and quicker response by the Government.”

The agency will consider exceptions in “limited circumstance,” such as for requesters without internet access. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: DHS to requesters: use a portal

On December 23, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security issued a final rule amending its regulations to clarify that Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act requests generally must be submitted through DHS web portals or via FOIA.gov, rather than by email, fax, or mail. The revised regulations permit alternative submission methods only in limited circumstances—for example, for incarcerated individuals or others who are unable to submit requests online.

DHS did not solicit public comment on the rule. The final rule takes effect on January 22, 2026.

FOIA News: NJ's Gov.-elect declines to release Navy records

Sherrill rejects participating with FOIA request on Navy records

She faced questions around her role in a cheating scandal shortly before Election Day.

By Daniel Han & Madison Fernandez, PolitcoPro, Dec. 22, 2025

EAST BRUNSWICK, New Jersey — Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill is declining to participate with a public records request to authorize the release of her Navy disciplinary records, her transition team told POLITICO.

POLITICO put in a federal Freedom of Information Act request requesting Sherrill’s Navy records — specifically for disciplinary records related to an academic cheating scandal that happened when Sherrill was in the Naval academy. The Navy said access to such records would require Sherrill to authorize them, which her transition team said she would not do.

Read more here (access with free trial subscription).

Court opinion issued Dec. 18, 2025

Am. First Legal Found. v. Roberts (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction; holding that the Judicial Conference of the United States and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts are not “agencies” for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) because they are not “like the Executive Branch entities FOIA explicitly contemplates,” nor are they “government corporations” or “independent agencies,” all of which are indisputably subject to the statute; explaining that, while the Judicial Conference and Administrative Office are not literally “courts,” plaintiff’s “too cramped” reading of the statute ignored how these entities serve important “supporting” functions within the Judicial Branch, both with respect to its policymaking and day-to-day administration; noting, moreover, the “well-trodden path” of past caselaw confirming neither entity is subject to FOIA from which the court saw “no reason to stray”; finally, highlighting the “arbitrary” “line drawing” that would ensue if FOIA applied to any part of the Judicial Branch that was not literally part of “the courts,” i.e., “judges and ‘law clerks,’” as the requester posited based on the phrasing of 5 U.S.C. § 551(1)(B).

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 Dec. 15-16, 2025

Dec. 16, 2025

Heritage Found. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiffs’ motion for attorney’s fees pertaining to its request for expedited treatment of its request for records related to FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022; finding that DOJ had already decided to expedite processing before plaintiffs filed suit, so their litigation did not substantially cause the agency to act.

Dec. 15, 2025

African Immigrant Rights Council v. USCIS (D. Md.) -- denying without prejudice plaintiff’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs, concluding that although plaintiff was both eligible and entitled to an award, it failed to show the reasonableness of the amounts sought.

Risenhoover v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) CIA’s and DOD’s searches were adequate, rejecting challenges to their scope, and granted summary judgment to the State Department after finding no evidence it received a FOIA request; (2) CIA properly issued a Glomar response under Exemptions 1 and 3 to a request seeking records of an alleged classified CIA affiliation with certain groups, and DOD properly withheld government directives and communications related to Taiwan based on Exemption 5’s presidential communications privilege; and (3) pro se plaintiff was ineligible for attorney’s fees.

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

FOIA News: USCIS has reduced backlog via bad-faith FOIA denials, claims whistleblower

USCIS’ arbitrarily strict FOIA policy is keeping some migrants from receiving their immigration records, whistleblower alleges

In a protected disclosure to Congress, an agency employee claims that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services since 2024 has been finding ways to reject Freedom of Information Act requests from migrants in order to make it seem like the agency is complying with a court order.

By Sean Michael Newhouse, Gov’t Exec., Dec. 19, 2025

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a Dec. 15 compliance report that it reduced its Freedom of Information Act request backlog for certain immigration records by 99.96% over the course of three months, an impressive feat given recent workforce cuts to agency FOIA teams and a 43-day government shutdown occurred during the period. 

But a whistleblower disclosure sent to the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary committees on Friday argues that the agency has adopted unnecessarily strict criteria to summarily reject FOIA requests from migrants seeking documents for their immigration proceedings. 

“The circumstances alongside the whistleblower’s disclosures suggest the reported reduction does not reflect timely, good-faith FOIA processing but rather mass closures of requests and other procedural mechanisms that remove requests from the pending inventory without reasonable searches or release of responsive records,” according to the document. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: Federal judge rules judicial agencies not subject to FOIA

Judicial offices don’t have to turn over records to Trump-aligned group, judge rules

Tierney Sneed, CNN, Dec. 18, 2025

A federal judge ruled Thursday that two entities that implement policy and conduct administrative tasks for the judicial branch are not required under a transparency law to turn over their communications to a private legal group aligned with President Donald Trump.

The opinion by Judge Trevor McFadden came in a longshot case brought by America First Legal, which argued the judicial offices were the type of executive branch agencies that are covered under the Freedom of Information Act — the federal public records law.

The entities — which are known as the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office, and are led by judges — had refused to produce correspondences with Democratic lawmakers, prompting the FOIA lawsuit.

America First argued that the Judicial Conference is actually an executive agency that should be “overseen by the president, not the courts,” thus putting it under FOIA, which does not cover the judicial branch. The organization also contended during oral arguments last month that FOIA’s exemptions for the courts applied to judges and the law clerks that work in their chambers, but not the clerks and other officials who manage a courthouse’s administrative functions.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Rest in Peace, Bill Burr, FOIA "Yoda"

In Memoriam: Dr. William Burr, 1949-2025

Nat’l Sec. Archive, Dec. 15, 2025

The National Security Archive mourns the passing of our beloved colleague William Burr, the documentary leader of the nuclear history field, on December 11, 2025.

Tributes to Bill have poured in over the weekend from all over the world, emphasizing his brilliance as a scholar, his generosity as an archivist, his modesty and integrity as a person, his centrality to the whole field of nuclear studies, and the enormous legacies he leaves to the rest of us.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Treasury exploring cloud platform

Treasury Seeks FedRAMP-Authorized Cloud Platform for FOIA & eDiscovery

By Miles Jamison, ExecutiveGov, Dec. 16, 2025

The Department of the Treasury, through the Internal Revenue Service, has initiated market research to explore the availability of a cloud-based platform that can handle Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requests and eDiscovery activities.

* * *

According to a sources sought notice published Monday on SAM.gov, Treasury plans to implement a department-wide blanket purchase agreement for a cloud platform capable of streamlining the processing of electronically stored information, or ESI. It seeks to adopt advanced commercial technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics, to enhance transparency, optimize operations and reduce FOIA backlogs across all bureaus.

The platform must be authorized under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program to support the full lifecycle of information requests, from intake and processing to review, redaction, production and archival. It must also comply with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, Section 508 requirements and Treasury cybersecurity directives. Responses are due by Dec. 30.

Read more here.