Court opinions issued Feb. 20, 2026

Aaronson v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case involving an investigative journalist’s inquiry into the FBI’s “alleged impersonation of the media,” granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; concluding the FBI properly denied one of the reporter’s requests as “unduly burdensome” because it would have required searching for email records covering “a four-and-a-half-year period” across “more than 70,000 email accounts”; rejecting, in this regard, the requester’s argument that the FBI could “perform bulk, backend searches of its classified and unclassified email systems through its existing IT and e-discovery capabilities”; ruling against the government vis-a-vis its failure to perform an adequate search “in one respect,” namely, looking for potentially responsive records maintained by the Undercover Review Committee; holding moreover that the FBI did not justify its categorical Glomar response based on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) as any records that mention “Brent Tyler”—a pseudonym for an FBI employee—would not implicate those exemptions’ underlying privacy concerns because no “person’s privacy is at stake”; finally, explaining that, after reviewing an in camera declaration from the FBI, if the agency had, in fact, invoked a statutory exclusion, that invocation “was and remains amply justified.”

Khan v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding, firstly, that plaintiffs did not exhaust administrative remedies for two of the requests at issue because they failed to file appeals, and rejecting the requesters’ argument that untimely determinations “alleviated the appeal requirement”; also holding that the government met its burden to show it performed adequate searches for potentially responsive records and noting, contrary to the requesters’ insistence, that there was no evidence of “bad faith”; finally, concluding the agencies properly invoked Exemptions 3, 5, 6, 7(C), and 7(F).

Bradley v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs (N.D. Fla.) — adopting in full a magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation and dismissing a pro se, in forma pauperis requester’s FOIA case for “failure to comply with court orders,” namely, directions to file an amended complaint that addressed several pleading deficiencies.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued Feb. 19, 2026

Powell v. Dep’t of the Treasury (D.D.C.) — granting the IRS’s dispositive motions; noting, at the outset, that it is unclear whether the IRS or the Treasury is the proper named defendant, but “reserv[ing] that question for another day,” since it would make “no practical difference” here; concluding, firstly, that the requester’s non-FOIA claims under the APA, Section 6103, and the Mandamus Act should be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6); concluding further that the requester’s FOIA claims were not properly exhausted because he “did not perfect his FOIA requests” prior to filing suit by providing the IRS with the necessary proof of the “right to access the requested records,” which included “various tax documents associated with his family’s business entities”; rejecting the agency’s suggestion that an administrative appeal was required, given its regulations which suggest the closure of the requests was not, in fact, an adverse determination triggering the right to appeal.

Citizens For Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding that plaintiff was likely to succeed on the merits of its claims for expedited processing of records about DOJ’s voter data requests; finding that CREW qualified as “primarily engaged in disseminating information” and that its requests involved matters of exceptional public and media interest affecting confidence in government integrity; declining, however, to order CREW’s requested production rate, reasoning that doing so could disrupt DOJ’s handling of other requests and risk mishandling sensitive material.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued Feb. 18, 2026

Rhodes v. IRS (N.D. Ala.) -- dismissing the lawyer’s lawsuit against the IRS for lack of Article III standing, finding that he lacked a concrete personal injury because the FOIA request was submitted on behalf of his client, not in his own name.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: apply now, existential questions later

Gen. Att’y, Consumer Product Safety Comm’n, GS 14, Bethesda, MD, closes 3/2/26 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/EOIR, GS 11-12, Falls Church, VA, closes 3/4/26 (non-public).

Court opinions issued Feb. 17, 2026

Lenz v. IRS (D.C. Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that plaintiff failed to demonstrate that IRS attorneys knowingly misrepresented the status of two boxes of responsive documents sought in a 2008 FOIA lawsuit involving the same parties; finding that plaintiff’s motion for relief under Rule 60(b)(3) was untimely filed and that the district court properly declined to set aside the judgment under its inherent authority due to lack of clear and convincing evidence of fraud.

Biggins v. USPS (D.N.J.) -- granting agency’s motion to dismiss pro se plaintiff’s amended Complain, which sought change-of-address information of a third party upon whom plaintiff wanted to serve legal process; finding that plaintiff failed to submit proper FOIA requests and had not exhausted administrative remedies.

Ezeah v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiff's motion for reconsideration and granting summary judgment to the government after the agency clarified that the only records requested by plaintiff—communications related to his prosecution between the federal prosecutor and his defense attorney, and between the prosecutor and an FBI agent—had been permanently deleted under the agency’s retention policy.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued Feb. 12, 2026

Informed Consent Action Network v. Food & Drug Admin. (D.D.C.) — granting in part the agency’s motion for an Open America stay of proceedings; concluding that the agency adequately demonstrated “exceptional circumstances,” in large part due to “aggressive production rates” imposed by a “Texas court” that require the agency to disclose “up to 180,000 pages each month”; rejecting various arguments raised by the requester, which were unsuccessfully raised before other judges in the DDC in the recent past, including last week; noting, moreover, that the agency has “acted diligently” in processing the requests at issue, despite its limited resources and staffing.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

FOIA News: A tale of two agencies

On January 26, 2026, we reported that we had found online 14 annual agency FOIA reports for fiscal year 2025, and we posted ten more reports on February 3, 2026.. The following two new reports from the Department of Education and the SEC indicate that FY 2025 was the “worst of times” for the former agency and—by comparison—better times (but not necessarily “the best”) for the latter.

U.S. Dep’t of Education:

• 5266 requests received, up from 4560 in FY 2025; 3916 requests processed, up from 3119 in FY 2024.

• Backlogged requests increased from 2485 to 4570; or 83 percent. Of the 3916 requests that the agency counted as “processed,” 1508 were withdrawn by requesters.

• Backlogged appeals increased from 21 to 29.

• For all processed perfected requests, an average response time of about 171 days for “simple” requests, and an average of about 128 days for “complex” requests.

• Of 375 requests for expedited processing, eight granted.

• Of 1385 requests for a fee waiver, 998 granted.

• $113.04 total amount of fees collected for processing requests.

Securities & Exchange Comm’n:

• 13254 requests received, up from 10,811 in FY 2024; 12,249 requests processed, up from 10,985 in FY 2024

• Backlogged requests increased slightly from 475 to 494; zero backlogged appeals in the past two years.

• For all processed perfected requests, an average response time of about 6 days for “simple” requests, and an average of about 47 days for “complex” requests.

• Of 670 requests for expedited processing, none granted.

• Of 701 requests for a fee waiver, three granted.

• Zero fees collected for processing requests.

Court opinions issued Feb. 9 & 10, 2026

Feb. 10, 2026

Foster v. Drug Enf’t Admin. (D.D.C.) — denying the government’s motion for summary judgment, rejecting its use of Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(E), and, after conducting in camera review, ordering disclosure of “security-camera footage from over fifteen years ago that depicts the parking lot of a pain clinic”; concluding, as an initial matter, that the video footage met the Exemption 7 threshold as it was “obtained and used by the FBI in connection with its criminal investigation into the illegal distribution of prescription drugs”; yet also concluding there was no privacy interest at stake because the footage was “of low resolution”—“[n]o faces are discernible . . . no license plates are visible, and no individual can reasonably be identified”; with regard to Exemption 7(E), concluding the “video was [not] captured by [the agency’s] surveillance devices,” and therefore could shed no light on how the FBI “conducts surveillance, selects targets, or allocates investigative resources,” and the government otherwise had failed to persuasively describe how disclosure would risk circumvention of the law.

Feb. 9, 2026

Zavala v. Immigration & Customs Enf’t (W.D. Pa.) — denying a requester’s motion for attorney’s fees; concluding the requester, who had sought copies of portions of his A-file and related records, was not “eligible” for fee recovery since he did not “substantially prevail”; explaining the “Court never ordered relief to Plaintiff,” who ultimately filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, and the requester’s alternative “catalyst theory” argument failed because he could not demonstrate “causation”; noting the government’s processing delays were “neither unexplained nor unusually long,” especially in light of a “uncontroverted backlog,” and were instead more likely the result of “administrative delays . . . as well as the necessity of inter-agency searches and responses”; noting further how the government has started processing “prior to the lawsuit being filed.”

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

FOIA News: Reporters who FOIA the FDA

How Journalists Use FOIA as an Investigative Tool

By John A. Jenkins, Law St. Media, Feb. 11, 2026

* * *

The media requests to the FDA (through December, the most recent month available) span a wide range of subjects – from adverse-event case files and manufacturing inspections to senior officials’ calendars, ethics disclosures, and communications with politically active outside groups.

But the requests also share a common purpose: reconstructing how decisions were made, who influenced them, and whether warning signs were missed or ignored.

The filings reflect how journalists increasingly are turning to FOIA not merely to obtain isolated documents, but to map decision-making ecosystems:  Who raised concerns internally?  When did leadership become aware?  Which outside actors had access?  And how did those dynamics shape regulatory outcomes?  

At the FDA, the most concentrated and consequential set of requests centered on drug safety surveillance and internal deliberations surrounding GLP-1 medications.  

Read more here.

FOIA News: Upcoming FOIA Advisory Committee meetings

The federal Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee for the 2024-2026 term will convene monthly from March to July, according to the Office of Government Information Services’ website. The full Committee last met on September 11, 2025.

• Thursday, March 5, 2026 - 10:00 a.m. ET (Meeting Materials and Information)

• Thursday, April 2, 2026 - 10:00 a.m. ET (Meeting Materials and Information)

• Thursday, May 7, 2026 - 10:00 a.m. ET (Meeting Materials and Information)

• Thursday, June 11, 2026 - 10:00 a.m. ET (Meeting Materials and Information)

• Thursday, July 16, 2026 - 10:00 a.m. ET (Meeting Materials and Information)