FOIA and Classification Procedures: Project For Privacy And Surveillance Accountability v. DOJ
By Bernard Bell, Yale J. on Reg., Notice & Comment, July 24, 2025
On July 18, a D.C. Circuit panel decided that an agency could invoke Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) Exemption 1 (the national security exemption), even though it had not met some of the procedural requirements related to classification set forth in Executive Order 13,526. Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability v. Department of Justice, slip op. (D.C. Cir. July 18, 2025). Essentially, the panel distinguished some of the Executive Order’s procedural requirements from others ─ some must precede a proper classification, others governed agency obligations only after a document has been properly classified. The Court also made two other points of interest to those who follow FOIA.
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