FOIA News: Brothers arrested for tampering with gov't databases, including FOIA info

Virginia brothers arrested for allegedly tampering with government databases

By Sam Sabin, Axios, Dec. 3, 2025

The Justice Department arrested Virginia-based twin brothers who formerly worked at a federal contractor on Wednesday for their alleged roles in deleting government databases.

Why it matters: The arrests are connected to one of the most bizarre insider threat cases the U.S. government has experienced in years.

Driving the news: Federal law enforcement arrested Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, 34, for their alleged roles in compromising or deleting dozens of government databases in February.

• The arrests follow a Bloomberg investigation published in May detailing how the brothers allegedly compromised data across several agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and the General Services Administration.

The intrigue: The brothers pled guilty in 2015 to federal charges tied to data breaches at the U.S. State Department and a cosmetics company.

• They both served years-long prison sentences before getting jobs as engineers for Opexus, a federal contractor that helps process U.S. government records.

• Opexus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more here.

FOIA News: OIP updates December training schedule

OIP Announces New FOIA Trainings Dates for Fiscal Year 2026 (Updated)

By DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Dec. 2, 2025

Today, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) announces new dates for FOIA trainings that were originally scheduled during the government shutdown.  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.

Read more here.

FOIA News: CFO Council meeting on 12/15; OIP's new Director to make his debut

Chief FOIA Officers Council to Meet on December 15

NARA/OGIS, FOIA Ombuds, Dec. 1, 2025

The Chief FOIA Officers Council will meet at 10 a.m. ET on Monday, December 15. The meeting is virtual and open to Chief FOIA Officers, FOIA professionals, and the public. We invite you to either watch the livestream of the meeting on the U.S. National Archives YouTube Channel or register to attend the meeting virtually. If you wish to offer oral comments during the meeting’s public comment period you must register to attend.

The Council is co-chaired by Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) Director Alina M. Semo and Office of Information Policy (OIP) Director Sean Glendening. Plan to hear updates from OGIS and OIP as well as from the Council’s Technology Committee and Committee on Cross-Agency Collaboration and Innovation (COCACI). 

At the end of the meeting, interested persons will be able to appear and present oral and written statements to the Council during the public comments period. 

See original blog post here.

FOIA News: FOIA University issues white paper

On December 1, 2025, FOIA University founder Michael Sarich released a 20-page white paper entitled The SLiM Solution to a Fat Problem: Small Language Models and Human Judgment as the Cost-Effective Solution for FOIA Modernization.

Follow FOIA University on LinkedIn here.

FOIA News: After 3-week delay, DOJ acknowledges OIP's new Director

The Department of Justice has posted a staff profile of Sean Glendening, the new Director of the Office of Information Policy. Last week, FOIA Advisor broke the news of Mr. Glendening’s appointment, which was effective November 3rd. The Director’s post had been vacant since Bobak Talabian’s departure in March.

FOIA News: Exemption 4 and Public-Private Partnerships

Public Money, Private Secrets: Rethinking FOIA in the Age of Public-Private Governance

By Morton Katz, Law & Political Econ. Project, Nov. 25, 2025

Public-private partnerships are, as the saying goes, kind of a big deal. By “public-private partnerships,” I mean arrangements where private, usually corporate, actors work with the government to accomplish a common public good. They take two main forms: contracting, where private firms carry out government tasks, and regulation, where the government relies on private disclosures and compliance systems to pursue public interests like safety or fairness.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Culturally sensitive FOIA exemption introduced

Leger Fernández Introduces Bill to Protect Sacred Tribal Sites and Cultural Items and Practices from Public Disclosure

Press Release, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, Nov. 24, 2025

SANTA FE, NM — Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM) introduced H.R. 6206, the Protect Culturally Sensitive Information Act to make sure Native American Tribes, Alaska Native Entities, and Native Hawaiian Organizations can share sacred and culturally important information with the federal government without fear that it will be made public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). 

The bill also creates a safe, confidential space for consultation so tribes can protect information about sacred and religiously significant sites, burial grounds, cultural items, and traditional practices. It closes long-standing gaps in federal law that put these places and traditions at risk, while still keeping the transparency families expect from their government. Importantly, this legislation does not require tribes to share additional or unnecessary information.

Read more here.

Follow H.R. 6206 here.

FOIA News: Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board amending FOIA regs

The Defense Nuclear Safety Board has proposed amendments to its Freedom of Information Act regulations, according to a Federal Register notice dated November 24, 2025.

Comments will be accepted until December 24, 2025.

FOIA News: Nominations open for worst agency responses in 2025

It’s time to name and shame: Let us know 2025’s worst transparency offenders with a Foilies nomination!

Brought to you by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock, the Foilies “honor” the institutions and individuals most determined to keep the public in the dark.

By Michael Morisy, MuckRock, Nov. 18, 2025

It’s that magical time of year again: Foilies submissions are open, giving requesters and transparency fans a chance to highlight agencies, organizations and individuals that blocked (or tried to block) access to information that the public has a right to get.

Since 2015, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has sought to “honor” those that have gone above and beyond when it comes to restricting access to information. Previous winners of these tongue-in-cheek awards include vandals who stuffed cow manure and pasta in the mailbox of a requester they did not like, U.S. Southern Command for surrealist redaction art that ventured into absurdism and the NSA’s technical difficulties digitizing a historic lecture.

EFF and MuckRock will review the entries as well as other lowlights from the world of transparency and publish the “winners” to kick off Sunshine Week 2026.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA suit for judicial records ill-conceived, opines Fix the Court

Parts of the Judiciary Should Be Subject to FOIA. But This Lawsuit Isn't the Way to Do It

By Gabe Roth, Fix the Court, Nov. 19, 2025

Under seemingly everyone’s understanding of federal open records laws — namely FOIA — the judiciary is exempt from them.

That is, everyone but America First Legal, which is suing the judiciary over an unanswered FOIA that concerns correspondence the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the Judicial Conference purportedly had with Democratic members of Congress over recent SCOTUS ethics scandals.

The irony of this request is that, in the end, the AO and Judicial Conference ran interference for primary offender, deciding to drop the complaint against Justice Thomas for not reporting decades worth of gifts, free vacations and other perks on his financial disclosures. (Fix the Court is on record supporting a fine for Thomas’ omissions under the Ethics in Government Act and creating an enforceable ethics regime down the line but opposing harsher penalties like criminal liability or impeachment.)

AFL’s argument in the suit — D.D.C. Judge Trevor McFadden held a hearing today on the AO/JCUS motion to dismiss — boils down to its belief that when Congress, in 5 U.S.C. §551(1)(B), exempted “the courts of the United States” from FOIA, it was not exempting the ancillary bodies within the judicial branch that perform administrative functions, like the AO and JCUS.

Read more here.