FOIA Advisor

Court opinions issued Apr. 18-19, 2019

Court Opinions (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

Apr. 19, 2019

Natural Res. Def. Council v. EPA (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) plaintiff had Article III standing to challenge EPA’s policy or practice of threatening to deem FOIA requests as “voluntarily withdrawn” when: (a) the agency concludes on an initial review that the request does not “reasonably describe” the records sought and so notifies the requester, and (b) the requester fails to contact the EPA within ten days regarding the asserted deficiency in the request; and (2) neither party had sufficiently explained whether plaintiff had statutory standing or could obtain injunctive or similar relief.

Apr. 18, 2019

Kriemelmeyer v. U.S. Dept. of State (W.D. Wis.) -- concluding that: (1) DOJ’s National Security Division performed adequate search for Foreign Agent Registration records and was under no obligation to inform plaintiff that he could have searched pubic database for same records; (2) Department of State properly denied plaintiff’s request for records pertaining to his passport application because plaintiff failed to certify his identity in accordance with agency regulations.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.