FOIA Advisor

Court opinions issued Aug. 11, 2020

Court Opinions (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

Nat’l Sec. Counselors v. CIA (D.C. Cir.) -- ruling that: (1) district court properly decided that CIA was not required to disclose list of FOIA requesters by fee category, because agency’s FOIA database did contain such information; (2) affirming district court’s decision that request to CIA seeking all records about IBM supercomputer named “Watson” imposed unreasonably burdensome search; and (3) DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel was not required to release additional portions of two agency legal opinions, rejecting argument that attorney-client privilege had been waived.

Boyd v. Trump (D.D.C.) -- finding that incarcerated pro se plaintiff improperly named various government individuals as defendants and failed to show that he submitted FOIA requests to any Executive Branch agency.

Langston v. DHS (D. Ariz.) -- concluding that DHS properly relied on Exemption 3, in conjunction with National Security Act, in refusing to confirm or deny existence of records about plaintiff.

Abakporo v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) — upon government’s unopposed renewed summary judgment, determining that EOUSA properly searched for and disclosed all records pertaining to specific grand jury records of interest to plaintiff.

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