Shhh! Don’t Say Glomar Anymore
By Bernard Bell, Yale Journal on Regulations, Mar. 14, 2022
Summary: This post summarizes a report adopted by the FOIA Advisory Committee on March 10, 2022, regarding the use of a Glomar response to neither confirm nor deny the existence of records responsive to a FOIA request.
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The National Archives and Records Administration “established the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee in 2014 to foster dialog between the Administration and the requester community, solicit public comments, and develop consensus recommendations for improving FOIA administration and proactive disclosures.” See Committee Home Page. The FOIA Advisory Committee commissioned its Classification Subcommittee to study the use of the Glomar doctrine and to make recommendations related to agency use of the Glomar doctrine.
The Subcommittee consisted of an academic, the co-chair of National Security Counselors (an ironically-named private transparency group), and the Associate General Counsel and Unit Chief of the FBI’s FOIA Litigation Unit. The Subcommittee sought to conduct a survey of agency practices regarding invocation of the Glomar exception, which yielded only limited information due to the low agency response rate,[3] and ultimately produced a nine-page report dated March 1, 2022. The full FOIA Advisory Committee adopted the report’s recommendations at its March 10, 2022 meeting. Four Advisory Committee members voted against the report, and a fifth abstained. See the FOIA Advisor Blog’s report on the meeting here; a recording of the meeting is accessible here.
Read the full article here.