FOIA Advisor

FOIA News (2025)

FOIA News: OIP "updates" multiple sections of FOIA Guide

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy has revised seven sections of its online-only Department of Justice Guide to the Freedom of Information Act over the past six weeks. See list below. When we last checked the Guide in early December, we criticized OIP for excluding many new court decisions from its updates. OIP’s efforts primarily remain lackluster.

  • Exemption 1 (posted Jan. 7, 2025) (“primarily includes case law, guidance, and statutes up until November 30, 2022”)

  • Exemption 3 (posted Dec. 20, 2024) (“primarily includes case law . . . up until September 30, 2022”)

  • Exemption 4 (posted Jan. 29, 2025) (“primarily includes case law . . . up until December 31, 2022”)

  • Exemption 7(B) (posted Dec. 10, 2024) (“primarily includes case law . . . up until September 30, 2023”)

  • Exemption 7(F) (posted Jan. 21, 2025) (“primarily includes case law . . . up until January 31, 2024”)

  • Exclusions (posted Dec. 20, 2024) (“primarily includes case law . . . up until May 31, 2024”).

  • Reverse FOIA (updated Jan. 15, 2025) (primarily includes case law . . . up until [actual cut-off date]”). What OIP’s “actual cut-off date” is for “Reverse FOIA” is a mystery. To quote Rick Perry, “oops.” Stay tuned for another update!

FOIA News: More annual reports available

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

We have located several more annual FOIA reports published by agencies since we first posted an initial batch on January 6, 2025. Only a few warrant commentary.

  • Council of the Inspectors Gen. on Integrity & Efficiency: CIGIE did not fulfill its efficiency mission in FY 2024 with respect to processing FOIA requests. The agency completed only 100 requests after starting the fiscal year with 56 requests on hand and receiving an additional 207 requests.

All agencies are required to publish their annual reports on their websites by March 1, 2025.

FOIA News: This and that

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

  • In fiscal year 2024, the Defense Department’s Office of the Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff received more than 1500 requests targeting 401 officials from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Law Street Media analysis.

  • The New York Times filed a FOIA lawsuit on January 21, 2025, that seeks access to former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report about the Trump classified documents case.

  • The Government Attic recently posted heavily-redacted memos from DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel concerning the Treasury’s ability to issue a $1 trillion coin if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling.

  • The FBI’s Vault recently recently added the personnel records of James Kalstrom, who notably headed the criminal investigation into the TWA Flight 800 crash in 1996; part 4 of OJ Simpson’s file; and various records about Sheldon Adelson.

  • The 2024 annual FOIA report of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is not currently accessible on the White House’s new website, but it is available here. The FOIA resources of the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) have been archived here; the Office of Management and Budget’s FOIA resources are here.

FOIA News: ICYMI, audio of D.C. Circuit argument

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

On January 14, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard Brown v. FBI, No. 23-5244, which raised two issues regarding FBI’s investigation of the 2015 San Bernardino attack: (1) whether appellee properly construed the scope of appellant’s request under FOIA ; and (2) whether appellee satisfied its burden of demonstrating that disclosure of the material withheld under Exemption 7(D) would foreseeably harm an interest protected by that exemption.

FOIA News: CEQ finalizes amendments to FOIA regulations; White House issues regulatory freeze

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

The Council on Environmental Quality has finalized its amendments to the agency’s FOIA regulations following a 30-day notice and comment period, according to a final rule that was scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on January 21, 2025. The new rules were scheduled to become effective on February 20, 2025.

On January 20, 2025, however, the President issued a regulatory freeze that, among other things, ordered executive departments and agencies to “[i]mmediately withdraw any rules that have been sent to the OFR but not published in the Federal Register.“ It also ordered departments and agencies to “consider postponing for 60 days from the date of this memorandum the effective date for any rules that have been published in the Federal Register, or any rules that have been issued in any manner but have not taken effect, for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise.”  

FOIA News: Dep't of State's 2024 annual FOIA report

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

The U.S. Department of State has posted its fiscal year 2024 annual FOIA report. Here are the key metrics:

  • Requests received jumped from 15,713 in FY 2023 to 22,306 an increase of nearly 42 percent. This is the second-highest number of requests received by State since FY 2008, exceeded only by its FY 2017 total of 27,852).

  • Requests processed climbed from 12,576 in FY 2023 to 20,775 in FY 2024, an increase of 65 percent

  • Backlogged requests decreased ever so slightly from 21,619 in FY 2023 to 21,615 in FY 2024.

  • Backlogged appeals dropped from 272 in FY 2023 to 126 in FY 2024, a 53.6 percent decrease

  • $0 collected for processing requests.

  • $33.2 million in processing costs; $2 million in litigation-related costs.

  • For all processed perfected requests, 563.92 average days by main DOS for “complex” requests.

  • Ten oldest perfected requests have been pending between 4183 and 4289 days.