FOIA News: This and that

• For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal FOIA Advisory Committee will meet in person for the opening meeting of the 2024-2026 term on September 9, 2024. Stay tuned for an announcement on new Committee members.

• Thirty-five years ago, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Law and Policy (the forerunner of OIP) published the first volume of the FOIA Update, which later became the FOIA Post.

• Law360 has published an uncritical article about efforts to expand the FOIA to the judiciary.

• An e-discovery firm discussed several FOIA responses that went “FUBAR.” [Yours truly filed one of the cited requests on behalf of America Rising]

• The FBI has posted another installment of records concerning hijacker D.B. Cooper.

• The Government Attic has posted emails of former EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler from July 2018, immediately after Scott Pruitt resigned.

Court opinion issued Aug. 9, 2024

Human Rights Def. Ctr. v. DOJ (W.D. Wash.) -- denying government’s motion to amend court’s prior judgment that the Drug Enforcement Administration improperly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold names of alleged agency tortfeasors from settlement claims records; finding that DEA did not present new evidence or show that the court’s analysis of the private and public interest at stake resulted in “manifest injustice.”

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

FOIA News: U.S. Marshals settles suit for SCOTUS travel records

DOJ, Watchdog Agree To End Dispute Over Justices' Travel Docs

By Rose Krebs, Law 360, Aug. 9, 2024

The U.S. Department of Justice and judicial watchdog group Fix the Court said in a Friday filing that they have agreed to dismiss a complaint accusing the department of failing to deliver on requests for reports about travel by U.S. Supreme Court justices.

* * *

In January 2023, Fix the Court filed a complaint saying that the U.S. Marshals Service had not fully responded to a Freedom of Information Act request for marshals' "special assignment" reports. Such reports are filed for deputy marshals who provide on-request security coverage for justices while they travel.

Fix the Court put a request in for "reports prepared for travel taken and events attended by U.S. Supreme Court justices in which they were accompanied by USMS personnel between January 1, 2018, and September 30, 2022," according to the complaint.

Read more here (accessible with free trial).

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report Aug. 12, 2024

Federal positions closing in the next 10 days

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Education, GS 12-13, Wash., DC, closes 8/12/24 (or 50 applications) (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Envtl. Prot. Agency, GS 13, Lenexa, KS, closes 8/12/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Housing & Urban Dev./IG, GS 12-13, multiple locations, closes 8/12/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, GS 9, Langley AFB, VA, closes 8/12/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Housing & Urban Dev., GS 12-13, multiple locations, closes 8/13/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Labor/MSHA, GS 13, Arlington, VA, closes 8/14/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, GS 9, Fort Meade, MD, closes 8/15/24 (non-public).

Records Management Assistant (FOIA/PA), Dep’t of the Army, GS 7 Fort Belvoir, VA, closes 8/15/24.

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 9, Las Vegas, NV, closes 8/16/24 (internal agency).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 9, Las Vegas, NV, closes 8/16/24 (or 50 applications) (internal agency).

Supv. Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, GS 14, Wash., DC, closes 8/16/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Treasury/IRS, GS 14, multiple locations, closes 8/22/24 (non-public).

Federal positions closing on or after Aug. 23, 2024

Att’y-Advisor, Envtl. Prot. Agency, GS 11-12, Wash., DC, closes 8/23/24.

Court opinion issued Aug. 7, 2024

Reclaim the Records v. U.S Dep’t of State (S.D.N.Y.) -- finding that the State Department performed adequate search for pre-existing index or list of birth and death records for residents of the Panama Canal Zone between 1904 and 1979, and that the agency’s computer system was unable to generate the requested records; further finding that fulfilling plaintiff’s request would involve creating new records via extraordinary manual measures, which the agency was not required to do.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

FOIA News: Postal Regulatory Commission amends FOIA regs

The Postal Regulatory Commission has approved amendments to its FOIA regulations, according to a final rule scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on August 9, 2024.

Read the final rule here.

FOIA News: OGIS hits the road

OGIS Public Engagement Spans the Globe

By Kimberlee Ried, FOIA Ombudsman, Aug. 5, 2024

The summer of 2024 has been busy for OGIS staff as we traveled to several conferences to share and present information about the work of the FOIA Ombuds office. Below is a brief recap.

In June, OGIS staff traveled to the American Society of Access Professionals (ASAP) conference in Anaheim, CA, to teach two sessions and moderate two panels. The sessions focused on customer service tips, including communicating and negotiating with requesters, and on understanding OGIS’s role as the FOIA Ombuds office.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Judge rejects bid by Judicial Watch, Daily Caller to reopen fight over access to Biden Senate papers

Judge rejects bid by Judicial Watch, Daily Caller to reopen fight over access to Biden Senate papers

By Randall Chase, Associated Press, Aug. 6, 2024

A Delaware judge has refused to vacate a ruling denying a conservative media outlet and an activist group access to records related to President Joe Biden’s gift of his Senate papers to the University of Delaware.

Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation sought to set aside a 2022 court ruling and reopen a FOIA lawsuit following the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report about Biden’s handling of classified documents.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Aug. 6, 2024

Connell v. Cent. Intelligence Agency (D.C. Cir.) — in a case concerning the CIA’s “operational control” over detainees at Guantanamo, affirming the agency’s use of a “Glomar response” to refuse to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records lest the CIA reveal classified intelligence sources and methods; rejecting the requester’s argument that the CIA waived its ability to assert Glomar based on a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report because that report was not “official” and could not be attributed to the agency; further rejecting the requester’s alternative argument that disclosure of records from a database of materials “previously disclosed to the public” foreclosed the use of Glomar as to other potentially responsive records; noting that while the CIA’s supporting declarations “could have provided more detail” to support the use of a Glomar response they were adequate.

Am. Small Business League v. Small Business Admin. (N.D. Cal.) — on a motion for attorney’s fees and costs, granting the motion in part and denying it in part; holding that plaintiff was not “eligible” for fees pertaining to the production of Small Business Administration “PPP loan data” because the relevant “judicial order” ordering production was actually issued in another case (Washington Post Co. v. Small Bus. Admin., No. 20-1240 (D.D.C.)), despite the instant court relying on that order, and therefore there was no “causal nexus” between the agency’s production and plaintiff’s own lawsuit; further holding that plaintiff was eligible for fees pertaining to the production of supplemental data that was discovered after (and independent of) the Washington Post case, as well as certain interbranch communications; as to “entitlement,” ruling that plaintiff should not receive fees for certain records whose production was not unreasonably delayed; reducing the ultimate fee award due to plaintiff’s use of “block billing.”

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

Court opinion issued Aug. 5, 2024

Cox v. DOJ (2nd Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that a congressional committee’s report concerning the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation program was a “congressional” record, not an “agency” record subject to FOIA, even though it was disseminated to various federal agencies; in reaching its decision, the Second Circuit found that because the Committee “manifested a clear intent to control the report at the time of its creation, and because the Committee's subsequent acts did not vitiate that intent,” the agencies that possessed the report did not “control” it under the “intent test” adopted by the Circuit in Behar v. DHS (2nd Cir. 2022).

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.