FOIA News: DOJ announces recipients of FOIA awards with eyebrow-raising commentary

On March 20, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Information Policy announced the recipients of its 2026 Sunshine Week FOIA Awards, recognizing federal employees and teams for their work administering the Freedom of Information Act. The awards were presented in three categories: Exceptional Service by a FOIA Professional or Team, Exceptional Advancements in Information Technology to Improve FOIA Administration, and the Lifetime Service Award.

Associate Attorney General and Chief FOIA Officer Stanley E. Woodward declared that the current Department of Justice is the “most transparent . . . in our nation’s history.” OIP Director Sean Glendening attributed FOIA workload challenges in part to “a small group of frequent requesters” who submit complex requests.

FOIA News: This and that

• OGIS Publishes Four New Ombuds Observers Clarifying FOIA Terms of Art, FOIA Ombuds

• 6 FOIA tips to boost your reporting, Nat’l Press Club

• The FOIA: Off to a slow start, picked up speed, now hitting a brick wall, Thomas Susman

• Kalshi and Polymarket Targeted by Journalists, Law. St. Media

• People are requesting more government records than ever. Why are they getting less?, Anna Massoglia

FOIA News: Sunshine Week in full swing; FOIA info remains in the dark

As of 9:59am this morning, six departments still have not published their annual FOIA reports for fiscal year 2025: Agriculture; Health & Human Services; Homeland Security; Justice, Treasury; and Veterans Affairs. The reports were required to be posted on March 1, 2026. Additionally, nine departments apparently missed yesterday’s deadline to publish Chief FOIA Officer Reports.

Perhaps the new director of DOJ’s Office of Information Policy, Sean Glendening, will explain the delays—at least for DOJ—when he makes an appearance today at Sunshine Fest, a conference organized by University of Florida’s Brechner Freedom of Information Project, MuckRock, and the National Freedom of Information Coalition. No federal agency is planning to host a public Sunshine Week event this year. DOJ reportedly will bestow FOIA awards to federal FOIA professionals this week, but details have not been announced on DOJ’s website.

[ERRATA: The event at which OIP’s director will appear will take place after “Sunshine Fest” on Wednesday, March 18, 2026. See details here.]

FOIA News: FOIA fails—2026 edition

The Foilies 2026

Recognizing the Worst in Government Transparency 

By Dave Maass, Aaron Mackey, and Beryl Lipton, Elec. Frontier Found., Mar. 15, 2026

* * *

Established in 2015, The Foilies are an annual project by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock to recognize the agencies, officials and contractors that thwart the public's right to know. We give out these tongue-in-cheek "awards" during Sunshine Week (March 15-21), a collective effort by media and advocacy organizations to highlight the importance of open government.  

This year, we've got a few "winners" whose behavior defies belief. 

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Mar. 12, 2026

Ananiades v. U.S. Dep't of Air Force (9h Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that the Air Force adequately searched for records that plaintiff provided to it as a contractor in 1984, noting that the relevant contract files were destroyed in 2004.

Zakarneh v. USCIS (D. Or.) -- granting summary judgment to government after determining that: (1) plaintiff’s claims for audio and video recordings of his own 2016 and 2018 immigration interviews were moot since they had already been produced; and (2) plaintiff’s remaining claims for his immigration records were barred for failure to exhaust administrative remedies because he failed to file timely agency appeals.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued Mar. 11, 2026

Sherrod v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s second supplemental motion for summary judgment—that is, its third attempt to justify its treatment of records—in a case involving an inmate’s access to surveillance camera videotapes documenting his crimes; treating the motion as unopposed since the plaintiff “has not filed a response”; concluding that “Defendants have satisfied their burden to adduce evidence demonstrating a reasonably adequate search.”

Foreman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment in a case involving a pro se inmate’s access to “various records related to his incarceration and medical treatment”; holding the agency properly redacted the names of certain correctional officers who interacted with the requester under Exemptions 6 and 7(C); noting the “heightened security concerns” about revealing the identifies are those officers working in the SHU context; noting also that the requester’s asserted public interest was actually a “personal interest in discerning potential defendants for his own litigation,” which should properly be pursued through civil discovery in separate litigation.

Bennett v. U.S. Postal Serv. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion to dismiss; holding the pro se incarcerated requester failed to reasonably describe the records sought in his request; explaining the request was “impermissibly vague” because, in relevant part, it sought “every piece of information about any service ever offered by the United States Postal Service”; explaining how the requester also requested “contracts” without any further specificity.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

FOIA News: Staff shortages delayed FOIA access last year, reports WaPo

Did Trump cuts slow access to public records? We found 26 cases that say yes.

Lawyers’ pleas for extensions reveal post-DOGE staffing woes at federal agencies’ Freedom of Information Act offices.

By Nate Jones, Wash. Post, Mar. 14, 2026

“Hello, the FOIA office has been placed on admin leave and is unable to respond to any emails.”

This was how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention responded by email this past spring to a Freedom of Information Act request for records about the risk of catching measles in areas with low vaccination rates.

The public health institute’s FOIA office had lost too many staff members to fulfill public record requests — falling victim to President Donald Trump’s executive order to eliminate “waste, bloat, and insularity” in the federal government by significantly reducing its workforce.

As hundreds of thousands of federal employees were fired or chose to leave the government last year, FOIA requesters — myself included — wondered: Would these personnel reductions further undermine the federal government’s already strained ability to follow federal law and disclose public records when requested under FOIA?

The answer, we now know, is a resounding yes. Attorneys for at least 13 agencies and departments have explicitly stated in 26 FOIA lawsuits that the downsizings were the reasons for failures to meet FOIA deadlines, according to a Washington Post review of 339 active FOIA lawsuits.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Mar. 10, 2026

Jewell v. DHS (W.D. Wis.) -- holding that: (1) U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement and DOJ’s Criminal Division performed adequate searches for records concerning plaintiff’s criminal conviction for distributing child pornography; and (2) DOJ properly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold records about third parties, as well as Exemption 7(F) to redact plaintiff’s name because disclosure could incite violence from other prisoners; and (3) rejecting DOJ’s supplemental use of Exemption 7(E) for the same withheld records, noting its skepticism that “criminals are actually reviewing documents from these types of investigations and gleaning insight on how to avoid detection.”

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

FOIA News: The Deep Six

As of 9:27am this morning, six departments have yet to post their FY 2025 annual reports: Agriculture; Health & Human Services; Homeland Security; Justice; Treasury; and Veterans Affairs. The deadline for agencies to provide reports to DOJ/OIP for clearance was December 12, 2025; the deadline to post final reports was March 1, 2026 (see here).

Jobs, jobs, jobs: The Sixth Sense. I see . . .

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 12, Biloxi, MS, closes 3/16/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 12, N. Little Rock, AR, closes 3/17/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHS, GS 12, Manchester, NH, closes 3/17/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/CIV, GS 12-13, Wash., DC, closes 3/20/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv., GS 11-13, Wash., DC, closes 3/20/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./CMS, GS 7-9, Woodlawn, MD, closes 3/23/26 (non-public).