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).

FOIA News: AFPF Sunshine Week Symposium - March 18, 2026

[FOIA Advisor: The event in the following announcement is being organized by FOIA Advisor’s own Ryan Mulvey with his employer, Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Learn more, and register to attend the free webinar, at https://americansforprosperityfoundation.org/sunshine!]

SIXTH ANNUAL SUNSHINE WEEK SYMPOSIUM – March 18, 2026

Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) is happy to announce its Sixth Annual Sunshine Week Symposium, which will bring together a panel of transparency experts to discuss cutting-edge issues related to the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state open-records laws.  Join us online for a robust exploration into the current state and future of FOIA on Wednesday, March 18th, from 10:00–11:30am ET.

Our expert panelists will explore the following issues, and more:

• Improving proactive disclosure

• Records retention and management practices in a digital age

• Processing platforms, the rise of Artificial Intelligence, and agency resource limitations

• The impact of copyright claims on public access

• The state of FOIA enforcement—judicial review, OGIS mediation, and more

This year’s symposium participants include:

• Ryan Mulvey, Senior Policy Counsel, Americans for Prosperity Foundation & Professorial Lecturer in Law, The George Washington University Law School

• Margaret Kwoka, The Frank R. Strong Chair in Law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

• Frank LoMonte, Newsroom Legal Counsel, CNN & Adjunct Instructor, University of Georgia School of Law

• Michael Sarich, Founder, FOIA University & Former FOIA Director, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

* Panelist affiliations provided for identification purposes only

Registration for online viewing is available here.

FOIA News: DHS crosses FOIA boundary?

DHS Ousts CBP Privacy Officers Who Questioned ‘Illegal’ Orders

Department of Homeland Security leaders removed top privacy officers who objected to mislabeling government records to block their public release, WIRED has learned.

By Dell Cameron, WIRED, Mar. 10, 2026

The US Department of Homeland Security removed multiple career Customs and Border Protection officials from their roles this year after they objected to orders to mislabel records about surveillance technologies and block their release under the Freedom of Information Act, WIRED has learned.

Since January, DHS leaders have reassigned two of the top officials responsible for ensuring that CBP technologies comply with federal privacy law, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. These sources were granted anonymity because they fear government retribution.

The reassignments followed December orders from the DHS Privacy Office to treat routine compliance forms as legally privileged, and to label signed privacy assessments as “drafts” exempt from disclosure under federal records law.

Those removed include CBP’s top privacy officer and one of the agency’s two privacy branch chiefs. The director of CBP’s FOIA office was also removed last month.

Read more here.

FOIA News: And then there were six

As of 9:00am this morning, six departments have yet to post their annual reports: Agriculture; Health & Human Services; Homeland Security; Justice; Treasury; and Veterans Affairs. The deadline to post was March 1, 2026.

Last year, reporting delays were tied to tampering of government database by two Virginia brothers who worked for Opexus, a federal contractor. Both then and now, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy, which collects and reviews the annual reports, has declined to publicly explain the delays.

Court opinion issued Mar. 9, 2026

Doe v. Dep’t of the Navy (D.D.C.) -- dismissing without prejudice a pro se plaintiff’s complaint seeking records about the Navy’s consideration of his naval officer commission application—including interview appraisal materials and board decision analyses—and documents explaining why a medical waiver was approved years after earlier denials; holding that the complaint did not clearly identify the requests at issue or plead facts showing that the Navy improperly withheld records or conducted an inadequate search, but allowing plaintiff 30 days to file amended complaint.

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. 4-Mar. 6, 2026

Mar. 6, 2026

Protect the Pub.'s Trust. v. USAID (D D.C.) -- dismissing plaintiff’s claim because the request was too vague and overbroad to allow USAID to determine which records were sought; the request asked for communications from certain USAID officials and broadly from “officials” in the White House, State, Treasury, and United Nations regarding the Taylor Force Act and U.S. funding to Palestinian territories, but it failed to identify most custodians, used imprecise terms for external officials, and left the funding scope and dates unclear.

Mar. 5, 2026

Am. Sec. Ass’n v. SEC (M.D. Fla.) -- granting in part and denying in part both parties’ summary judgment motions in a case seeking spreadsheets and similar records used by the SEC to determine penalties in its broker-dealer recordkeeping enforcement sweep; ruling that spreadsheets showing prospective penalty tiers for entities under investigation were protected opinion work product under Exemption 5, but spreadsheets reflecting final, imposed penalties and the underlying data considered were non-exempt.

McCann v. USCIS (E.D. La.) -- granting summary judgment to USCIS, holding that its supplemental declaration adequately explained the agency’s search for records concerning USCIS’s decision to issue a “Notice of Intent to Revoke Permanent Resident Status” and clarified that a disputed page had already been released.

Mar. 4, 2026

Judicial Watch, Inc. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- concluding that DHS failed to show that it adequately searched for certain records concerning the Arizona border wall, noting that that the agency’s declarations did not sufficiently explain what systems were searched or whether it pursued leads to additional records.

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

Monthly Roundup: Feb. 2026

Below is a summary of the notable FOIA court decisions and news from last month, as well as a look ahead to FOIA events in March.

Court opinions

We posted and summarized 21 opinions in February. Of note, in Levin v. NHTSA (D.D.C.) the court rejected the agency’s reliance on the deliberative-process privilege after finding it failed to articulate any specific foreseeable harm from disclosure and instead relied on boilerplate assertions, ordering NHTSA to release records concerning its proposed guidelines on distracted driving. And in Aaronson v. DOJ (D.D.C.), the court rejected the FBI’s Glomar response for a pseudonymous employee because disclosure would not reveal any real individual’s identity; it therefore ordered additional searches for records concerning the FBI’s alleged impersonation of media members

Top news

• On February 23, 2026, Judge Aileen Cannon blocked the release of Volume II of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on the classified documents investigation involving Donald Trump. The ruling by Judge Cannon—which arose in parallel with ongoing FOIA litigation seeking the report—likely keeps it secret indefinitely.

• Early FY 2025 FOIA annual reports released in February showed increased request volumes and growing backlogs at several agencies, including NARA, the Dep’t of Transportation, and the Dep’t of Education.

March calendar

Mar. 1: Deadline for agencies to post FY 2025 annual reports

Mar. 5: FOIA Advisory Committee meeting.

Mar. 10: Hearing in Am. Transparency v. HHS, No. 21-02821 (D.D.C.) re: royalty payments to NIH scientists

Mar. 15-21: Sunshine Week

Mar. 15-17: Second annual Sunshine Fest

Mar. 16: “Freedom of Information Day”; Chief FOIA Officer Report publication deadline

Mar. 18: AFP Foundation Sixth Annual Sunshine Week Symposium

TBA: DOJ’s Sunshine Week award event

FOIA News: NRC revises FOIA regs

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a final rule on March 6, 2026, updating its FOIA regulations to better align with current DOJ guidelines. Key changes include a standardized "end-date" for record searches and a new mandate for the FOIA Public Liaison to help requesters refine their searches to lower costs. The rule also formalizes proactive disclosures, requiring the agency to continuously update its website with frequently requested records. These amendments took effect immediately without a public comment period.

FOIA News: New day; same story

As of 9:58am today, the following departments still have not yet posted their annual reports for FY 2025: Agriculture, HHS, DHS, DOJ, Labor, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs.