FOIA News: ICYMI, Opexus hit with class action over data breach

Government Contractor Opexus Hit with Class Action Lawsuit Over February 2025 Data Breach

By Olivia DeRicco, ClassAction.org, Mar. 16, 2026

Opexus, formerly known as AINS, has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the government technology contractor failed to prevent a data breach in which two former employees were able to access and delete highly sensitive government and third-party information.

The 54-page data breach lawsuit asserts that Opexus, which operates platforms for processing federal government records and claims to handle sensitive data for nearly every U.S. federal agency, failed to implement reasonable cybersecurity measures or use even the “most basic” personnel screening measures to protect confidential government and sensitive personal information from a “catastrophic” data breach.

According to the case, Opexus experienced a data breach in February 2025 when two former employees, twin brothers who had been previously prosecuted and convicted by the United States government for federal hacking and wire-fraud offenses before being hired by Opexus, used insider privileges to extract, delete and corrupt databases storing government records, including records related to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, enforcement actions, audits and investigations.

Read more here.

[Thanks to Michael Sarich, former FOIA Director at the Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, for bringing this story to our attention]

FOIA News: NARA seeks nominations for next FOIA Advisory Committee

The National Archives and Records Administration has renewed the FOIA Advisory Committee for a seventh term and is now seeking nominations for Committee members to serve from 2026 to 2028, according to a notice published today in the Federal Register. The Committee will include up to 20 members representing a wide range of sectors and expertise. Nominations must be submitted by June 1, 2026.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: A federal trilogy

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Labor/WHD, GS 11, location negotiable, closes 4/22/26 (public).

Sup. Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Treasury/TIGTA, GS 15, multiple locations, closes 4/28/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./CMS, GS 12, Woodlawn, MD, closes 4/29/26 (non-public).

Court opinion issued April 13, 2026

Animal Legal Def. Fund v. U.S. Dep't. of Agric. (N.D. Cal.) -- holding that: (1) the "reading room" provision of Section 552(a)(2)(D) does not require the agency to post records that have not yet been created, as the statute applies only to records that "have been released" under a prior request and not to "mere possibilities in the future, like the shadows swirling around Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come"; emphasizing that the court is “bound by the plain meaning of the statute” and that it is “quite mistaken to assume… that whatever might appear to further the statute’s primary objective must be the law”; finding further that the plaintiffs failed to identify existing records with enough specificity to compel posting; and (2) the agency improperly withheld borrower names and addresses under Exemptions 3 and 6, because such data fell under the "payment information" exception of 7 U.S.C. § 8791 and because the privacy interests of federal loan recipients were outweighed by public interest; in "open[ing] agency action to the light of public scrutiny"; holding further that the agency properly withheld the underlying substance of producer-provided information under Exemption 3, noting that the statutory protection for such data does not "vanish simply because USDA repeated the information in its own documents."

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

FOIA News: Accessing tax insights through FOIA

On the day before tax day, Lauren Loricchio of Tax Notes appeared on the latest SALT Shaker Podcast, produced by law firm Eversheds Sutherland, to explore how FOIA continues to drive transparency in tax administration, building on a legacy that dates back to a landmark 1972 lawsuit against the IRS.

Court opinion issued Apr. 10, 2026

Informed Consent Action Network v. Food & Drug Admin. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for an Open America stay and staying litigation for “approximately seven months”; as with other recent cases, pointing to the government’s burdensome production schedule in a case in the Northern District of Texas, where the agency must “produce approximately 9.1 million pages by October 1, 2026”; denying the requester’s motion for discovery into the agency’s “multitrack process because such discovery would simply heighten the burdens on the agency, forcing [it] . . . to expend resources to reconstruct the statute of a queue from nearly three years ago,” and there is no evidence otherwise of bad faith.

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

FOIA News: FOIA Advisory Committee approves two recommendations

By NARA/OGIS, FOIA Ombuds, Apr. 13, 2026

FOIA Advisory Committee Votes to Approve Two Recommendations

Members of the FOIA Advisory Committee voted to approve two recommendations at their April 2, 2026, meeting. The two recommendations came from the Statutory Reform Subcommittee and are: 

• Recommendation No. 2026-01: Congress should amend FOIA to establish the FOIA Advisory Committee as a statutory federal advisory committee.

• Recommendation No. 2026-02: Congress should amend FOIA to mandate regular publication of agency FOIA logs to contain, at a minimum, 13 fields generally maintained in agency FOIA tracking systems . . . .

Read more here.

[FOIA Advisor’s Ryan Mulvey co-chairs the subcommittee that initiated these recommendations]

FOIA News: Tips for litigating against DHS during shutdown

The Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center has published a 57-page practice advisory to help FOIA litigators compel DHS agencies “to search, process, and produce records” during the appropriations lapse. See the overview here and the documents here

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Fore! Can you master these?

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Treasury/OFAC, GS 14, Wash., DC, closes 4/20/26 (non-public).

Supv. Counsel. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., CM 00, Wash., DC, closes 4/22/26 (public).

FOIA Program Manager, Dep’t of the Interior/NPS, GS 12, Philadelphia, PA, closes 4/23/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Commerce/Census, GS 13, Suitland, MD, closes 4/24/26 (non-public).

Court opinion issued April 9, 2026

Coyne v. Nat'l Guard Bureau, Dep't of Def. (E.D. Pa.) -- denying cross-motions for summary judgment where pro se plaintiff sought Inspector General records related to his disputed retirement withdrawal; holding that the agency's declaration failed to establish the adequacy of its search in both completeness and method; holding further that the agency's Vaughn indices were insufficient for failing to describe withheld documents or explain the consequences of disclosure beyond rote recitation of claimed exemptions under Exemptions 5, 6, and 7(C); finding further that the agency's segregability showing was inadequate where the declaration offered only a blanket "inextricably intertwined" assertion without document-specific analysis; lastly, entering judgment for the agency on plaintiff's unpleaded Privacy Act claim.

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