Court opinions issued Jan. 24, 2025

Am. First Legal Found. v. USDA (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that Exemption 5’s presidential communications privilege protected agency strategic plans to promote voter registration and voter participation that were submitted to the White House pursuant to an Executive Order; rejecting appellant’s argument that several agency declarations, the Executive Order, and a White House fact sheet undermined the White House’s sworn statements about the nature and use of the strategic plans.

Human Rights Def. Ctr v. U.S. Park Police (D.C. Cir.) -- (1) reversing district court’s decision that the names of police officers involved in three tort settlements were protected by Exemption 6 (and ordering their disclosure), because the agency’s showing was “wholly conclusory, lacking even minimal substantiation of the officers’ privacy interest or the potential harm from disclosing their names”; moreover, finding that the Park Police failed to meet the foreseeable harm test; and (2) vacating the district court’s order preventing plaintiff-appellant from disclosing, disseminating, or making use of the names of two settlement claimants inadvertently released; concluding that “neither FOIA nor any inherent judicial authority” enabled an agency to seek a court order to limit the effects of its error, and opining that a contrary Tenth Circuit decision neglected to properly consider “important limitations on courts’ inherent authority”; expressing no opinion as to whether a court may claw back inadvertently released documents that are “subject to any independent legal prohibition on disclosure such as applies to classified documents”, also declining to consider whether the First Amendment prevented the district court from issuing its clawback order.

NB: Congratulations to our colleague Ryan Mulvey, who filed an amicus brief for Americans For Prosperity Foundation in support of the appellant on the clawback dispute.

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

FOIA News: FCC raises FOIA fees

On January 23, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission published a notice announcing increases to its hourly FOIA processing fees due to the government-wide salary increases on January 1, 2025.

Court opinion issued Jan. 22, 2025

Sejas v. U.S. Attorney’s Office (S.D.N.Y.) -- granting government’s motion for summary judgment because pro se plaintiff, who sought records pertaining to three Bolivian individuals, neglected to administratively appeal agency’s denial pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C).

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

FOIA News: This and that

• 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

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.

Court opinion issued Jan. 17, 2025

Helmer v. U.S. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- determining that: (1) State Department performed adequate searches for various records concerning Sir Zelman Cowen, the nineteenth Governor-General of Australia; (2) plaintiff’s claim that State failed to timely respond to his request was moot; and (3) plaintiff lacked standing to bring a policy-or-practice claim because he never showed that he was realistically threatened by a repetition of State’s alleged policy of practice of unjustified delay.

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

Jobs, jobs, jobs (or lack thereof): 90-day hiring freeze

On January 20, 2025, the White House ordered all executive departments and agencies to refrain from filling vacant positions or creating new positions for the next 90 days, with exceptions for “military personnel of the armed forces or . . . positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.”  Additional exceptions include “positions requiring Presidential appointment or Senate confirmation, the appointment of officials to non-career positions in the Senior Executive Service or to Schedule A or C positions in the Excepted Service,” among others.

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

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.”  

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report Jan. 20, 2025

Federal positions closing in the next 10 days

Sup. Gov. Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Def./DCSA, GG 14, Boyers, PA, closes 1/20/25 (agency only).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, GS 13, Ft. Belvoir, VA, closes 1/20/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of State, GS 9, Rosslyn, VA, closes 1/21/24 or first 50 applications (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, GS 11-12, multiple locations, closes 1/21/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./NIH, GS 14, remote, closes 1/21/25 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, GS 9, Ramstein, Germany, closes 1/21/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, GS 9, Lackland AFB, TX, closes 1/22/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Agric./Forest Serv., GS 12-13, Wash., DC, closes 1/23/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./FDA, GS 13, Rockville, MD, closes 1/24/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Treasury/IRS, GS 14, nationwide locations, closes 1/24/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, NH 3, Scott AFB, IL, closes 1/27/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Def. Intelligence Agency, GG 13, Arlington, VA, closes 1/28/25 (public).

Federal positions closing on or after Jan. 31, 2025

Lead Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/DEA, GS 13, Arlington, VA, closes 2/3/25 (non-public).

Att’y-Advisor, Dep’t of Transportation/PHMSA. GS 14, Wash., DC, closes 2/10/25 (public).

Att’y Advisor, Dep’t of Justice/Pardon, GS 13-15, Wash., DC, open until filled (public).

Court opinion issued Jan. 16, 2025

Stevens v. HHS (N.D. Ill.) -- ruling that:(1) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to show that it performed adequate search for various records concerning three individuals, reasoning that: (a) ICE neglected to explain the full scope of ICE program offices and why it limited its search to certain offices, (b) ICE did not sufficiently explain which of the potentially responsive records it found in each of the program offices for each of the individual requests were ultimately produced to plaintiff, and (c) ICE’s search terms were underinclusive for two of the requested individuals; and (2) agency failed to justify its withholdings, noting that its Vaughn Index was “at the very least incomplete” and its declaration contained “clearly erroneous statements showing a lack of attention to detail and accuracy”; further, remarking that ICE’s privacy-related redactions on a “publicly filed document readily available on a public docket” were “egregious,” “ludicrous” “preposterous,” and a “blatant misuse of exemptions” that “defies comprehension” and “screams of bad faith”; and (3) ICE must release all records to plaintiff in full, because: (a) in camera review would be too burdensome, (b) ICE already was already afforded an opportunity to file a supplemental Vaughn Index and “enough was enough” after years of delay.

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