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FOIA News: A FOIA Fish Story

FOIA News (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

Author Says FOIA Suit Yielded Results

By Barbara Wallace, Courthouse News Service, July 28, 2016

A federal lawsuit moved the U.S. Department of Commerce to hand over thousands of pages of withheld documents needed to write a book, the environmental activist and author said Thursday.   

Writer, fisherman and environmental activist Alan Stein sued the Commerce Department under the Freedom of Information and Administrative Procedures Acts in July 2015. He claimed the department and two of its agencies — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Office of the Inspector General — had stonewalled his requests for documents he needed for a book he was writing.

Last year, Stein told Courthouse News the planned book required materials from an investigation of Arnie Fuglvog, a former fishing vessel operator and fisheries official who spent time in prison for making false statements in fishing quota reports.

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