FOIA Advisor

Court opinion issued Apr. 14, 2020

Court Opinions (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

Stein v. CIA (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) CIA conducted adequate search for background investigation records concerning various Trump administration candidates, but improperly redacted their names pursuant to Exemption 6; (2) FBI properly interpreted plaintiff’s request for agency’s security clearance procedures, but nonetheless failed to perform adequate search; (3) plaintiff failed to administratively appeal from DOD HQ’s “no records” response; DOD’s Defense Manpower Data Center properly interpreted plaintiff’s request and demonstrated that performing search would be futile; (4) DOJ failed to show that its Mail Referral Unit properly referred request; (5) plaintiff was not required to appeal from of Office of Personnel Management’s “interim” responses; OPM properly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold personally identifying information, but court lacked information to evaluate other contested records; (6) ODNI performed adequate search and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 6, but its segregability analysis was insufficient; (7) Department of Education failed to show that it would be futile to search for security clearance records concerning Betsy Devos; (8) Department of State did not provide court sufficient information to determine whether it properly withheld records concerning Rex Tillerson pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C).

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.