Are Non-Profit Organizations’ Records Requests Ruining FOIA?

By Bernard Bell, Yale J. on Reg., June 19, 2022

Court dockets in this district overflow with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) matters.  Many of those cases seek reams of records, requiring massive efforts from defendant agencies. . . . This is the system Congress hath wrought. And which this Court must dutifully implement.”

American Center for Law and Justice v. DHS, Dkt. No. 21-1364 (D.D.C. Nov. 10, 2021)(McFadden, J.).

In American Center for Law and Justice v. Department of Homeland Security, — F. Supp. 3d —, 2021 WL 5231939 (D.D.C. Nov. 10, 2021), a seemingly run-of-the-mill Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) case, D.C. District Judge Trevor McFadden offered a provocative assessment of FOIA.  “Mismatched incentives,” he observed, encourage nonprofit FOIA requesters to make excessively broad requests and bring excessive litigation.  And given the advent of email, he continued, the short time period agencies have to provide records is hopelessly out of date.  Judge McFadden’s critique may be echoed by other judges, the Department of Justice, or members of Congress.

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