FOIA Advisor

Court opinions issued June 27, 2022

Court Opinions (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

N.Y. Times v. DOJ (S.D.N.Y) -- following in camera review of a report concerning Volkswagen AG’s compliance with plea agreement, ordering limited disclosure of information that DOJ had withheld under Exemption 4 and Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege.

Buzzfeed, Inc. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- in case involving illegal alien data in the department’s Enforcement Integrated Database, ordering CBP to address whether database contains unique identifiers other than A-numbers and concluding that CBP properly relied on Exemption 7(E) to withhold some, but not all, disputed database information.

Pfeiffer v. Dep’t of Energy (D.D.C.) -- ruling that plaintiff, a PhD anthropology candidate, had sufficiently demonstrated that his request fell within fee category of an educational institution, rejecting agency’s argument that plaintiff’s potential profit transformed request to commercial use.

Kowall v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiff’s Rule 59(e) motion to amend two aspects of court’s summary judgment ruling, namely that ATF performed adequate search for records concerning client’s post-conviction proceedings and that FBI properly withheld plea agreement of client’s co-defendant.

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