Below is our summary of FOIA court decisions and news from last month, as well as a peek ahead to events in July.
Court decisions:
We identified and posted 7 decisions in June, none of which were remarkable. In Nat’l Sec. Archive v. CIA, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the CIA’s withholding of a memo concerning a 1983 nuclear crisis with the Soviet Union even though the State Department previously published a version of the memo with the CIA’s blessing.
Top news:
On June 7, 2024, the Office of Information Privacy issued a summary of agency annual reports for fiscal year 2023. Of note, agencies received and processed more than 1.1 million requests, backlogged requests remained above 200k, and total FOIA costs rose 20 percent.
The 2022-2024 term of the federal FOIA Advisory Committee wrapped up its work on June 13, 2024, approving a final report and 16 recommendations for the Archivist of the United States.
The IRS took a little heat for directing its FOIA requesters to use “ID.me,” which requires identity verification.
Lookahead to July
July 4, 2024: 58th anniversary of FOIA’s enactment. See legislative history here.
July 9, 2024: DOJ/OIP Privacy Considerations Training.
July 11, 2024: DOJ/OIP Continuing FOIA Education Training.
July 15, 2024: Deadline for nominations for the 2024-2026 term of the federal FOIA Advisory Committee.
July 25, 2024: OGIS annual open meeting.
July 26, 2024: Deadline for agencies to post Quarter 3 FOIA data.