FOIA News: NARA announces Sunshine Week event; silence at DOJ

The National Archives and Records Administration will host a virtual panel discussion on March 19, 2025, in observance of Sunshine Week. The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy announced in December that it would hold a Sunshine Week event on March 17th, but no further details about the program have been provided.

Speaking of DOJ, OIP has removed Bobak Talebian’s name and biography from its homepage, A staff profile updated on March 11, 2025, refers to Mr. Talebian as “Former Director” with dates of service from 2020 to 2025.

FOIA News: Court rules DOGE must process FOIA request

DOGE likely subject to open records law, judge rules

By Zach Schonfeld, The Hill, Mar. 10, 2025

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is likely covered under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal judge ruled late Monday, rejecting the Trump administration’s position that the group does not have to respond to public records requests. 

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper found DOGE exercises substantial authority independently of the president, which makes it subject to FOIA. 

His finding was rooted in media reports detailing the group’s rapid efforts to dismantle parts of the federal bureaucracy, as well as some of President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s statements. 

“Canceling any government contract would seem to require substantial authority—and canceling them on this scale certainly does,” wrote Cooper, an appointee of former President Obama. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ (finally) releases FY 2024 report

The Department of Justice has released its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2024, apparently at some point on March 7, 2024, six days after the posting deadline. The Office of Information Policy, whose director was removed on the same day, did not issue an accompanying blog post about its report. Here are the key metrics:

• 132,527 requests received, up from 110,934 in FY 2023

• 157,180 requests processed, up from 144,064 in FY 2023

• 21,567 backlogged requests, down from 43,927 at the end of FY 2023.

• 2,577 appeals received, up from 2.044 in FY 2023.

• 2,479 appeals processed, up from 2,126 in FY 2023.

• 211 backlogged appeals, down from 240 at the end of FY 2023

• Agency-wide average response time of 72.24 days for simple requests and 336.72 days for complex requests. Components with the slowest average response times for complex requests were NSD (849.27 days), ATF (685.52 days), and OIP (650.57 days).

• $112.2 million in total costs, $94.66 million of which comprised administrative costs and $17.57 million comprised litigation related costs.

• $36k fees collected from requesters for processing requests.

FOIA News: DOJ/OIP director ousted, reports Reuters

The director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy, Bobak Talebian, has been fired, according to a Friday night report from Reuters. No other details were provided. Mr. Bobak’s profile remains on OIP’s webpage as of the time of this post. Mr. Talebian was appointed to serve as Director in February 2020 after serving nearly ten years in other roles at OIP.

FOIA News: This and that

• The federal FOIA Advisory Committee for the 2024-2026 term met on March 6, 2025. See video here.

• The FOIA page of the Office of Management and Budget is back online.

• The FBI recently posted records on the 2004 murder of Nicholas Berg in Iraq.

• DHS, DOJ, NARA and several other agencies have still not filed their FY 2024 annual reports, reportedly due to software glitches. To date, no agency has issued a public explanation.

• Meanwhile, agencies are already beginning to post their 2025 Chief FOIA Officer Reports, which are due by March 17, 2025.

FOIA News: Update on missing annual reports

Technical difficulties with commercial off-the-shelf software have delayed the filing of annual FOIA reports from multiple agencies, according to a government source familiar with the situation.

FOIA News: The annual report deadline that wasn't

On October 2, 2024, the Department of Justice announced that agencies would be required to publish their fiscal year 2024 annual FOIA reports on their websites no later than March 1, 2025. As I write this post at 4:15pm on March 4, 2025, however, DOJ and several other agencies that receive voluminous FOIA requests, including DHS, NARA, and Veterans Affairs, have not posted their reports. Nor has the government’s central FOIA website, FOIA.gov, been updated to include annual FY 2024 data. Is this a glitch in the Matrix or something else? Stay tuned.

FOIA News: FOIA doesn’t apply to DOGE, notes DOJ

Trump Admin Argues DOGE Is Exempt From Records Requests in FOIA Lawsuit

Elon Musk promised "maximum transparency," but that apparently doesn't include Freedom of Information requests to DOGE.

By C.J. Ciaramella, Reason, Feb. 28, 2025

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Trump administration is arguing that its much-hyped Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is exempt from public records requests.

Justice Department lawyers stated in a court filing Thursday that DOGE is no longer subject to FOIA requests after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January moving DOGE, formerly U.S. Digital Services (USDS), out of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB is subject to the public record law, unlike most of the offices and agencies within the Executive Office of the President.

"After January 20, 2025, USDS moved out of OMB and became a free-standing component of [the Executive Office of the President] that reports to the White House Chief of Staff," the government's motion stated in a footnote. "As a result, USDS is not subject to FOIA.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Transportation Dep't posts annual report

The Department of Transportation has published its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2024. Below is a summary of the key statistics:

• 18,345 requests received, a 7 percent increase from FY 2023 (17,136).

• 16,080 requests processed, a 2.2 percent decrease from FY 2023 (16,458).

• 8,048 backlogged requests, a 36 percent increase from the end of FY 2023 (5,913).

• 166 appeals received, more than twice as many as it received in FY 2023 (78).

• 156 appeals processed, exactly twice as many as it processed in FY 2023 (78).

• 226 backlogged appeals, three fewer (229) from the end of FY 2023.

• Average responses time for processed perfected requests was 76.1 days for simple requests and 268.5 days for complex requests. NHTSA had the slowest response times of all components: 127.5 average days for simple requests and 552.1 average days for complex requests.

• $17.2 million in total processing and litigation-related costs, a 7.5 percent decrease from the $18.6 million in total costs incurred in FY 2023.

FOIA News: Defense Dep't posts annual report

The Department of Defense has published its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2024. Below is a summary of the key statistics:

• 61,858 requests received, a 2.9 percent increase from FY 2023 (60,109).

• 57,662 requests processed, a 3.4 percent increase from FY 2023 (55,731).

• 21,436 backlogged requests, a 7.8 percent increase from the end of FY 2023 (19,882).

• 1105 appeals received, only three fewer than it received in FY 2023 (1108).

• 1105 appeals processed, a 12.8 percent decrease from FY 2023 (1247)

• 607 backlogged appeals, down 17.5 percent from the end of FY 2023 (736)

• Average responses time for processed perfected requests was 30.3 days for simple requests and 199.7 days for complex requests.

• $104.9 million in total processing and litigation-related costs, a 16.5 percent increase from the $90 million in total costs incurred in FY 2023.