Agencies are required to publish their 2025 Chief FOIA Officer Reports online by March 17, 2025. These reports contain detailed descriptions of the steps taken by agencies to improve FOIA compliance and transparency.
Allan Blutstein
FOIA News: FDA's FOIA director departs
FOIA News (2025)CommentSarah Kotler, FDA’s FOIA Director, announced via LinkedIn that she has left the agency after 22 years. Ms. Kotler served on the federal FOIA Advisory Committee for the 2018-2020 term, where her biography notes that she also “was an attorney with the FDA's Office of Chief Counsel and, before that time, an attorney in private practice.”
FOIA News: The worst FOIA responses of 2025
FOIA News (2025)CommentThe 2025 Foilies: Recognizing the worst in government transparency
By Elec. Frontier Found. & MuckRock News, Detroit Metro Times, Mar 13, 2025
The public’s right to access government information is constantly under siege across the United States, from both sides of the political aisle. In Maryland, where Democrats hold majorities, the attorney general and state legislature are pushing a bill to allow agencies to reject public records requests that they consider “harassing.” At the same time, President Donald Trump’s administration has moved its most aggressive government reform effort — the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — outside the reach of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), while also beginning the mass removal of public data sets.
One of the most powerful tools to fight back against bad governance is public ridicule. That’s where we come in: Every year during Sunshine Week (March 16-22) the Electronic Frontier Foundation, MuckRock, and AAN Publishers team up to publish The Foilies. This annual report — now a decade old — names and shames the most repugnant, absurd, and incompetent responses to public records requests under FOIA and state transparency laws.
Read more here.
FOIA News: Politics in the court?
FOIA News (2025)Comment‘Double Standard’: DC Court That Shielded John Kerry’s Staff Changed Its Tune When It Came To DOGE
By Thomas English, Daily Caller News Found., Mar. 13, 2025
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to disclose staff identities Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a liberal watchdog group.
The decision, issued by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, sharply contrasts a September ruling from the same court denying a nearly identical FOIA request by the conservative group, Power the Future (PTF), which sought staff information related to former Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry. The conflicting ruling prompted criticism of an alleged double standard in judicial decisions based on the political affiliations of the requesting organizations.
Read more here.
FOIA News: Requests and backlogs increased in FY 2024
FOIA News (2025)CommentFederal agencies received 1,501,432 FOIA requests in fiscal year 2024, according to data now available on FOIA.gov. This represents a 25 percent increase from FY 2023, when agencies received a total of 1,199,699 requests. Although agencies were able to process 1,499,265 requests in FY 2024, the number of backlogged requests at the end of the fiscal year was 30 percent higher than at the end of FY 2023 (267,056 vs. 200,843, respectively).
Other items of note:
Agencies received 20,115 appeals, up 39 percent from 14,443 in FY 2023, and they processed 18,575 appeals.
Backlogged appeals climbed 10 percent from 4,893 (FY 2023) to 5,382 (FY 2024).
Total processing costs ($601 million), litigation-related costs ($55.39 million), and fees collected ($2.43 million), were about the same as FY 2023 figures: $610 million, $49 million, and $2.33 million, respectively.
Total number of full-time FOIA staff increased from 4,844 in FY 2023 to 6,064 in FY 2024.
FOIA News: Top 10 targets for FOIA requesters in FY 2024
FOIA News (2025)CommentThe Department of Justice has uploaded FOIA data reported by agencies for fiscal year 2024. Below are the agencies that received the most FOIA requests descending from one to ten.
DHS: 911,535 requests
Justice: 132,527
Veterans Affairs: 105,725
Defense: 61,858
HHS: 51,800
USDA: 24,722
Nat’l Archives: 22,590
State: 22,306
Transportation: 18,345
EEOC: 18,083
All ten of these agencies appeared in the top ten in FY 2023, with all but the top three changing positions. NARA slipped from 4th in 2023, when it received 62,505 requests. Defense and HHS each moved up one position from 2023; USDA rose from 8th; Transportation slipped from 7th; State rose from 10th; and EEOC dropped from 9th.
FOIA News: FBI named worst FOIA respondent of the decade
FOIA News (2025)CommentTen Years of The Foilies
A look back at the games governments played to avoid transparency
By Dave Maass, Elec. Frontier Found., Mar. 11, 2025
In the year 2015, we witnessed the launch of OpenAI, a debate over the color of a dress going viral, and a Supreme Court decision that same-sex couples have the right to get married. It was also the year that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) first published The Foilies, an annual report that hands out tongue-in-cheek "awards" to government agencies and officials that respond outrageously when a member of the public tries to access public records through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or similar laws.
A lot has changed over the last decade, but one thing that hasn't is the steady flow of attempts by authorities to avoid their legal and ethical obligations to be open and accountable. Sometimes, these cases are intentional, but just as often, they are due to incompetence or straight-up half-assedness.
Read more here.
FOIA News: NARA announces Sunshine Week event; silence at DOJ
FOIA News (2025)CommentThe 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.
Court opinions issued Mar. 10, 2025
Court Opinions (2025)CommentBrennan Ctr. for Justice v. U.S. Dep’t of State (S.D.N.Y.) -- deciding that: (1) department performed a reasonable search for certain documents referenced in President Trump’s 2017 travel ban; and (2) following in camera review of four documents, all but three pages of one document were fully protected by the presidential communications privilege and Exemption 1.
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. DOGE Serv. (D.D.C.) -- in most notable part, granting plaintiff’s request for expedited processing of various records from the U.S. DOGE Service (USDS) because the “preliminary record” indicated that USDS “likely” wields substantial independent authority from the White House and therefore is any agency subject to FOIA.
Kendrick v. DEA (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, determining that DEA performed adequate supplemental searches for records concerning pro se plaintiff’s criminal case.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
FOIA News: Court rules DOGE must process FOIA request
FOIA News (2025)CommentDOGE 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.