FOIA News: D.C. Circuit rejects bid to depose Hillary Clinton

Appeals court blocks Hillary Clinton deposition on private email server

By Harper Neidig, The Hill, Aug. 14, 2020

A federal appeals court on Friday blocked a judge's order that Hillary Clinton be deposed as part of a conservative group's lawsuit for records related to the private email server she used while serving as secretary of State.

A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch did not merit the level of legal inquiry that would require Clinton to sit for a deposition.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Harvard prof weighs in on SCOTUS Exemption 5 case

The very test under the Endangered Species Act is supposed to be ‘What is the best available science?'”

In a Q&A, Animal Law & Policy Clinic director describes what is at stake in SCOTUS Freedom of Information Act case brought by the Sierra Club

By Sarah Pickering, Harvard Law Today, Aug. 12, 2020

Should the public get a window into the factors federal agencies considered—or ignored—when devising important environmental, health and safety regulations, or would exposing those internal discussions to public scrutiny chill deliberations? That is the question underlying an amicus brief that the Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic recently filed in the United States Supreme Court in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case brought by the Sierra Club and involving the public’s right of access to scientific analyses concerning the adverse impacts of federal actions on endangered and threatened species.

Read more here.

FOIA News: New members appointed to FOIA Advisory Committee

Archivist Appoints New Members to the 2020-2022 FOIA Advisory Committee

Office of Gov’t Info. Serv., Aug. 12, 2020

We are pleased to announce that Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero has appointed 20 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) experts — 10 government FOIA professionals and 10 requester community representatives — to serve on the fourth term of the FOIA Advisory Committee. 

Read more here.

FOIA News: D.C. Cir. will not require CIA to create records about FOIA requesters

CIA Needn’t Answer FOIA Requests About Who Sent FOIA Requests

By Porter Wells, Bloomberg Law, Aug. 11, 2020

• National security nonprofit lodged 45 records requests

• Agency needn’t create documents, other exemptions apply

The CIA doesn’t have to hand over information about which organizations have filed public records requests with the agency, after the D.C. Circuit Tuesday rejected an appeal by nonprofit organization National Security Counselors.

The group’s Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA asked for lists of all the agency’s FOIA requesters from 2008 to 2010 who identified themselves as “news media,” “educational or scientific,” “commercial,” or “all other.”

Read more here (accessible with subscription).

Copy of opinion here.

FOIA News: Interior IG report addresses FOIA "awareness review"

Watchdog report raises new questions for top Interior lawyer

By Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill, Aug. 10, 2020

A new report from the Interior Department’s watchdog reignites questions over the involvement of the agency's top lawyer in withholding public documents.

The report could give ammunition to Democrats who have accused Interior Solicitor Daniel Jorjani of perjuring himself before lawmakers.

The report from Interior’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) centers around the “awareness review” process at Interior that allowed political appointees to review Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests — something critics say gave Trump appointees undue influence over what records were released.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOD may withhold bombing images, 2nd Cir. rules

Images of Terrorist Bombs Stay Out of Reach in Suit Against Iran

Bloomberg Law, Aug. 10, 2020

• Previous disclosure of similar images irrelevant

• Specific requests exempt from FOIA disclosure

The Department of Defense properly withheld images of the damage caused by terrorist attacks on armored vehicles from the law firm suing Iran on behalf of military personnel injured in the attacks, the Second Circuit said Monday.

Osen LLC filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the images, saying they could be disclosed because the army previously released similar images from other attacks. Citing FOIA Exemption 1, which applies to information about national security that’s classified as secret, the army refused the request.

Full article here (accessible with subscription).

Copy of opinion here.

FOIA News: DHS's FOIA processes under scrutiny

Delays Underlie Most FOIA Suits against DHS, Report Says

FEDweek, Aug. 6, 2020

Nearly four-fifths of suits brought against DHS under the Freedom of Information Act cite missed deadlines for responses, an IG report has said, far more than other grounds such as the adequacy of the searches performed or the department’s decision to invoke an exception under the FOIA.

The report noted that law requires agencies to respond within 20 business days to routine requests and gives an additional 10 for more complex requests. When an agency does not respond to a request within the pertinent timeframe a requester may file suit.

Read more here.

Read OIG’s report here.

FOIA News: Amicus brief filed in SCOTUS Exemption 5 case

On August 3, 2020, a coalition of journalism groups, led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed an amicus brief supporting the appellee in the Supreme Court case U.S. Fish & Wildlife v. Sierra Club. The central dispute in this case concerns records withheld under Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege.

FOIA News: Lawmakers seek to protect feds who file FOIA requests

Leahy Introduces The Federal Employee Access To Information Act To Protect Federal Employees From Retaliation For Filing FOIA Requests

. . . Helping Preserve FOIA as a Tool to Expose Government Wrongdoing

Press Release, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), along with Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, introduced the Federal Employee Access to Information Act to ensure that federal employees are able to use the nation’s premier transparency law, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), without reprisal.  

FOIA helps expose government wrongdoing and abuses, and Leahy believes that federal employees must be free to use FOIA in the same way as other citizens.  This legislation would prohibit retaliation against federal employees for filing and pursuing FOIA requests

Read more here.

FOIA News: DHS & DOD seek FOIA tech upgrades

DHS, DISA look to clouds for FOIA management

GCN, Aug. 4, 2020

The Department of Homeland Security's Privacy Office is looking for an enterprisewide cloud-based workflow solution to help its DHS process Freedom of Information Act requests and improve data reliability and consistency.

According to a July 31 solicitation, DHS receives more FOIA requests than any federal agency -- approximately 385,000 FOIA, privacy and other requests -- almost 40% of all requests within the federal government, with the scope of each search ranging from one page to one terabyte of records. While DHS was able to substantially increased the number of requests processed over the last 10 years, however, it has not been able to keep pace with the growth in demand, according to its March 2020 Backlog Reduction Plan: 2020 - 2023

Read more here.