FOIA Advisor

FOIA News (2015-2023)

FOIA News: The FOIA Project expands its brief bank

FOIA News (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

The FOIA Project Expands its Brief Bank with Hundreds of Immigration-Related Court Documents

By Kristen Matteucci, Jenkins Law, Sept. 14, 2021

Did you know that the FOIA Project (FOIAproject.org) has a Brief Bank that collects “substantive briefs, motions, and testimony related to FOIA cases”?

The FOIA Project aims to “provide the public with timely and complete information about every instance in which the federal government grants or withholds records” requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To that end, the project houses court dockets, complaints, opinions, and orders issued in FOIA lawsuits and FOIA appeals - brought in the U.S. district courts and the U.S. circuit courts, respectively - which challenge government withholding of requested information.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Cloud can help speed FOIA response

FOIA News (2015-2023)Kevin SchmidtComment

Cloud can help speed FOIA response

By Stephanie Kanowitz, GCN, Sept. 7, 2021

The backlog of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests has grown during the pandemic. The Justice Department reports that the number of backlogged requests across federal agencies in fiscal 2020 was 141,762, compared to about 120,000 the year before. The disparate systems that shaped agencies’ quick shift from office to remote work is largely to blame, one expert says.

“In many cases the data that they’re receiving, generating [and] creating is remaining local to the employees instead of on an enterprise system,” said Bill Tolson, vice president of compliance and e-discovery at Archive 360. That makes it difficult for an agency to respond to a FOIA request that involves numerous agency employees with disparate data repositories. “We’ve found instances where many of the employees were storing agency material up in their personal cloud accounts because they had nowhere else to put it.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: OGIS assessment of first-party requests

FOIA News (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

On August 30, 2021, the Office of Government Information Services released an assessment of “common categories of records requested frequently under the FOIA and/or Privacy Act by – or on behalf of – individuals seeking records about themselves.” In sum, OGIS recommended that agencies “examine closely all of the records that they generate, collect and/or maintain and seek creative ways to provide non-FOIA access to first-party records when possible.” It also recommended that “agencies use their websites to explain, in plain language, the steps requesters should take to obtain access to first-party records.”

FOIA News: Reporters Committee on Recent DC Circuit Decisions

FOIA News (2015-2023)Kevin SchmidtComment

DC Circuit issues two notable FOIA decisions

By Gabe Rottman, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Aug. 30, 2021

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued decisions in two cases involving the government’s withholding of records or information under the Freedom of Information Act. While the government’s asserted rationale for withholding in each of the two cases differed, in both instances the appellate court affirmed holdings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia finding that the information in question could be withheld.

In the first of the decisions, issued last Tuesday, the appellate court upheld the National Security Agency’s withholding of a 2017 memorandum memorializing a conversation between former President Donald Trump and NSA Director Michael Rogers in a FOIA lawsuit brought by Protect Democracy. The court found the memo properly withheld under the FOIA exemption incorporating executive privilege, and refused to recognize a “misconduct” exception advanced by plaintiffs.

Read more here.