FOIA News: ICYMI, FOIA tech demos for federal employees

SAVE THE DATE: UPCOMING NEXGEN FOIA TECH SHOWCASE FOR FEDERAL AGENCIES

DOJ/OIP. FOIA Post, Jan. 24, 2022

The Office of Information Policy (OIP) is pleased to announce that the Technology Committee of the Chief FOIA Officers (CFO) Council, in conjunction with OIP and the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), will host a two-day event for federal agencies called the NexGen FOIA Tech Showcase on February 9 and 10, 2022.    

The Showcase is intended to identify FOIA technology solutions for federal agencies in response to existing FOIA case processing challenges and to raise awareness among federal agencies of the different technology capabilities to consider for future case processing.  A variety of vendors will provide demonstrations of their case management and other advanced technology products for use in agency FOIA administration.  Agency Q&A with the vendor will follow each demonstration. 

This event is open to federal agency employees only.  Registration is required on Eventbrite.  All attendees must register by 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, February 7, 2022.  Registered users will receive access instructions.  Additional details about the Chief FOIA Officers Council and the meeting, including the agenda, will be available on the OIP and OGIS websites. 

FOIA News: D.C. Circuit to hear FOIA case Feb. 4

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will entertain a FOIA case, Eddington v. DOD, on Friday, February 4, 2022. Appellant Patrick Eddington, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, failed to persuade the district court that any components of the Department of Defense had actually received his 14 FOIA requests transmitted by email. A copy of the district court’s decision is here.

FOIA News: Public meeting announced with OIP, OGIS, and the Chief FOIA Officers Council

OIP, OGIS, and the Chief FOIA Officers Council published a notice in today’s issue of the Federal Register announcing a co-hosted public meeting on February 2, 2022. Attendees must register before January 31, 2022. Further information is available here. The FOIA requires the Chief FOIA Officers Council to consult “on a regular” basis with members of the requesting community.

FOIA News: Stars & Stripes Reporter Sues DOD Over Rejected Requests

*** FOIA Advisor’s Allan Blutstein is interviewed in this story. FOIA Advisor previously addressed the very issue at hand in a “Q&A” post published in May 2021 (“Q&A: Stars and Stripes Forever”). ***

Reporter’s lawsuit challenges Pentagon refusals that cites his status as Stars and Stripes Employee

Alison Bath, Stars & Stripes, Jan. 19, 2022

A journalist is suing the Department of Defense, alleging that it broke the law in repeatedly denying his requests for public information based on his employment at a military publication.

Stars and Stripes reporter Chad Garland filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It contends that DOD, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps and U.S. Central Command committed numerous violations of the Freedom of Information Act from August 2020 through August 2021.

Stars and Stripes is not one of the parties involved in the lawsuit.

“This is a fight for my personal First Amendment and FOIA rights,” Garland said.

During the period covered by the suit, Garland made 15 requests as a private individual under FOIA, a federal law that allows people to obtain public records.

The agencies denied all of those requests as well as his subsequent appeals because he is a federal employee.

Read the rest here.

FOIA News: GOP Senators allege that FOIA does not apply to their request for Hunter Biden travel records

Grassley, Johnson Demand Secret Service Fully Comply With Requests For Hunter Biden’s Travel Records

Press Release. Office of Sen. Chuck Grassley, Jan. 19. 2022

WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary, with U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent a letter to the Director of U.S. Secret Service (USSS), James M. Murray, reiterating requests for Hunter Biden’s travel records. This request continues the senators’ oversight of Hunter Biden’s use of Secret Service protection while his father was Vice President. In response to the senators’ previous request, the USSS provided 259 pages of heavily redacted documents and failed to provide any records from 2010, 2011, or 2013.

The senators wrote, “The USSS’s production contains extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) redactions, which do not apply to Congress and should not be applied to this production. These inappropriate redactions impede our offices’ ability to understand the full scope of the interactions between Hunter Biden, his associates, and the USSS.”

Read more here.

Commentary: The Department of Justice “unequivocally” advised agencies in 1984 that requests for records from individual members of Congress do not qualify for special access under FOIA unless submitted by the chairperson of a committee or subcommittee. See FOIA Update, Congressional Access Under FOIA, Jan. 1, 1984.

FOIA News: DHS fails to post 4th quarter data for FY 2021

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which receives more FOIA requests than any other federal agency, has not posted its FOIA metrics for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021 despite an agency-wide deadline of October 29, 2021. The most recent data available on FOIA.gov indicates that DHS had a backlog of 49,279 requests at the end of the third quarter of FY 2021, up 35 percent from the end of FY 2020.

FOIA News: New leadership at VA's FOIA office

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has a new director of its Office of FOIA, Records and Assessment Compliance: Richard Thompson, who has been detailed from the department’s Enterprise Risk Management division. A full biography is available here.

FOIA News: EPA's backlog up nearly 12% in FY 2021

The backlog of requests at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grew from 1783 requests at the end of fiscal year 2020 to 1995 requests at the end of FY 2021, an increase of 11.9 percent, according to quarterly data available on FOIA.gov. The agency received 7098 requests in FY 2021, up 3 percent from 6891 requests in FY 2020; it processed 7475 requests in FY 2021, down 3.7 percent from 7765 requests in FY 2020.

FOIA News: Virginia lawmaker wants requests to be submitted by certified mail

Because an email went to spam, a lawmaker wants all FOIA requests made by certified mail

By Patrick Wilson, Richmond Times, Jan. 12, 2022

A citizen emailed a FOIA request to a state lawmaker and it went into spam. That prompted the lawmaker to file a bill that would require all public records requests in Virginia to be made by certified mail.

Open government advocates said the bill by Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax, would create barriers to citizens who want to make FOIA requests, would hinder government agencies like Fairfax County or Virginia State Police who handle FOIA requests digitally, and would be "horrendous" for reporters.

Read more here.

FOIA News: First FOIA decision of 2022 yet to be issued

For those wondering whether we’ve been sleeping on the job, the answer is no— as in, no published FOIA decisions that we are aware of have been issued in the first 10 days of 2022. Stay tuned.