FOIA News: This and that

• In fiscal year 2024, the Defense Department’s Office of the Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff received more than 1500 requests targeting 401 officials from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Law Street Media analysis.

• The New York Times filed a FOIA lawsuit on January 21, 2025, that seeks access to former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report about the Trump classified documents case.

• The Government Attic recently posted heavily-redacted memos from DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel concerning the Treasury’s ability to issue a $1 trillion coin if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling.

• The FBI’s Vault recently recently added the personnel records of James Kalstrom, who notably headed the criminal investigation into the TWA Flight 800 crash in 1996; part 4 of OJ Simpson’s file; and various records about Sheldon Adelson.

• The 2024 annual FOIA report of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is not currently accessible on the White House’s new website, but it is available here. The FOIA resources of the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) have been archived here; the Office of Management and Budget’s FOIA resources are here.

FOIA News: ICYMI, audio of D.C. Circuit argument

On January 14, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard Brown v. FBI, No. 23-5244, which raised two issues regarding FBI’s investigation of the 2015 San Bernardino attack: (1) whether appellee properly construed the scope of appellant’s request under FOIA ; and (2) whether appellee satisfied its burden of demonstrating that disclosure of the material withheld under Exemption 7(D) would foreseeably harm an interest protected by that exemption.

FOIA News: CEQ finalizes amendments to FOIA regulations; White House issues regulatory freeze

The Council on Environmental Quality has finalized its amendments to the agency’s FOIA regulations following a 30-day notice and comment period, according to a final rule that was scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on January 21, 2025. The new rules were scheduled to become effective on February 20, 2025.

On January 20, 2025, however, the President issued a regulatory freeze that, among other things, ordered executive departments and agencies to “[i]mmediately withdraw any rules that have been sent to the OFR but not published in the Federal Register.“ It also ordered departments and agencies to “consider postponing for 60 days from the date of this memorandum the effective date for any rules that have been published in the Federal Register, or any rules that have been issued in any manner but have not taken effect, for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise.”  

FOIA News: Dep't of State's 2024 annual FOIA report

The U.S. Department of State has posted its fiscal year 2024 annual FOIA report. Here are the key metrics:

• Requests received jumped from 15,713 in FY 2023 to 22,306 an increase of nearly 42 percent. This is the second-highest number of requests received by State since FY 2008, exceeded only by its FY 2017 total of 27,852).

• Requests processed climbed from 12,576 in FY 2023 to 20,775 in FY 2024, an increase of 65 percent

• Backlogged requests decreased ever so slightly from 21,619 in FY 2023 to 21,615 in FY 2024.

• Backlogged appeals dropped from 272 in FY 2023 to 126 in FY 2024, a 53.6 percent decrease

• $0 collected for processing requests.

• $33.2 million in processing costs; $2 million in litigation-related costs.

• For all processed perfected requests, 563.92 average days by main DOS for “complex” requests.

• Ten oldest perfected requests have been pending between 4183 and 4289 days.

FOIA News: 2025 FOIA conference for Sunshine Week

To celebrate Sunshine Week this year, an in-person conference entitled ”Sunshine Fest” will be held in Washington, D.C. on March 19-20, 2025. See tentative details here.

FOIA News: Last call for Sunshine Week logo/slogan contest

January 15, 2025 is the deadline to submit your idea for a Sunshine Week logo and slogan that promote freedom of information for Sunshine Week, a contest sponsored by MuckRock and the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project.

See more details here.

FOIA News: Professor argues for a privately-funded FOIA Commission

A business professor from California State Polytechnic University has proposed the creation of n independent FOIA commission led by “FOIA Fellows—professionals from the private sector, such as technologists, lawyers, organizational managers, and journalists, who rotate into short-term government fellowships.” FOIA Fellows would be be funded “by wealthy private parties that have an interest in preserving and protecting democracy and transparency, such as individuals like Elon Musk or organizations like George Soros’ Open Society.”

See Jack Wroldsen, FOIA Fellows as Freedom Fighters: An Independent and Privately Funded FOIA Commission of Rotating Professionals (Oct. 31, 2024). 108 Marquette L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5043146 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5043146.

FOIA News: MuckRock asks federal agencies about their efforts to use AI in FOIA

We asked federal agencies about their efforts to use AI in FOIA

By Dillon Bergin, MuckRock, Jan. 8, 2025

We want to know more about how federal agencies are using AI initiatives in the FOIA process, described in their yearly Chief FOIA Officer Reports. We’re asking them for the docs.

We’ve filed requests to several agencies for documents related to AI testing in their FOIA offices, including contracts with third party vendors and assessments or audits of the programs so far. To follow along as agencies respond, you can check out our AI in FOIA page, home to all the requests, articles and updates.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Here come the FY 2024 Annual Reports

At least twenty-one agencies, including one cabinet department, have published their fiscal year 2024 annual FOIA reports online (see below). Agencies were required to submit their annual reports to DOJ’s Office of Information Policy by November 12, 2024, and the final reports must be published online no later than March 1, 2025. FOIA Advisor will summarize the reports of the most active FOIA agencies—e.g., DHS, DOJ, DOD, NARA, etc.— as they become available. Quarterly FY 2024 data can be found on FOIA.gov.

FY 2024 annual FOIA reports

CFTC

Court Serv. & Offender Supv.

Dep’t of Commerce: 4048 requests received; 3410 processed; 1410 backlogged requests (vs. 1083 FY 23).

Export-Import Bank

Fed. Reserve Sys.

Fed. Trade Comm’n

NASA

Nat’l Indian Gaming Comm’n

Nat’l Mediation Bd.

Office of Gov’t Ethics

Peace Corps

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Bd.

Railroad Retirement Bd.

Selective Serv. Sys.

Surface Transportation Bd.

Udall Found.

USAID:

U.S. Int’l Trade Comm’n

U.S. Postal Serv.: 4429 requests received; 4203 processed; 201 backlogged requests (vs. 136 FY 2023).

U.S. Trade Rep.

FOIA News: FOIA’s worldwide influence

How FOIA Gave Rise to Government Transparency Laws Around the World

Flawed as it may be, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act became a model in transparency for other countries to follow.

By Matthew Petti, Reason, Jan. 2025

It's well-known that the government heavily censors documents before declassifying them—something humorously captured by The Onion in 2005 with the headline, "CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years." But from a glass-half-full perspective, it's incredible that the U.S. government shares information with the public at all. The original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of 1966—the law under which many of those redacted documents are obtained—was the "product of years of slow campaigning by a network of journalists, scientists, and politicians seeking to make the government more transparent," the historian Sam Lebovic writes in State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America's Secrecy Regime. FOIA was later strengthened in the wake of the Watergate scandals in the 1970s.

Read more here.