Court opinion issued Sept. 16, 2023

Lawyers for Civil Rights v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs. (D. Mass) -- summarily adopting Magistrate Judge’s recommendation that USCIS properly witheld some, but not all, records pursuant to the deliberative process privilege, and that all of agency’s attorney-client privilege withholdings were proper; also remarking without context that “a generalized intention to shield government employees from unwanted attention is insufficient to support a wholesale exemption from the Freedom of Information Act's (FOIA) disclosure requirements.” 

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: DOJ issues assessment of 2023 CFO Reports and 2024 guidance

Summary and Assessment of Agency 2023 Chief FOIA Officer Reports and New Guidelines for 2024 CFO Reports Issued

By DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Sept. 20, 2023

Today the Office of Information Policy (OIP) is pleased to release its summary and assessment of agencies’ 2023 Chief FOIA Officer (CFO) Reports.  OIP’s 2023 summary and assessment focuses on steps agencies have taken to improve FOIA administration in five key areas highlighted in the Attorney General’s 2022 FOIA Guidelines:

• FOIA Leadership and Applying a Presumption of Openness;

• Ensuring Fair and Effective FOIA Administration;

• Proactive Disclosures;

• Utilizing Technology to Improve Efficiency; and

• Steps Taken to Remove Barriers to Access, Improve Timelines, and Reduce Backlogs.

This past March marked the fourteenth year that agency CFOs submitted these reports to the Department of Justice.

Read more here.

FOIA News: "FOIA Love" musical comedy still going strong after 10 years

Comedy-Bluegrass Show “FOIA Love” Makes Troy Debut

By Cara Denton, NYS Music, Sept. 20, 2023

FOIA Love: A Comedy and Bluegrass Show About Public Records, is making its one-night Troy debut on October 22 at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. The show is a comedy and music performance, with all humor inspired by actual public documents, such as FCC complaints about Big Bang Theory being too violent, FBI profiles of sports stars, and misguided visa rejections.

Read more here.

Additional tour dates here.

FOIA News: OIP training dates for FY 2024

OIP Announces New FOIA Training Dates for Fiscal Year 2024

Today, the Office of Information Policy (OIP) announces new dates for FOIA training for the first half of Fiscal Year 2024.  As part of its responsibility to encourage agency compliance with the FOIA, OIP offers numerous training opportunities throughout the year for agency FOIA professionals and individuals with FOIA responsibilities. 

These courses are designed to offer training opportunities for personnel from all stages of the FOIA workforce, from new hires to the experienced FOIA professionals or FOIA managers.  OIP will continue to offer virtual training sessions that will be taught in real-time by OIP instructors.  We will announce more training opportunities for spring and summer 2024 at a later date.  As Fiscal Year 2024 quickly approaches, we are pleased to announce these virtual training courses, which are also available on OIP’s Eventbrite page:

Read more here.

FOIA News: MuckRock Launches FOIA Log Explorer

Browse thousands of additional FOIA requests with the new FOIA Log Explorer

By Michael Morisy, MuckRock, Sept. 18, 2023

The FOIA Log Explorer expands that view by importing data on thousands of requests from dozens of agencies at the state, local and federal level, making it easier to search through and see what kinds of materials agencies are and are not releasing, as well as helping you craft more targeted requests of your own.

The Explorer does this by digitizing, normalizing and importing data from FOIA logs, lists that many agencies keep of all of the requests they receive over a given time period. These kinds of logs are invaluable tools for developing story ideas, whether by gathering ideas for items you can request or getting clues about commercial interest in specific areas of governmental operations.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Some agencies fall behind on FOIA.gov interoperability requirements

Some agencies fall behind on FOIA.gov interoperability requirements

By Rebecca Heilweil, FedScoop, Sept. 15, 2023

A number of federal agencies, including the Secret Service and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, are still working to become interoperable with FOIA.gov —  a hiccup in the slow-going effort to standardize the public records request process at the federal level and create a national FOIA system. 

Many agencies have updated their public records systems in order to ensure their systems work with FOIA.gov, a requirement established in a 2019 White House memo, according to a recent FedScoop review of 2023 Chief FOIA Officer reports and subsequent inquiries sent to agencies. But others are still running into technical and logistical issues.

Read more here.

Court opinions issued Sept. 13, 2023

NY Times v. FBI (S.D.N.Y.) -- ruling that agency properly relied on Exemption 6 to redact limited information from two documents pertaining to FBI shooting incidents, because such information would—in combination with publicly available information—risk revealing the identities of FBI agents and third parties with no overriding public interest.

Stalcup v. FBI (M.D. Fla.) -- dismissing case after determining that plaintiff neglected to properly file administrative appeals with the U.S. Navy and FBI following their pre-litigation responses to his requests for TW Flight 800 records.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

Court opinion issued Sept. 12, 2023

Osen LLC v. U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury (S.D.N.Y.) -- find that the Office of Foreign Assets Control properly withheld “designation packages” pertaining to three sanctioned, Hamas-related organizations pursuant to Exemption 1 and Exemption 3 in conjunction with 50 U.S.C. § 3024(i)(1).

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: Audit finds IRS errors in FOIA processing

IRS Could Improve FOIA-Requested Document Releases, TIGTA Says

By Caleb Harshberger, Bloomberg Law, Sept. 14, 2023

The IRS should improve its processes to better tackle Freedom of Information Act requests and when it should redact or release information, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said in a report released Thursday.

TIGTA found IRS staff improperly redacted or released information subject to a FOIA request in 22% of cases out of a statistical sample of responses—a 6% increase in the error rate from last year’s analysis.

The watchdog recommended the IRS update the Internal Revenue Manual “to clarify when third-party information should be redacted or released.”

Read more here (accessible with subscription).

FOIA News: EPA finalizes amendments to FOIA regulations

On September 14, 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency published a final rule in the Federal Register that updates its FOIA regulations following a notice-and-comment period. The rule is effective on November 13, 2023. Of note, the EPA controversially added “environmental justice” as a basis to expedite requests and will now require taxpayers to subsidize the first $250 in fees for every FOIA requester.