FOIA News: Daniel Metcalfe, co-founder of DOJ/OIP, dead at 72

FOIA Advisor has learned that Daniel Metcalfe, a Freedom of Information Act luminary for the past five decades, died last month at the age of 72. Dan co-founded the Department of Justice’s Office of Information and Privacy with Richard Huff in November 1981. After Mr. Huff retired in 2005, Dan led OIP as Director until his own retirement in January 2007. He subsequently established and ran the Collaboration on Government Secrecy, an educational project devoted to transparency, at the American University Washington College of Law. In 2023, Dan published a book, Inside Justice: Secrecy at Work, which chronicles his FOIA career and addresses numerous transparency issues.

FOIA News: Judicial Watch Settles State Department Lawsuit that Uncovered Hillary Clinton’s Unsecure, Nongovernment Emails

Judicial Watch Settles State Department Lawsuit that Uncovered Hillary Clinton’s Unsecure, Nongovernment Emails

Judicial Watch, Feb. 27, 2024

Judicial Watch announced today it settled its 2014 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, which sought the emails of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the Benghazi attack. This suit led directly to the disclosure of Clinton’s use of a nongovernment email server to conduct government business (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242). The settlement commits the State Department to a payment to Judicial Watch of $97,000.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Dep't of Labor appeals order to release EEO-1 reports

DOL Appeals EEO-1 FOIA Ruling to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

By Lauren B. Hicks and Emily M. Halliday, Ogletree Deakins, Feb. 27, 202

On February 15, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking review of a district court ruling that ordered the DOL to release federal contractors’ 2016–2020 Type 2 Consolidated EEO-1 Reports to the Center for Investigative Reporting and one of its reporters.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ releases annual FOIA report; EOIR makes major progress

The Department of Justice has released its FOIA annual report for fiscal year 2023, and the numbers are impressive. Below is a summary of the key data.

• Requests received: 110,934, an 18.8 percent increase from 93,370 requests received in FY2022.

• Requests processed: 144.065, a 73.8 percent increase from 82,868 requests processed in FY2022. The Executive Office for Immigration Review alone processed over 104k requests and nearly 34k more than it received (70,475).

• Backlogged requests: 43,927, down 32.4 percent from 64,982 at the end of FY2022.

• Appeals received: 2044, nearly the same as in FY2022 (2048)

• Appeals processed: 2126, the same number as FY2022 (2126)

• Backlogged appeals: 240, a 25 percent decrease from FY2022 (321).

• Total costs: $111,990,580, with $93.32 million in administrative costs and $18.66 million in litigation costs. Total costs in FY2023 were 12.3 percent higher than in FY2022 ($99.72 million).

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report, 2/26/2024

Federal positions closing in the next 10 days:

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Ed./Sec’y, Washington, D.C., GS-13, closes 2/27/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, EPA, Reg. 6, Dallas, TX, GS 11-12, closes 2/27/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, Fort Belvoir, VA, GS 13, closes 2/28/24 (non-public).

Att’y-Advisor, Dep’t of Justice, OIP, Washington, D.C., GS 12-14, closes 2/29/24.

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dev. Finance Corp., location negotiable, GS 13, closes 2/29/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, Salt Lake City, UT, GS 12, closes 2/29/24.

Trial Attorney, Dep’t of Justice, Crim. Div., Washington, D.C., GS 14-15, closes 3/1/24.

Supervisory Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Agric., OCIO, remote, GS 14, closes 3/4/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, Arlington, VA, GS 12, closes 3/4/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., multiple locations, CG 12, closes 3/4/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, Fort Belvoir, VA, GS 11, closes 3/6/24 (non-public).

Court opinion issued Feb. 21, 2024

AMA Sys. v. FDA (D. Md.) -- concluding that: (1) with exception of one email authored by FDA, agency properly invoked Exemption 4 to withhold its file concerning company’s unsuccessful application to produce single-use surgical masks as personal protective equipment during COVID pandemic; (2) agency was not required to meet the foreseeable harm test because all information protected under Exemption 4 was barred from disclosure under the Trade Secrets Act.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

FOIA News: Transportation releases annual FOIA report; data suggests loss of traction

The Department of Transportation posted its FOIA FY 2023 annual report on Friday, which may or may not have been an intentional news dump. As you’ll see below, the key data is pretty mediocre.

• Requests received: 17,136 a 10 percent decrease from FY 2022, when it received 19,090 requests.

• Requests processed: 16,458, a 13 percent decrease from FY 2022, when it processed 18,958 requests.

• Backlog of requests: 5,913, up 10 percent from 5,362 at end of FY 2022.

• Appeals received: 78, which is 22 percent lower than in FY 2022 (100).

• Appeals processed: 78, which is 90 percent higher than in FY 2022 (41)

• Backlog of appeals: 229, up 3 percent from 222 at the end of FY 2022.

• Costs: A total of S18.67 million, with $17.95 million in administrative costs and nearly $719k in litigation costs. The department’s total costs in FY 2023 were 23 percent higher than its total costs in FY 2022 ($15.15 million).

• Processing time: The FAA took about one year to process its administrative appeals. Half of all perfected and “complex” requests to OIG took about 500 days or more to complete.

FOIA News: Dep't of Labor releases FY2023 annual report; little to cheer about

The Department of Labor has released its annual FOIA report for FY 2023. Here is a summary of the key data:

• Requests received: 14,282 a 1.4 percent decrease from FY 2022, when it received 14.495 requests.

• Requests processed: 14,219, a less than 1 percent decrease from FY 2022, when it processed 14,332 requests.

• Backlog of requests: 1,468, up 12.4 percent from 1,306 at end of FY 2022.

• Appeals received: 199, which is 7,5 percent higher than in FY 2022 (185).

• Appeals processed: 192, which is 4.4 percent lower than in FY 2022 (201)

• Backlog of appeals: 286, the same number at the end of FY 2022.

• Costs: A total of S21.05 million, with $20.25 million in administrative costs and nearly $803k in litigation costs. The department’s total costs in FY 2023 were 14.9 percent higher than its total costs in FY 2022 ($18.32 million).

Court opinions issued Feb. 20, 2024

Louise Trauma Ctr. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- dismissing remaining portion of plaintiff’s case after holding that plaintiff’s request for “all records concerning” a DHS research unit was “too amorphous to constitute a valid FOIA request.”

McWatters v. ATF (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, finding that ATF properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold portion of a tape recording made by one of the 100 victims of a Rhode Island nightclub fire in 2003; crediting ATF declaration that faint human voices could be heard on the recording and that surviving family of the deceased had privacy interests even if voices could not be attributed to specific victims; further, rejecting plaintiff’s asserted public interest as nothing more “than having the information for its own sake,” similar to case involving the recording of the last minutes of NASA’s Challenger shuttle.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

FOIA News: NARA announces Sunshine Week event

National Archives to Host Sunshine Week Panel on Artificial Intelligence and Government Access
Press Release, Nat’l Archives & Records Admin., Feb. 22, 2024

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will host a panel discussion on “Artificial Intelligence: The Intersection of Public Access and Open Government'' Thursday, March 14, at 1 p.m. ET. This program is being offered during Sunshine Week, an annual nationwide celebration of access to public information.  The event will be in person at the William G. McGowan Theater at the National Archives in Washington, DC, and livestreamed on the National Archives YouTube Channel.

Read more here.