Jobs, jobs. jobs: Weekly report 6/24/24

Federal positions closing in the next 10 days

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Navy, GS 12, Jacksonville, FL, closes 6/24/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force/ANG, GS 12, Arlington, VA, closes 6/25/24.

Att’y-Advisor, Dep’t of Justice/OIP, GS 12-15, Washington, D.C, closes 6/27/24.

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, GS 14, Wash, D.C., closes 6/28/24 (non-public).

Sup. Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, GS 13, Fort Meade, MD, closes 6/28/24.

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/CRM, GS 9, Wash., D.C., closes 6/28/24 (recent graduates).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/NSD, Wash., D.C., GS 7-9, closes 7/1/24 (recent graduates)

Sup. Att’y Advisor, Nat’l Labor Relations Bd., GS 15, Wash., D.C., closes 7/1/24 (internal to NLRB).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Treasury/IRS, GS 14, various locations, closes 7/2/24 (non-public).

Court opinion issued June 21, 2024

Mayor of Baltimore v. ATF (D.D.C.) -- denying renewed motion of the National Sporting Sports Foundation (NSSF) to intervene in case involving certain firearm trace records because NSSF lacked standing. The court noted, among other things, that NSSF failed to explain “why the ATF has not adequately represented its interests with respect to Exemption 3,” that NSSF had been permitted to file an amicus brief, and that NSSF would be permitted to be heard at any oral argument.

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

FOIA News: Deadline approaching to comment on Stars & Stripes regulations

Military paper moves to defend its 1st Amendment rights

By Liam Scott, Voice of America, June 21, 2024

Supporters of the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes are using a public consultation period on the outlet’s regulations to try to roll back what they say are restrictive rules.

Funded in part by the Department of Defense but editorially independent by order of Congress, the Stripes has operated under the same Federal Register regulations since 1993.

But with updates to those rules open to public comment until Monday, journalists and media analysts are drawing attention to three longstanding articles they believe should be relaxed or scrapped entirely.

These include vague wording that doesn’t explicitly authorize reporters to ask questions of Defense Department officials, as well as regulations that block the paper’s staff from filing Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, requests or from publishing classified information that was legally obtained.

Read more here.

See proposed regulations here.

Court opinion issued June 20, 2024

Nat'l Pub. Radio v. U.S Cent. Command (9th Cir.) (unpublished) -- in a partially split decision, affirming in part and reversing in part the district court’s decision that agency adequately searched for records pertaining to a 2004 friendly-fire incident during the Iraq War. The majority held, in part, that plaintiff pointed to clear leads of overlooked records that were “likely created to investigate one of the worst friendly-fire incidents in Marine Corps’ modern history.” The partial dissent opined that the search was adequate “beyond a reasonable doubt” because the agency’s good-faith declarations were reasonably detailed, and no genuine evidence indicated that a different database also should have been searched.

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

Court opinion issued June 17, 2024

Malone v. USPTO (E.D. Va.) -- ruling that: (1) agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold communications between certain panelists and non-panelists—all agency employees—about draft decisions, and declining to conclude that those communications were unconstitutional or violated the Administrative Procedures Act; and (2) plaintiff was ineligible for an award of attorney’s fees because he failed to establish that his lawsuit had any more than a minimal impact on the agency’s responses to his requests.

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

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Closing fast

On June 17, 2024, the Department of Veterans Affairs posted a vacancy announcement for a Supervisory Government Information Specialist that closes on June 21, 2024. The position is with the Veterans Benefits Administration in Washington, DC, at a GS-14 pay scale.

FOIA News: How to keep busy while waiting for a FOIA response

What Can You Do While Waiting for a FOIA Response?

It often takes almost a year or more to get public records from the federal government. Here are some things you can do while you wait.

Matthew Petti, Reason, July 2024 issue

The government is slow, especially at answering questions about itself. In theory, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lets Americans ask any federal agency for any public record and get a response back within 20 days. All 50 states have similar records laws. After all, government documents are the property of the taxpayer.

* * *

Using data from the public records site MuckRock, Reason calculated the average response times for several agencies. It turns out that you can do a lot of fun (and not so fun) things while waiting for bureaucrats to give you the documents that your taxes paid for.

Read more here.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report June 17, 2024

Federal positions closing in the next 10 days

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, GS 7-9, Fort Campbell, KY, closes 6/17/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./CDC, GS 13, remote, closes 6/17/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Def./DHA, GS 7-9, Tripler Army Medical Center, HI, closes 6/18/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, GS 9, Ramstein, Germany, closes 6/18/24 (non-public).

Sup. Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Homeland Sec./CIS, GS 12, remote, closes 6/20/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Treasury/IRS, GS 13, nationwide locations, closes 6/20/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force/ANG, GS 12, Arlington, VA, closes 6/25/24.

Att’y-Advisor, Dep’t of Justice/OIP, GS 12-15, Washington, D.C, closes 6/27/24.

Federal positions closing on or after July 1, 2024

Sup. Att’y Advisor, Nat’l Labor Relations Bd., GS 15, Wash. DC, closes 7/1/24 (internal to NLRB).

FOIA News: Private emails at NIH trigger another op-ed

For citizens to avoid the Faucian bargain, FOIA reform is needed 

By Curtis Schube & Gary Lawkowski, The Hill, June 14, 2024

Just before Memorial Day, a bombshell report was published that implicated Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. David Morens, one of his senior advisors, for using private emails and phones to avoid public oversight and scrutiny of official activities. Morens even discussed how he would delete messages in order to avoid the discovery of emails.  

There may be no better time than now to talk about reforming how the government collects and provides records.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Peace Corps amends FOIA regs again

The Peace Corps has re-revised its FOIA regulations, per a final rule issued in the Federal Register on June 14, 2024. The agency initially amended its regulations on April 11, 2024. The latest changes remove the gender pronoun “he” when referring to the General Counsel or designee, among other things.