Monthly roundup: June 2024

Below is our summary of FOIA court decisions and news from last month, as well as a peek ahead to events in July.

Court decisions:

We identified and posted 7 decisions in June, none of which were remarkable. In Nat’l Sec. Archive v. CIA, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the CIA’s withholding of a memo concerning a 1983 nuclear crisis with the Soviet Union even though the State Department previously published a version of the memo with the CIA’s blessing.

Top news:

• On June 7, 2024, the Office of Information Privacy issued a summary of agency annual reports for fiscal year 2023. Of note, agencies received and processed more than 1.1 million requests, backlogged requests remained above 200k, and total FOIA costs rose 20 percent.

• The 2022-2024 term of the federal FOIA Advisory Committee wrapped up its work on June 13, 2024, approving a final report and 16 recommendations for the Archivist of the United States.

• The IRS took a little heat for directing its FOIA requesters to use “ID.me,” which requires identity verification.

Lookahead to July

July 4, 2024: 58th anniversary of FOIA’s enactment. See legislative history here.

July 9, 2024: DOJ/OIP Privacy Considerations Training.

July 11, 2024: DOJ/OIP Continuing FOIA Education Training.

July 15, 2024: Deadline for nominations for the 2024-2026 term of the federal FOIA Advisory Committee.

July 25, 2024: OGIS annual open meeting.

July 26, 2024: Deadline for agencies to post Quarter 3 FOIA data.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report July 1, 2024

Federal positions closing in the next 10 days

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).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Def./WHS, GS 11-13, Alexandria, VA, closes 7/2/24 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Energy, GS14, remote, closes 7/2/24.

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, GS 9, Homestead AFB, closes 7/5/24 (non-public).

Federal positions closing on or after July 12. 2024

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, Nat’l Guard, GS 9, Frankfort, KY, closes 7/22/24 (non-public).

Attorney Advisor, Dep’t of Justice/OIP, GS 12-15, Wash., D.C., closes 7/21/24.

FOIA News: Requests to FDA & SEC are more likely to be commercial, new analysis reveals

FOIAengine Reveals Trends Behind the Big Numbers at FDA, SEC  

By Randy Miller, Law St. Media, June 26, 2024

This week we analyze the sources of Freedom of Information Act requests made during May to the Food and Drug Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission. This analysis provides a macro view of who is submitting the 20,000 plus requests made each year to the two agencies.

FOIAengine, the competitive-intelligence database that tracks FOIA requests in as close to real-time as their availability allows, organizes the entities who submit FOIA requests into ten categories: Commercial, Educational, Federal Government, Financial Institution, Law Firm, News Media, Non-Profit, Organization Not Identified, Other, and Local and State Government. The following charts show the number of requests to the FDA and the SEC for each of these categories.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Archivists issue statement re: NIH controversy

SAA Urges Adherence to FOIA and FRA Rules by NIH

Press Release, Society of American Archivists, June 24, 2024

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) notes with concern the correspondence released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic from Dr. David Morens and other officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) referencing the use of private email accounts for the specific purpose of avoiding disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). SAA leadership is particularly concerned by the implication from a subset of the released correspondence that dedicated records staff within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may be providing guidance for avoiding FOIA requests. 

Read more here.

Court opinion issued June 25, 2024

Radar Online LLC v. FBI (S.D.N.Y.) -- on renewed summary judgment, ruling that FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(A) to withhold certain records pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein because disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with related prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, whose case is on appeal.

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

FOIA News: OGIS annual meeting on 7/24/24

The Office of Government Information Services will hold its annual meeting on July 24, 2024, per a notice published today in the Federal Register. The purpose of the meeting is “to discuss OGIS's reviews and reports, and allow interested people to appear and present oral or written statements.” The 90-minute, virtual meeting will begin at 10am EDT. Registration is required.

FOIA News: Upcoming private sector FOIA/PA training

The American Society of Access Professionals is offering a three-day, in-person FOIA-Privacy Act workshop in Pittsburgh starting September 4, 2024.

Graduate School USA has three-day, virtual FOIA/PA training starting July 16, 2024, August 5, 2024, and September 30, 2024.

Management Concepts offers a virtual, three-day FOIA/PA course beginning September 23, 2024.

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.