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 The FOIA resources of the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) have been archived here; the Office of Management and Budget’s FOIA resources are here.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.

Court opinion issued Jan. 17, 2025

Helmer v. U.S. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- determining that: (1) State Department performed adequate searches for various records concerning Sir Zelman Cowen, the nineteenth Governor-General of Australia; (2) plaintiff’s claim that State failed to timely respond to his request was moot; and (3) plaintiff lacked standing to bring a policy-or-practice claim because he never showed that he was realistically threatened by a repetition of State’s alleged policy of practice of unjustified delay.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Jobs, jobs, jobs (or lack thereof): 90-day hiring freeze

On January 20, 2025, the White House ordered all executive departments and agencies to refrain from filling vacant positions or creating new positions for the next 90 days, with exceptions for “military personnel of the armed forces or . . . positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.”  Additional exceptions include “positions requiring Presidential appointment or Senate confirmation, the appointment of officials to non-career positions in the Senior Executive Service or to Schedule A or C positions in the Excepted Service,” among others.

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.”  

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Weekly report Jan. 20, 2025

Federal positions closing in the next 10 days

Sup. Gov. Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Def./DCSA, GG 14, Boyers, PA, closes 1/20/25 (agency only).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Army, GS 13, Ft. Belvoir, VA, closes 1/20/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of State, GS 9, Rosslyn, VA, closes 1/21/24 or first 50 applications (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, GS 11-12, multiple locations, closes 1/21/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./NIH, GS 14, remote, closes 1/21/25 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, GS 9, Ramstein, Germany, closes 1/21/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, GS 9, Lackland AFB, TX, closes 1/22/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Agric./Forest Serv., GS 12-13, Wash., DC, closes 1/23/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Health & Human Serv./FDA, GS 13, Rockville, MD, closes 1/24/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Treasury/IRS, GS 14, nationwide locations, closes 1/24/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Air Force, NH 3, Scott AFB, IL, closes 1/27/25 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Def. Intelligence Agency, GG 13, Arlington, VA, closes 1/28/25 (public).

Federal positions closing on or after Jan. 31, 2025

Lead Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/DEA, GS 13, Arlington, VA, closes 2/3/25 (non-public).

Att’y-Advisor, Dep’t of Transportation/PHMSA. GS 14, Wash., DC, closes 2/10/25 (public).

Att’y Advisor, Dep’t of Justice/Pardon, GS 13-15, Wash., DC, open until filled (public).

Court opinion issued Jan. 16, 2025

Stevens v. HHS (N.D. Ill.) -- ruling that:(1) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to show that it performed adequate search for various records concerning three individuals, reasoning that: (a) ICE neglected to explain the full scope of ICE program offices and why it limited its search to certain offices, (b) ICE did not sufficiently explain which of the potentially responsive records it found in each of the program offices for each of the individual requests were ultimately produced to plaintiff, and (c) ICE’s search terms were underinclusive for two of the requested individuals; and (2) agency failed to justify its withholdings, noting that its Vaughn Index was “at the very least incomplete” and its declaration contained “clearly erroneous statements showing a lack of attention to detail and accuracy”; further, remarking that ICE’s privacy-related redactions on a “publicly filed document readily available on a public docket” were “egregious,” “ludicrous” “preposterous,” and a “blatant misuse of exemptions” that “defies comprehension” and “screams of bad faith”; and (3) ICE must release all records to plaintiff in full, because: (a) in camera review would be too burdensome, (b) ICE already was already afforded an opportunity to file a supplemental Vaughn Index and “enough was enough” after years of delay.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued Jan. 10, 2025

Cincinnati Enquirer v. DOJ (S.D. Ohio) -- ruling that FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(C) in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of text messages between seven private individuals and a former Cincinnati councilwoman who pled guilty to honest services wire fraud; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that Ohio’s state privacy law limited privacy interests recognized under FOIA; also rejecting plaintiff’s public interest arguments because, among other things, they wrongfully presupposed the existence of records.

Pub. Health & Med. Professionals for Transparency v. FDA (N.D. Tex.) -- denying government’s motion to indefinitely suspend court’s order requiring production of certain COVID vaccine-related records (purportedly one-million pages) by June 30, 2025; rejecting FDA’s argument that the court committed “clear error” in setting schedule, because: (a) the original production schedule was entered three years ago, (b) FDA knew about the existence of the records at issue well before disclosing their existence to plaintiff or the court; and (c) the records were “undoubtedly responsive” to plaintiff’s 2021 request and should have been processed along with other records that were last produced in November 2023; further, rejecting FDA’s argument that a lower production rate—such as the 500-page monthly rate used in multiple cases in the DDC— was justified by “exceptional circumstances,” noting that FDA’s understaffing excuse was based on an astonishing claim that newly trained FOIA personnel needed two years to be fully trained; lastly, rejecting FDA”s assertion that the production schedule would be unduly burdensome, reasoning that plaintiff’s request is “arguably the most important FOIA request in American history” and that FDA has previously “risen to the challenge” to meet the court’s production orders.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

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.