The FOIA blog

National Freedom of Information Coalition Creates New Blog

The National Freedom of Information Coaltion has created a new blog, which replaces the FOI Advocate blog.  I've added the new NFOIC blog to my blog roll.

FOIA Being Used to Investigate 40+ Year Old McCain Crash Story

According to the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, Vanity Fair and the National Security News Service have been making FOIA requests to the Navy to find out about a rumored accident that occured at the main gate of a Navy base in 1964.  According to the story, no documents have yet to be released due to privacy considerations.

Update:  Judge Rosemary Collyer of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has now denied the National Security News Service's request for this material saying it is exempt pursuant to FOIA exemption 6.

DOJ Guidance Issued for Segregating and Marking FOIA Releases

The Office of Information and Privacy has issued guidance in implementing Section 12 of last year's FOIA amendments.  The guidance explains how to redact documents and label the exemptions used for withholdings on pages that documents are released in part.  Section 12 basically codifies long standing FOIA practices and this guidance merely shows how this is to be done.

Bailout Contract Redacted

Key details about how much the government is paying the Bank of New York Mellon under a contract to keep the books on the bailout plan have been redacted.  According to this story, the government hasn't actually used a FOIA exemption for this redaction.  However, it appears it may be Exemption 4, confidential business information. 

Hopefully, someone will contest the redactions and taxpayers will find out just how much this is costing.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Records Now Subject to FOIA

The Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA), the entity that basically oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac these days has issued these proposed FOIA rules for the FHFA.  The proposed rules indicate that Fannie and Freddie records are now covered by the FOIA through requests to the FHFA.

Why Don't They Use E-Mail and the United States Postal Service?

I make many FOIA requests as part of my law practice.  And I've noticed a troubling trend lately--some agencies (and no, I won't name them publicly) don't use the United States Postal Service to send out responses, they use Fedex or another delivery service.  And this isn't for just FOIA releases, it is for routine letters.  The cost of a letter sent through the post office is $.42, the cost of another delivery service is at least $5.00.  Multiply that in the hundreds and you are talking real cash.

As a taxpayer, I just don't understand why these agencies can't just use the postal service and also, if they are worrying about timeliness, send a pdf via e-mail.  It would save us all alot of money (that we don't even have in the first place).

Index to Sarah Palin Documents

Governmentattic.org has posted a number of documents relating to Sarah Palin and her brief time as governor of Alaska.  The index can be found here. 

ABA Book Examines State Public Access Laws

The ABA has recently published "Access to the Government in the Computer Age:  An Examination of State Public Record Laws."  Information on ordering can be located here.

ACLU Seeks More Spying Documents

Last week, the ACLU submitted new requests to the DOJ and the NSA for documents concerning NSA spying policy.  I predict this will get to a federal court at some not so distant future point in time.

Pentagon Revises FOIA Policy for Secretary of Defense

Secrecy News reports that the Pentagon has updated its FOIA policy for requests going to the Secretary of Defense.  The memo expresses that the maximum amount of information possible should be released in response to FOIA request.  The report and the memo can be found here.