The FOIA blog

Justice Department Loses Blanket Exemption 6/7(C) Withholding Decision

Judge Richard Leon of the District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that the Department of Justice cannot use a blanket privacy withholding to block access to records pertaining to documents related to the shooting of a fleeing drug smuggler.

Judicial Watch had requested the records from the government.  The Executive Office for United States Attorneys had said, without doing a document by document review, that they were exempt pursuant to FOIA Exemption 6 and 7(C).  Judicial Watch disagreed with this position and sued.  The Court agreed with Judicial Watch, explaining that the records would show what the goverment was up to and on balance, without a further examination of each individual document, the public interest outweighed the privacy interests in the information.

The government will now process the records and either release them or provide a detailed justification for withholding the material.

Sunshine Week -- March 15-21

Sunshine Week is coming.  This year it is from March 15-21.

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.  More information can be found on Sunshine Week's informative website.

Access to the Government in the Computer Age

The Book entitled "Access to the Government in the Computer Age" is now available through the ABA.

According to the ABA's ad for the book, experienced lawyers from a variety of practice areas explore the impact of technology on access to public records laws, including:

• The application of public records laws to electronic data
  
• Implications of electronic documents within the context of discovery
  
• The interplay between access to public records and litigants' right of discovery
  
• The delicate balance between right of public access to electronic records and the right to
  personal privacy
  
• E-mail and the determination of when this form of communication becomes a public
  record and the extent to which it is subject to public disclosure
  
• Public records issues and the pitfalls that confront private entities doing business with
  state and local agencies
  
• The relationship between traditional attorney work, client communication privileges, and public records laws

The book is supplemented by a CD-ROM that contains links to the principal public records statute for each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia and a variety of other materials relating to state public records laws, such as government-published guides, specific state public records laws, reports by state governments on public records and technology, and links to websites relating to state open government laws.

If anyone has read it or uses it, please feel free to comment about it here.

Government Given 30 Days to Respond to FOX News Bailout Request

United States District Court Judge Richard J. Holwell for the Southern District of New York has given the Treasury Department 30 days to respond to a FOIA request submitted in November of 2008 by Fox Business News for records concerning the Bush Administration's bank bailout.  The government was then given 15 additional days to produce a Vaughn index which will attempt to justify any withholdings the government makes to responsive documents.

The mainstream media has misreported the judge's order by saying that the judge ordered the government to turn over the records within 30 days.  The court did no such thing--it only ordered a response by the government on the request within 30 days, which may very likely be a withholding of all responsive documents.  The Vaughn index that comes 15 days later will then justify the withholdings.  This order only forces a schedule upon the government to actually make a decision on the documents.  Nothing in Judge Holwell's order gives Fox News any documents responsive to its request.

The order can be found here: Download Foxnewsorder022009

Obama Administration Receives 60 days to Review ACLU Request

The Department of Justice was given 60 days (rather than the 90 days it sought) to review three memos written by a formed Bush Legal Council as part of the Obama Administration's new open government policy.

U believe that one of the problems thus far with implementing the Obama transparency policies is that very few political appointees have actually been confirmed at the Department of Justice and other agencies.  Those in charge are usually acting career employees and wish to wait for the new appointees to come on-line.  One of the things that will help move the FOIA changes along is if the Senate can hold the hearings and confirm these appointees in an expedited basis.

IRS Can Withhold Third Party Contact Names and Information From Audit

Federal District Judge for the District of Columbia Rosemary M. Collyer has ruled that the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") can withhold the names of third parties contacted in an audit as well as notes taken during the interviews and the information they provided to the IRS.  The judge held that the names were withholdable pursuant to FOIA Exemption 7(C).  The notes and information provided by the third parties were held withholdable pursuant to Exemption 7(A). 

As Exemption 7(A) is temporal and only lasts as long as the audit or subsequent prosecution (if there is one) is open, these documents may be subject to further requests in the future. 

Third Circuit Review of FOIA Case Sought at Supreme Court

No. 08-884
Title:	Lawrence S. Berger, et al., Petitioners v. Internal Revenue Service, et al.
Docketed:	January 14, 2009
Lower Ct:	United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Case Nos.:	(07-2796)
Decision Date:	August 11, 2008
Rehearing Denied:	October 14, 2008

~~~Date~~~	~~~~~~~Proceedings  and  Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jan 9 2008	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due February 13, 2009)
Feb 5 2009	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including March 16, 2009.

---

~~Name~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~	~~~~~~~Address~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~	~~Phone~~~
Attorneys for Petitioners:
Dennis Calo	14 Washington Place	(201) 488-5400
	Hackensack, NJ  07601
Party name: Lawrence S. Berger, et al.
Attorneys for Respondents:
Edwin S. Kneedler	Acting Solicitor General	(202) 514-2217
	United States Department of Justice
	950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
	Washington, DC  20530-0001
Party name: Internal Revenue Service, et al.

FOIA Changes Slow in Coming

This AP article discusses why certain offices of the Department of Justice are slow to embrace President Obama's statement on the FOIA.

I think the article misses one other reason, the pushback from the represented agencies.  They will be reluctant to release material until forced to do so by their superiors as well as the Department of Justice.  

  

Most Wanted Federal Government Documents

OpenTheGovernment.org and the Center for Democracy and Technology has launched a website entitled Show Us the Data:  The Most Wanted Federal Government Documents, with the help of Sunlight Labs.  

This website gives users the opportunity to vote on what what government information should be freely available on line in a usable format, but is not.

List of Madoff Victims

Here is the list of Madoff victims. I know this wasn't a FOIA release but it's a release of government records and I'm linking to it as a public service.