The FOIA blog

MetaData Case Withdrawn

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports that the Southern District of New York case that required the government to release meta data pursuant to a FOIA request has been withdrawn by the court -- more details can be found at RCFP.org

Prisoners and FOIA; I'm Quoted

Here's an article by Michael Doyle of McClatchy Newspapers about prisoners and their use of the FOIA.

It's an interesting topic that really hasn't been discussed much.

FBI Glomar Rejected by DC Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals has rejected the use of a glomar response for records pertaining to three individuals who may be suspects in a crime another man was convicted of and is on death row in Texas for.  The 49 page, 2-1 decision found that the public interest in the records outweighed the FBI's invocation of privacy for the three individuals when it made a glomar ("can not confirm or deny that records exist) response for the request on the three men.  The decision can be found here.

NY Times On FOIA Bottlenecks

Natasha Singer has this editorial on the FOIA in the NY Times.  She calls on Congress to make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac subject to the FOIA despite its acting overseer Edward Demarco's belief that it is a bad idea.  Overall, I agree with Ms. Singer but as readers of the FOIA blog know, the Faster FOIA bill that recently passed the Senate does nothing to make the FOIA faster in any way.

Energy Sued Over National Water-Energy Roadmap Documents

The Department of Energy has been sued in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts for documents pertaining to the National Water-Energy Roadmap.  The documents were required to be created by 2007 by an Act of Congress but were never made publicly available.

The complaint can be found here. 

FOIA Attorney Position Available

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is seeking an attorney to manage its FOIA Program.  Further details can be found here.  The deadline for applying is July 1, 2011.

Most Transparent Administration . . .

My latest article is up at llrx.com.  I tackle the phrase "most transparent administration in history," which if I am ever elected President would never utter because it is a no win game.  Read the article to see why. 

HUD Makes Release; Asks For Do Over

Housing and Urban Develoment ("HUD") responded to a FOIA request and decided it released too much information and didn't provide submitter notice.  So HUD has asked the requester to send back the documents.   This situation doesn't occur that often; and the requester likely doesn't have an obligation to send the records back -- but what it does illustrate that poor FOIA management can result in procedures not being followed and either too much, or in most cases, not enough information being released.

More on this story can be found here.

My Take On Editorial on Bin Laden FOIA Requests Processing

This article in TechDirt talks about the ongoing requests for the death photos of Osama Bin Laden.  Two things should be noted however: 1.) There is no requirement in the FOIA that political appointees not process FOIA requests and 2.) the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Joint Staff FOIA Office is not a political office in the first place, it is staffed by career employees.

This doesn't mean that the FOIA is perfect or I'm defending how the processing of these requests is being handled.  I just believe that articles about the process should be accurate.  I also believe that there are many much more important FOIA issues than who is actually processing these requests.

Ninth Circuit Rules on Privacy Case

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the facts in the record do not allow for the withholding of names of whistleblowers pursuant to Exemption 6 in this case.  The case concerns communications sent to HUD about violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures act by Prudential Locations Real Estate.  Prudential made a FOIA request to find out who was providing this information to the government.  HUD withheld identifying information as to the third parties providing the material and HUD filed suit.  The government won at the district court, but Prudential filed an appeal.

The 9th Circuit ruled that the outcome of the case would depend on who provided the information to HUD.  In other words, would that person or persons be stigmatized by being publicly revealed.  The court said if it was a Prudential employee then they would likely be stigmatized and it would lead to a violation of their privacy; but if it was a competitor there would likely be no problem with releasing the identify of the individual.  Unfortunately, the government failed to provide that information on the record and the case was remanded to the district court for further development of the record consistent with the appellate decision.