I don't even know where to begin on this one. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made a release to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in 2011. EFF published the information online, including court documents. In September of 2012, ICE wrote EFF a letter asserting exemptions on the material and asked EFF to send back the material.
I'm not sure what section of the FOIA allows agencies to retroactively exempt previously released material. This may be the mysterious Exemption 10 that is often wished for by those who don't want to release information. In any case, this letter doesn't look good for ICE and by association, the administration. It would be interesting to know what kind of vetting the manuever got-- was it sent out by the FOIA Office without any legal review? Did the Department of Justice attorneys representing ICE against EFF know about it? Did OIP weigh in?
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Stay tuned...
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