The FOIA blog

Nevada Court follows DC Circuit Precedent

The U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada has decided that the ruling by the D.C. Circuit in American Immigration Lawyers v. EOIR, 830 F.3d. 667, 673 (D.C. Cir. 2016) is persuasive and has ordered the government to reprocess documents that the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys had been referred from another agency but had decided that they were non-responsive to the request at issue.  This is the first decision concerning the scoping of non-responsive material in the 9th Circuit since the D.C. Circuit ruled two years ago.

My comments in Politico Article: Re: FISA Declassification/Text Message Release

Politico has this report on the ordered declassification of FISA documents and the release of various DOJ employee text messages.  I weigh in on possible Privacy Act issues with this unprecedented action.  

DOJ Loses Exemption 5 Case on Congressional Records FOIA Matter

In 2017, Congressman Jed Hensarling decided he'd instruct Executive Branch Agencies on how they should handle certain congressional records if a FOIA request were made for them.  Cause of Action filed a FOIA request for the Department of Justice to find out more information on the matter.  DOJ asserted a number of Exemption 5 privileges and the matter ended up in Court.  The District Court for the District of Columbia has now, after briefing and in camera review, ordered the disclosure of certain of the records originally withheld pursuant to the privileges.

Cause of Action, plaintiff in the case, has this write up on the matter, including a copy of the District Court opinion.

Trump Tax FOIA Suit Argued at DC Circuit

Law.com has this report on oral arguments on a lawsuit dismissed by the District Court of the District of Columbia for Tax Records pertaining to Donald Trump.  The government argued the plaintiff hadn't properly exhausted its remedies and got some push back from one of the judges on the three judge panel.  Even if the case is returned to the lower court, the threshold to get  third party tax information under the FOIA, even if it is Donald Trump, remains high as a number of FOIA exemptions may apply to the information.

DOJ Announces its FOIA Training

The Department of Justice has announced its FOIA training for 2018-19.  The complete list can be found here.

FOIA Online Glitch Releases Personal Information

CNN reports that FOIA Online's recent upgrade to 3.0 allowed for personal information, including social security numbers to be released.  CNN alerted the government to the release, which is referred to as a glitch by the government, and the personal information is no longer available.

FOIA Online is a FOIA portal for making FOIA requests - releases are also made through the portal.  The site also is supposed to allow for requesters to see what has been previously released to others - so they don't have to make duplicate requests - but that function has been down since the July 9 upgrade to FOIA Online 3.0.

 Additionally, as readers of the FOIA blog will recall, there are now two FOIA portals now operating - as FOIA.gov allows for requests to go through it as well (though it directs you to the agencies website).  There has not been any publicly explained reason for two parallel portals being created.  With limited funds, it seems to make more sense to pool all portal money and get one that works for all agencies (which I believe was the intent of Congress during the last FOIA overhaul).