FOIA enforcement

After years of litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, four secret memos from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel were finally released Thursday by the Obama administration.

President Barack Obama, on his first full day in office, sent a strong message of his intention to run a transparent government, directing agencies to release information to the public when possible and rolling out a new White House Web site geared toward communication and transparency.

The Defense Department does not have to release the names of Guantanamo Bay detainees who reported abuse by military personnel or who were suspected of abusing others, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan (2nd Cir.) decided Monday, overturning a lower court decision. 

The three-judge panel held that The Associated Press’s Freedom of Information Act request for the detainee names and family member names and addresses should not be granted because of the detainees' privacy interests.

A federal appeals court awarded a Freedom of Information Act requester attorney fees Friday, issuing its second opinion in the same case that rebuked the lower court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. decided FOIA requester William Davy deserved to have his attorney's fees paid after six years of litigation against the CIA. Davy sought records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Fox Business Network announced Thursday it is suing the Treasury Department for documents related to the $700 billion financial bailout plan.

Public Citizen, a leading government watchdog organization, has launched a new clinic designed to help other non-profits bring lawsuits under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The clinic, started this month, will provide free legal assistance to requesters from the start of the process to a challenge of an agency’s decision in court. The services are limited to non-profit organizations only.

Bloomberg News filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Federal Reserve system Friday, seeking documents related to the financial services crisis, the news service reported.

The suit, filed in federal court in New York, asks for documents the government says are held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The bank, one of a dozen in the Federal Reserve system, has not complied with FOIA because it has not been considered a government agency.

A federal judge sided with the National Security Archive in an opinion Tuesday, finding that the CIA must treat the Archive as a member of the news media under the Freedom of Information Act.

Officials in a Connecticut town said Friday their municipal Web site, which has been offline for a month, will be back online in a few weeks once the site is capable of complying with recent expansions of the state’s public records laws.

A Denver judge has ruled against The Denver Post in an open-records lawsuit over phone records of Gov. Bill Ritter.

According to The Post's account, the newspaper sued Ritter under the Colorado Open Records Act for his personal phone records dating back 19 months.  Ritter's attorneys said he seldom uses his state-issued telephone, but conducts regular state business calls on his personal cell phone, according to the report.