Freedom of Information

For other exemptions, a discretionary release may not be possible because the law specifically forbids an agency from making any kind of disclosure in all situations. Guidance issued by the U.S.

Following up on Attorney General Holder’s FOIA memorandum, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (“OIP”) released guidance on discretionary disclosures in April of 2009.¹² Applying the “foreseeable harm” standard set forth in the Holder

Policy decisions regarding implementation of the federal Freedom of Information Act are set by the executive branch and can vary between presidential administrations.

While the federal Freedom of Information Act contains nine exemptions that allow agencies to withhold records from the public, the government is often not required to withhold a record simply because it has a legal basis to do so under an exemption. As the U.S.

Finally, you should distinguish between the question of whether an agency has waived its right to withhold a records based on an exemption due to the public availability of the information from the question of whether a FOIA exemption applies to the records at issue.⁷⁷

In the context of the personal privacy exemptions — 6 and 7(C) — you should note that courts have held that “[t]he government cannot waive individuals’ privacy rights under FOIA” — only the individual can.⁷² “An individual can waive his privacy interests under FOIA when he affirmatively p

Producing evidence of official acknowledgement of information may be sufficient to overcome an agency’s Glomar response to your FOIA request.⁶⁶ As discussed in the section on appealing Exemption 1 withholdings, a Glomar response is an agency’s refusal to confirm or deny the existence of records responsive to your request.<

Finally, you must try to explain that the information was “made public through an official and documented disclosure.”⁵²

The information you claim is in the public domain must also match its content. Consequently, “publication of part of a document does not put the rest into the public domain.”⁴⁹