Judge Schiendlin issued an opinion Friday in a FOIA case that was critical of the practice of having government workers collect documents from their files, without strict oversight from counsel. The opinion will likely be cited in discovery disputes because, as Judge Scheindlin notes, “much of the logic behind the increasingly well-developed caselaw on e-discovery searches is instructive in the FOIA search context” (and thus, presumably, vice versa). The government’s brief had argued, “[i]t is . . . unclear why custodians could not be trusted to run effective searches of their own files, a skill that most office workers employ on a daily basis,” to which Judge Scheindlin responded:
Continue Reading Judge Scheindlin Criticizes Unsupervised “Self Collection” of Documents
Judge Pauley Denies FOIA Request for Report on Government’s Use of Patriot Act Surveillance
By Charles Michael on
Judge McMahon Notes Irony of Government Seeking Extension in FOIA Case for Secret Reasons
By Charles Michael on
Yesterday, Judge McMahon granted the government’s request for more time to file a summary judgment motion in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits from the ACLU and the New York Times concerning (among other things) a secret legal memo first reported the New York Times justifying the targeted killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. The government stated that it needed more time because its “position is being deliberated at the highest level of the Executive Branch.” The government supported its request with an ex parte confidential declaration from James R. Clapper, Jr., the Director of National Intelligence. Judge McMahon granted the request but not without a small dig at the government:
Continue Reading Judge McMahon Notes Irony of Government Seeking Extension in FOIA Case for Secret Reasons