Adam Marshall, an attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says one explanation for the spike in lawsuits is "increased frustration with how badly the FOIA process at the administrative stage is failing."
"Information is being withheld that shouldn't be, but also it's taking an incredibly long time to even get decisions about FOIA requests, to the point where people feel like they have no choice but to file a lawsuit to just get a response to their request."
The average time to receive a processed FOIA request from the State Department in fiscal year 2017 was 652 days, for example.
(18) On May 13, 2017, the United Stated Department of Defense filed an appeal in the Ninth Circuit which reversed the district court's decision, and applied a two-part balancing test: the Court weighed a person's privacy rights up against the public's right to the information, and concluded that releasing the names of the students and professors at WHINSEC is an invasion of privacy, which is exempt under the sixth exemption to FOIA. (19)
Prior to FOIA, the United States government had sole discretion whether to release information that citizens requested.
The individual privacy exemption to FOIA is one of the most controversial exemptions under FOIA.
According to Cummings, both Justice Department guidelines and the EPA's own FOIA regulations call for the agency to complete simpler requests ahead of more complex ones, instead of just tackling them in the order they are received.
A better way to handle the flood of FOIA requests, she told the committee according to the letter, was to "evaluate them as they come in, recognizing that some FOIAs are larger than others and more time-consuming and more complicated than others."
Counsel for WM filed a FOIA request with USCIS [United States
awaiting the results of the FOIA request, WM's counsel sought relief