As Lawfare notes, the judge is sensitive to meta:
Documents the FBI creates when it processes a FOIA request can be withheld from future FOIA requests in certain sensitive cases, D.C. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled on Monday. …
After he received the “no records” responses, [Ryan] Shapiro FOIA’d his own FOIA, seeking the search slips and processing notes the FBI created in response to his earlier requests.The court said the FBI could legally withhold those documents on a case-by-case basis. In this instance, the court decided the documents could be withheld because Shapiro had filed so many FOIA requests that he might have been able to use the processing documents to piece together protected information.
“The search slips at issue,” Judge Moss wrote, “are part of a complex mosaic relating to ongoing FBI operations, involving one of the FBI’s domestic terrorism priorities, which has been the subject of a staggering number of FOIA requests seeking information about many specific individuals and organizations.”
So if you’re OK with the FBI concealing information about ongoing investigations, this ruling makes sense. And I’m OK with it.
It’s also interesting to see there’s a “… staggering number of FOIA requests …” connected with terrorism topics. Sometimes you have to stop and think about all the responsibilities of a good government like ours should be. I suppose you can guess there’s a lot of bad governments that don’t bother with rights like this.
