CIA Needn’t Answer FOIA Requests About Who Sent FOIA Requests

The CIA doesn’t have to hand over information about which organizations have filed public records requests with the agency, after the D.C. Circuit Tuesday rejected an appeal by nonprofit organization National Security Counselors.

The group’s Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA asked for lists of all the agency’s FOIA requesters from 2008 to 2010 who identified themselves as “news media,” “educational or scientific,” “commercial,” or “all other.”

But the CIA doesn’t already track those specific fields in its databases, so the agency properly declined to process the request, Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan said for the U.S. Court of ...