Freedom Watch, Inc. v. United States Department of State, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2113

Freedom Watch submitted a FOIA request seeking documents related to waivers granted under the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) and Executive Order 13553.
The State Department’s Office of Information Programs and Services (IPS) identified eleven components likely to have responsive records and conducted extensive electronic and paper searches across those offices.
John F. Hackett, Acting Director of IPS, submitted detailed declarations describing keyword searches, email and paper-file reviews, and consultation with subject-matter experts; no responsive records were found.
Freedom Watch sued under FOIA after believing the search inadequate; the case was transferred from the Middle District of Florida to the D.C. District Court.
Plaintiff pointed to four State press releases it located online and argued the Department should have searched for waivers under a different statute (NDAA Section 1245) or conducted additional fact discovery (depositions).
The Court reviewed the agency declarations, rejected plaintiff’s objections as unpersuasive or outside the request’s scope, and granted summary judgment for the State.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Adequacy of search under FOIA	Hackett’s declarations insufficient; search missed responsive documents	IPS searched eleven components using electronic and manual methods and consulted experts; declarations show reasonable, detailed search	State’s search was adequate; summary judgment for State
Relevance of State press releases	Press releases on State website show documents existed and search failed	Press releases related to a different statute (NDAA), not CISADA/EO 13553; thus not responsive	Press releases were not responsive and do not show inadequacy
Scope of request (CISADA vs. NDAA)	Waivers under NDAA §1245 are equivalent to CISADA waivers and should have been searched	Agency need only search for records within the request’s stated scope; not required to infer a broader or different statutory basis	Court rejects expansion of request; agency not required to search beyond stated scope
Request for discovery/depositions	Plaintiff sought discovery and depositions to test search adequacy	Discovery in FOIA cases is generally inappropriate absent evidence of bad faith or substantial doubt about affidavits	Denied; no basis to dispute good faith of declarations; case resolved on summary judgment for State

Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242 (standard for summary judgment)
Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317 (moving party's burden on summary judgment)
Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (genuine dispute standard)
Dep’t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352 (FOIA’s purpose)
Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press v. DOJ, 489 U.S. 749 (agency burden and de novo review in FOIA)
SafeCard Servs., Inc. v. SEC, 926 F.2d 1197 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (presumption of good faith for agency affidavits)
Brayton v. Office of U.S. Trade Rep., 641 F.3d 521 (FOIA summary judgment practice)
Larson v. Dep’t of State, 565 F.3d 857 (requirements for agency affidavits in FOIA)
Valencia-Lucena v. Coast Guard, 180 F.3d 321 (search must be reasonably calculated to uncover relevant documents)
Iturralde v. Comptroller of Currency, 315 F.3d 311 (adequacy judged by methods, not results)
Boyd v. Criminal Div. of DOJ, 475 F.3d 381 (failure to locate a particular document doesn’t by itself show inadequacy)
Military Audit Project v. Casey, 656 F.2d 724 (denial of discovery when affidavits not substantially questioned)
Weisberg v. DOJ, 745 F.2d 1476 (reasonableness standard for FOIA searches)
Perry v. Block, 684 F.2d 121 (agency affidavits must explain scope and method)
Steinberg v. DOJ, 23 F.3d 548 (search adequacy standards)
Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. Norton, 309 F.3d 26 (strong presumption in favor of disclosure)
Dep’t of State v. Ray, 502 U.S. 164 (presumption of disclosure under FOIA)