When a requester asked for copies from the SEC of internal news clips, the SEC cited the Copyright act as the statute allowing them to refuse the request, when, case law says the Copyright act may not be used to block access. -DB
The FOIA Blog
Commentary
September 25, 2009
By Scott A. Hodes
I have been informed that the SEC is blatantly ignoring FOIA Case Law and DOJ Guidance on basic requests for information; namely a requester sought copies of the SEC’s internal news clips for a specific time period. Rather than simply processing and releasing the material, the SEC cited exemption 3 to block the release and cited the Copyright act as the statute allowing it to use Exemption 3.
The problem, of course is that DOJ guidance and case law specifically say that the Copyright act is not an Exemption 3 statute and the material should be released. So, instead of just answering a FOIA request properly, the SEC has blocked transparency on a minor matter.
The fact that an agency can misinterpret and/or ignore FOIA guidance and case law is just frustrating to requesters. And in the bigger picture it shows just how easy it probably was for Bernie Madoff to get away with it for all those years.
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