Fox loses FOIA suit against Federal Reserve
From Sunshine Review
July 31, 2009 A federal court ruled that Fox could not obtain their requested Freedom of Information Act information unless the Federal Reserve Board grants it willingly because the 12 regional banks are not government entities, according to the ruling.[1]
[edit] Non-governmental entities
The U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, on Thursday, 30 July 2009, ruled that Fox News could not access the bailout-related documents regarding the emergency lending program held by the Federal Reserve Board. He ruled that the Federal Reserve Board in Washington was right in withholding more than 6,000 pages from Fox because, Hellerstein ruled, they were exempted under the clause protecting trade secrets and confidential information.
Additionally, Hellerstein ruled that the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks are not government agencies and so the Board in Washington did not need to release the records.
[edit] FOIA
"It may be, as Fox argues, that no [Federal Reserve bank] has a FOIA office to which FOIA requests may be submitted, that the only FOIA office for the Federal Reserve System is in the Board, and if Fox cannot obtain documents from the Board, it will be deprived of obtaining any meaningful documents enabling a public accounting of the Board’s Discount Window loan program," Hellerstein wrote. "Whether or not this is so, it does not alter the fact that Fox served its requests only upon the Board and that the definition of a Board record is limited by statute."
Fox News says they respect the judge's opinion, yet they plan to appeal.
This case was the first in which the court clearly and widely dealt with the question of whether the banks were subject to FOIA like government agencies, though other cases have referred to the banks as not being government agencies.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg News has a similar FOIA suit pending in the same U.S. District Court. In the Bloomberg case, Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered additional briefing on the question of whether the regional Federal Reserve banks are government agencies. She has not ruled on the matter.
Fox is pursuing a FOIA suit against the Treasury Department for more bailout-related documents at this time and there has been no decision yet, either.
In addition, The New York Times also has a pending FOIA suit against both the Federal Reserve Board and Treasury Department for similar documents. This suit was filed much later and is still a young case. Though the statutory deadline for processing the requests had passed, the Fed has only agreed to process the newspaper's requests.
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