Ben Kerschberg at Forbes has an interesting discussion of recent Federal Court activity surrounding the applicability of existing federal FOIA legislation to digital metadata, the information embedded in digital files that documents when a file was created, altered, or transmitted. The issue has only recently come to the attention of the Federal Courts in National Day Laborer Organizing Network v. United States Immigration and Customers Enforcement Agency. The case pertains to a series of FOIA requests sent to four federal agencies for information and specific types of digital files regarding the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency “Secure Communities” Program, which seeks to empower state and local authorities to enforce elements of U.S. immigration law. Instead of producing the requested digital files, the federal agencies produced pdf files devoid of any useful metadata. In response to the plaintiff’s objections, the District Court Judge ordered that the agencies produce the materials “without any degradation of electronically stored information.” The order is currently under appeal, but the decision and rationale are nonetheless significant. For a detailed look at the Judge’s order, see Kershberg’s piece.
