Federal custodians of electronic records in a Freedom of Information Act case must provide a detailed description of their searches for responsive documents, the search words used and whether the search words are effective, Southern District Judge Shira Scheindlin has ruled.
Ruling in a massive FOIA action seeking documents on the federal policy of obtaining fingerprints from state and local arrestees for a national immigration database, Scheindlin (See Profile) faulted the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies for failing to provide affidavits that, in the words of the law, “contain reasonable specificity of detail rather than merely conclusory statements.”
