Michael A. Hagar v. Federal Bureau of Investigation

Whether the Fifth Circuit erred in holding that an agency may refuse to produce a complete electronic record it already possesses and is required to maintain under the Federal Records Act — where that record is a discrete electronic file containing embedded metadata that the regulations define as a textual component that exists alongside the content within the file — by characterizing the duplication of that existing file as impermissible "creation" of a new record under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, in direct conflict with the Ninth Circuit's holding in Center for Investigative Reporting v. United States DO J, 982 F.3d 668 (9th Cir. 2020); and whether an agency's FOIA production obligation, including the right to receive production to a designee, is extinguished by an incarcerated requester's inability to personally possess electronic files.

Whether the Fifth Circuit erred in leaving intact a district court ruling that applied FOIA Exemption 7(C)'s "personal privacy" protection to Internet Protocol addresses belonging to Microsoft Corporation and Eaton Corporation—without applying this Court's unanimous holding in FCC v. AT&T Inc., 562 U.S. 397 (2011), that Exemption 7(C) does not extend to corporations—and without the agency itself having claimed that exemption, in a decision that now stands as an unreversed precedent affecting future requesters throughout the circuit.

Whether the Fifth Circuit's decision was rendered on a materially incomplete record because the clerk's office rejected Petitioner's reply brief without applying the prison mailbox rule of Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 (1988), where Petitioner deposited the brief two days before the deadline while still incarcerated, and whether the court's failure to notify Petitioner of the rejection despite having his updated address on file and actively corresponding with the government about the same case denied him a meaningful opportunity to be heard. n