Shapiro v. DOJ
Summary
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a Nov. 25, 2025 decision in Shapiro v. DOJ (No. 16-1263) resolving cross-motions for summary judgment in a FOIA/FOIPA case. The court granted in part and denied in part both sides’ motions, finding certain agency searches and Vaughn-index explanations inadequate, upholding some withholdings under the Pen Register Act, and denying without prejudice some Exemption 3 claims based on the National Security Act.
Litigation Status
Procedural Posture
Decision on cross-motions for summary judgment in a FOIA/FOIPA action; court resolved a variety of disputes concerning adequacy of agency searches and asserted FOIA exemptions.
Reported Holding
The court granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s motion for summary judgment and similarly granted in part and denied in part the plaintiff’s cross-motion. The court found the FBI’s and DOJ’s declarations insufficient to demonstrate adequacy of certain searches and that some FOIA requests were not shown to be unduly burdensome; it concluded that some withholding under the Pen Register Act (Exemption 3) was appropriate, but that assertions of Exemption 3 under the National Security Act were insufficiently supported (denied without prejudice as to information not also covered by Exemptions 1 or 6). The court found the OIP’s search adequate and identified deficiencies in the agency’s Vaughn index and search explanations.
What the Court Decided
The court (Walton, J.) concluded (1) parts of the agency’s search efforts were inadequate and the agency failed to justify not conducting additional searches (including full-text searches and searching cross-filed/serialized documents), (2) certain withholdings are authorized by the Pen Register Act and thus Exemption 3, (3) the agency did not sufficiently justify invoking the National Security Act as an Exemption 3 basis for some withheld information (denied without prejudice), and (4) the OIP’s search was adequate.
What the Court Did Not Decide
The court did not finally adjudicate the defendant’s assertion of Exemption 3 based on the National Security Act for information not also covered by Exemptions 1 or 6; it denied that portion of the motion without prejudice and permitted renewal with additional justification. The court also did not resolve any matters beyond the discrete search-adequacy and exemption issues addressed in the opinion.
Significance
Neutral / mixed significance. Characterizations of significance describe how the matter has generally been discussed in tracked public sources; individual holdings are often narrow, procedural, or fact-specific, and this page does not state or imply broader holdings than the sources support.
What This Page Does and Does Not Say
This page reports what our tracked public sources say about this matter — including, where identified, the procedural posture (for example, a ruling on a motion to dismiss is not a final merits decision). It does not report legal conclusions beyond those sources, does not predict outcomes, and does not constitute legal advice.
Technologies at Issue
No specific technologies have been identified in tracked sources for this matter.
Statutes Invoked
- Freedom of Information Act (FOIA/FOIPA); Pen Register Act; National Security Act; Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)
Claims Asserted
- FOIA/FOIPA - adequacy of search
- FOIA Exemption 3 (Pen Register Act; National Security Act)
- Exemption 5 - deliberative process privilege
- Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) (grand jury secrecy)
Related Intelligence
Sources
About This Page
Publisher: Inspection-Ready Institute, Inc. (DBA Crandall Consulting), an independent website compliance and risk consultancy. We are not a law firm and nothing on this page is legal advice.
How this content is produced: Facts are extracted from publicly available sources — court and government materials, recognized legal press, professional analysis, and industry reports — by our litigation intelligence engine, stored with full source provenance, and rendered from the database. Risk guidelines are computed by a deterministic formula, never by an AI model directly. See the full methodology.
Limitations: Counts labeled "Tracked" reflect matters identified in our source set and are not official court statistics. We report what courts decided and did not decide; we do not predict outcomes.
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