Read the full story: Washington Free Beacon
The FTC in 2012 denied requests from Cause of Action for fee waivers on several FOIA requests, saying it did meet the qualifications because it was not a news media outlet.
““FTC’s desire to chill criticism appears to explain what occurred here,” Cause of Action executive director Dan Epstein said in a statement. “Upholding FTC’s ‘weaponization’ of FOIA will empower agencies to selectively define what is and isn’t ‘media’, thereby blocking transparency and significantly reducing the federal government’s accountability to all Americans.”
Cause of Action appealed the denial, but the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., ruled in favor of the FTC in 2013, finding that the watchdog group did not qualify as media because it was insufficiently disseminating news to the public.
