Court: government can't hide e-mails from FOIA.

• Position: FOIA - Freedom of Information Act

In a July decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that storing e-mails on non-government servers does not shield them from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

The case, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) v. Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), centered on OSTP Director John Holdren's e-mails.

In 2013, CEI filed a FOIA request for any government work-related e-mails to or from Holdren's Woods Hole Research Center e-mail address, according to FCW.com. In 2014, OSTP denied the request on the basis that Woods Hole was "a private organization" and controlled the records. The D.C. court called this reasoning flawed and dismissed OSTP's stance that Woods Hole controlled Holdren's e-mails.

"It would make as much sense to say that the department head could deprive requestors of hard-copy documents by leaving them in a file at his daughter's house and then claiming that they are under her control," the court wrote.

The court said agency leaders can't restrict data from public view by sneaking it through extra-government accounts and noted that OSTP did not even try to obtain or search the e-mails for FOIA-eligible information.

"If the agency head controls what would otherwise be an agency...