9th Cir.;
15-15117

The court of appeals reversed a judgment and remanded. The court held that a plaintiff was required to show causation in order to be entitled to an award of attorney fees under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) following the agency's voluntary disclosure of the sought after documents.

In September 2011, American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been targeted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a terrorist, was killed in a drone attack in Yemen. This spawned parallel litigations under the FOIA for the release of legal memoranda prepared by the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) addressing the legality of the targeted killing of U.S. citizen terrorists. Both the New York Times and the ACLU, in New York, and the First Amendment Coalition, in California, filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the release of legal memoranda prepared by the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) addressing the legality of the targeted killing of U.S. citizen terrorists. Both district courts granted summary judgment in favor of the DOJ. While appeal in the New York case was pending, in February 2013, a DOJ “White Paper” addressing this lawfulness of the use of lethal force against a U.S. citizen was leaked to the press, and, a few days later, officially disclosed by the Office of Information Policy. The Second Circuit thereafter ordered the disclosure of a reacted version of the OLC-DOD memo sought by the NY Times and ACLU. In August 2014, the DOJ released to Coalition a redacted 2010 DOJ-CIA memorandum pertaining to a contemplated CIA operation against Anwar al-Awlaki.