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Law360 (May 15, 2020, 7:21 PM EDT) -- National Public Radio on Friday hit the federal health and transportation security departments with lawsuits over access to public documents related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest in a growing list of news outlets to accuse U.S. agencies of withholding virus information.
According to NPR, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Transportation Security Administration have refused to respond to records requests regarding "communications with high-ranking public health officials in the earliest stages" of the pandemic. NPR lodged its Freedom of Information Act requests with the TSA, HHS and HHS component agencies the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 11 and has yet to hear back, the news outlet said.
Such a delay is illegal, NPR said. It sued the TSA in Virginia federal court and HHS in D.C. federal court. One of its D.C. investigative reporters, Tim Mak, was also named as a plaintiff in the suits.
"These records will help the public better understand the federal government's early response to the pandemic and evaluate the adequacy of that response and the officials' public characterizations of what they knew and what they did not," NPR said in both complaints.
It added that the agencies' failure to respond to the requests is a violation of FOIA, improper and should not be permitted.
"As a matter of law, [the agencies] should be required to fulfill … statutory obligations and release the requested records immediately," NPR said.
With Friday's suits, NPR joins the likes of BuzzFeed Inc., which also sued a slew of government agencies in March, and The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, ProPublica and Wall Street Journal parent company Dow Jones, which together sued the U.S. Small Business Administration on May 12.
Those news outlets, too, say the federal agencies have violated FOIA by refusing to respond to coronavirus-related records requests.
And earlier this month, nonprofit watchdog American Oversight filed its own FOIA suit against the Treasury Department, State Department, HHS and HHS' Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.
According to Friday's suit against the TSA, NPR requested all communications to and from TSA Administrator David P. Pekoske, executive adviser Matthew Barton and senior counselor Kathryn Maxwell from December 2019 and January of this year containing certain coronavirus-related words and phrases.
From HHS, NPR requested all coronavirus-related communications to and from HHS Secretary Alex M. Azar; chief adviser William Brady; senior adviser Bonny Harbinger; Nick Uehlecke, a staff member for the House Subcommittee on Health; counselor Danielle L. Steele; policy adviser Beth Ann Nelson; and national security adviser Michael Schmoyer.
Under FOIA, an agency must make a determination on a request within 20 working days. The deadline for TSA and HHS to reply to NPR's requests was April 8, per the suits.
NPR wants the courts to order the agencies to hand over the requested communications as well as foot the bill for attorney fees and court costs.
"NPR plays a critical role in providing information to citizens about 'what their government is up to,'" the news outlet said in Friday's complaints.
It added that through the requests and litigation, "NPR seeks to fulfill its journalistic function and to shine a public light" on the operations of TSA and HHS in the early weeks of the pandemic.
HHS and TSA representatives declined to comment. Counsel for NPR didn't immediately return requests for comment Friday.
NPR is represented by Matthew E. Kelley and David J. Bodney of Ballard Spahr LLP.
Counsel information for the government wasn't immediately available Friday.
The cases are National Public Radio Inc. et al. v. U.S. Transportation Security Administration, case number 1:20-cv-00556, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; and National Public Radio Inc. et al. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, case number 1:20-cv-01289; in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
--Additional reporting by Dave Simpson and Daphne Zhang. Editing by Bruce Goldman.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
