Whether an agency can issue a 'Glomar response' to a FOIA request without conducting any search for potentially releasable records

No question identified. : believes such records—were they to exist—would be covered by a FOIA exemption. That conclusion is entirely unmoored from FOIA’s text. If allowed to stand, the D.C. Circuit’s misunderstanding will have profound negative implications for organizations that seek “to pierce the veil of administrative secrecy and to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny.” Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361 (1976) (quoting Rose v. Department of Air Force, 495 F.2d 261, 263 (2d Cir. 1974)). And that misunderstanding will substantially undermine FOIA’s purpose as reflected in FOIA’s text. To allow this issue and the underlying dispute to be fully considered by this Court, and under Supreme Court Rules 13.5, 22, and 30, applicant Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability, Inc. requests a 60-day extension, to December 15, 2025, to petition for a writ of certiorari. The petition will present two questions of vital importance to those who seek to vindicate their rights under FOIA. First, does FOIA allow agencies to assert Glomar responses to a FOIA request? Second, if FOIA allows Glomar responses, must agencies actually search for responsive records before issuing such a response, to determine whether some or all records can be released in segregated or redacted form? The D.C. Circuit’s opinion approving respondents’ searchless Glomar responses issued on July 18, 2025, and the petition is due on October 16, 2025. See PPSA v. U.S. Dep’t of Just., 143 F.4th 506 (D.C. Cir. 2025) (