NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604 Submitted March 19, 2021 * Decided March 24, 2021 Before DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge No. 20-1798 WILLIAM A. WHITE, Appeal from the United States District Plaintiff-Appellant, Court for the Southern District of Illinois. v. No. 18-cv-841-RJD FEDERAL BUREAU OF Reona J. Daly, INVESTIGATION, et al., Magistrate Judge. Defendants-Appellees. ORDER This interlocutory appeal involves a denial of William White’s request that the district court order the Federal Bureau of Investigation to produce immediately tens of thousands of unreviewed documents about white supremacy and white nationalism. White had requested those documents under the Freedom of Information Act, and the FBI agreed to review and produce them at a rate of 500 pages per month, in keeping * We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the briefs and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). No. 20-1798 Page 2 with its policy for large requests. The district court refused to order the Bureau to pick up the pace of its production. White has appealed the denial of that injunction while his other claims remain pending in the district court. We have jurisdiction over this appeal, but because the district court did not err in refusing to compel faster production, we affirm. White, a federal inmate, seeks the FBI’s records of white supremacists, white nationalists, and their affiliated groups to see if the agency is improperly investigating them. He sent the FBI 57 requests under FOIA between 2017 and 2018, some of which the Bureau denied and ten of which it approved for processing. Dissatisfied, White sued the FBI, along with other agencies from which he sought similar records, alleging that they improperly had withheld documents under FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A). He sought an injunction ordering the agencies to turn over the documents immediately. White and the FBI later cross-moved for partial summary judgment. The FBI argued that it had properly denied most of White’s FOIA requests. And, for the ten requests that it had approved—which involved about 55,000 pages of documents—the FBI maintained that it was reasonably producing those documents. Adhering to the agency’s production-rate policy, it was reviewing and turning them over at a rate of 500 pages per month. It explained that an analyst must review each document line by line before release, and its release policy prevents one requester from consuming inordinate resources to the detriment of other requesters. White responded that 500 pages per month was not “prompt” disclosure under FOIA—at that rate, he will have to wait nine years to receive the requested documents—and so he was entitled to injunctive relief commanding a faster turnover. A magistrate judge, presiding with the parties’ consent, see 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1), ruled for the …
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