Fix the Court sued the U.S. Department of State in federal court today over an unfulfilled Freedom of Information Act request seeking information on Supreme Court justices’ international travel.

FTC executive director Gabe Roth submitted a FOIA on Feb. 22, 2023, requesting “documents, emails and reports concerning the security personnel staffing of [the] justices that was provided by Bureau of Diplomatic Security personnel — or by other[s] employed or contracted by the U.S. Department of State — when the justices traveled internationally between Jan. 1, 2018, and Feb. 22, 2023.”

Last year, on Nov. 27, Roth sent a follow-up FOIA to State seeking the same information but extending the covered period to that date. This suit, filed in the D.C. District this morning and assigned to Judge Dabney Friedrich, covers documents for the entire time frame, i.e., Jan. 1, 2018, to Nov. 27, 2024.

“The justices, and a few in particular, are notorious for leaving information critical for oversight off their annual disclosures,” FTC’s Roth said. “By filing this lawsuit, we hope to gain a more complete picture of when and where the justices have traveled abroad in the last few years and better understand the types of perks they receive when they leave the country.”

According to publicly available records, the justices have made visits outside the U.S. at least 53 times during the period covered by FTC’s FOIA (includes retired justices; doesn’t include trips made by the individuals listed below before they were confirmed to SCOTUS):
— Roberts (2): Canada, 2023; Ireland, 2024
— Thomas (1): Indonesia, 2019
— Alito (4): Italy and Switzerland, 2018; Italy, 2022; Germany, 2023
— Sotomayor (7): Portugal, 2019; U.K. (Scotland), 2022; Canada, 2023; Panama, Spain, Switzerland and Austria, 2024
— Kagan (5): Canada, 2018; U.K. (England), 2019; Iceland, 2021; Canada, 2022; Canada, 2023
— Gorsuch (7): Italy, 2018; U.K. (England) and Italy, 2019; Iceland, 2021; Italy, 2022; Portugal, 2023; Portugal, 2024
— Kavanaugh (3): U.K. (England), 2019; Italy, 2022; U.K. (England), 2023
— Barrett (2): Italy, 2022; U.K. (England), 2023
— Jackson: None
— Kennedy (2): Austria, 2018; Austria, 2019
— Ginsburg (5): Italy, Israel and Jordan, 2018; Sweden and Portugal, 2019
— Breyer (15): St. Kitts & Nevis, Canada, Ireland, Spain and France, 2018; France, U.K. (England) and Canada, 2019; France (twice) and Switzerland, 2022; Israel, Canada and U.K. (England), 2023; France, 2024

Though the justices’ security arrangements have changed a bit since the Dobbs leak in May 2022, in general, when the justices travel domestically, they are protected by deputies from the Supreme Court Police Department (in and around D.C., though post-leak that radius has expanded) and the U.S. Marshals Service (elsewhere in the U.S., though Roberts, Thomas and Kagan have not traveled with deputy Marshals in several years).

When they travel abroad, the justices may receive coverage from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, whose Diplomatic Security Service comprises law enforcement officers stationed around the globe.

This is the fourth lawsuit FTC has filed in federal court over the justices’ travel records; the first three followed FOIA requests to the U.S. Marshals Service.

The first FTC FOIA request that led to a lawsuit followed Justice Scalia’s death in 2016 and sought information about USMS policies for providing security to the justices, as well as details about the justices’ summer 2015 travel plus Scalia’s ultimate trip to Texas. The second one sought information about the justices’ 2016 and 2017 travel recorded in the Marshals’ Requests for Special Assignment Resources, which at the time were filed whenever deputy Marshals accompanied a justice on a trip. Documents that FTC received as a result of the two suits are posted here.

The third sought information for the justices’ travel from Jan. 1, 2018, to Sept. 30, 2022. Documents that FTC received as a result of the 2023 suit are linked to here.

A fourth FTC FOIA request covered the justices’ travel from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2024, and was filed last September. The documents DOJ sent in response, which FTC received in November and have been posted here and here, no lawsuit needed, did not yield any significant information that wasn’t already publicly available.

Additional Sunshine Week-related actions by FTC and its allies will take place in the coming days or possibly next week since Congress is not currently in session.

The docket for today’s lawsuit, Fix the Court v. Department of State, 25-767 in D.D.C., has already been posted for free, no PACER needed, in Free Law Project’s CourtListener system, which is an indispensable resource, especially this year.