American Small Business League v. United States Small Business Administration

I. BACKGROUND

1 The following facts are undisputed unless otherwise noted. ASBL is an advocacy 2 organization that seeks to promote and advocate for the interests and legal rights of small 3 businesses, including women-, veteran-, and minority-owned small businesses. Declaration of 4 Lloyd Chapman (“Chapman Decl.”) ¶ 3. Chapman is the president and founder of ASBL and 5 describes himself as a long-time advocate for small businesses. Id. ¶¶ 1-2, 6. ASBL uses FOIA 6 requests and other tools to investigate whether programs meant to help small business are working 7 as intended and evaluate the truth of public statements about these programs and their 8 implementation against internal program data. Id. ¶ 3. ASBL then publicizes its findings through 9 public statements and national news media appearances. Id. ¶¶ 3, 6. ASBL regularly makes FOIA 10 requests and analyzes and publishes the information it obtains; it has successfully prosecuted 11 many FOIA lawsuits. Id. ¶¶ 3-4. 12 Defendant SBA is a federal agency established under the 1953 Small Business Act “with 13 the declared policy that ‘the Government should aid, counsel, assist, and protect, insofar as is 14 possible,…