Public Eye
December 19, 2007 11:09 AM

Is FOIA Becoming (A Little) Less Frustrating?

By
Brian Montopoli
Topics
In The News
(AP)
As any journalist can tell you, dealing with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) can be enough to make you wish you'd gone into a different line of work.

It all sounds so simple at first: If you want a document or piece of unreleased but legally available information from the U.S. government, you submit a FOIA request. But government agencies are, unsurprisingly, reticent to cooperate with journalists or other individuals seeking information that could make them look bad, so the response is almost never what you're hoping for.

Instead of a few pages of documents or a neat summary of what you're looking for, you might face long response times, be offered incomplete documentation, or be told that to pay high fees. You might get buried in so much paper that it becomes extremely difficult to find what you first requested. You might never hear back at all.

Which is why it's good news that Congress has passed legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act. If the president does not veto the bill, it would mandate that agencies respond to FOIA requests within 20 days – and be punished if they don't – and create a system for tracking requests, among other innovations.

"Currently, delays, staggering legal fees and mountains of red tape undercut FOIA's usefulness for citizens and journalists," David Cuillier of the Society of Professional Journalists in a statement emailed to Public Eye. "This bill is crucial for helping FOIA work better, which in turn, helps democracy work better."

In recent years, agencies' response time to FOIA requests has decreased, and the Bush administration has not exactly shown a propensity towards making information publicly available. In 2001, for example, President Bush signed an executive order allowing presidents to delay the release of many of their records indefinitely.

It is thus something of an open question whether the president will sign the legislation, which reflects a compromise crafted after the White House and Justice Department objected to some of the details, including restoration of a provision that agencies release information unless they determine it will do harm. (After Sept. 11, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had instructed agencies to err on the side of not releasing information.) The Associated Press speculates that Mr. Bush might simply ignore the bill, which would have the effect of causing the new rules to go into effect after 10 days.

"This pocket-veto-in-reverse would give Bush some political cover, allowing the FOIA bill to become law without taking the affirmative step of endorsing it," notes the AP.

Add a Comment
by memekiller December 19, 2007 6:17 PM EST
I can''t believe I had to read about this on HuffingtonPost, but it is astonishing to me that you would so unceremoniously let Matthew Felling go without so much as a benign mention on the blog. I''ve got nothing against Brian, but Felling put far more into this blog and came closer to reaching the potential of what this blog could be than any of his predecessors. Rather than a place I went to complain, I actually came to read Felling''s posts, regardless of the subject. He was just starting to make PE a regular part of people''s daily rotations.

It takes a while to build up a readership and loyal batch of readers, but I became one, which I would think anyone who read any of my posts would have thought unthinkable.

I know I''m one compulsive net addict, but when we were a Nielsen household, the only reason I marked down CBS or paid attention any time a story had the CBS brand attached was Felling. It would have been nice to be given the opportunity to give the same best wishes for his next endeavor we gave everyone else.

Depressing.
Reply to this comment
by memekiller December 19, 2007 4:46 PM EST
Welcome news. That ought to be put into effect just in time for journalists to return to speaking truth to power when we have a Democratic administration for non-stop 90''s style scandal mongering.

I am constantly baffled by the Democrat''s willingness to give themselves the short end of the stick like this. It''s like they have principles or something.

Enjoy your new access until the next Republican administration, guys.
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