Public Access News of Note: March 14, 2023
A quick look at headlines concerning freedom of access, public information, and other First Amendment issues.
It’s Sunshine Week—a week to increase awareness of the importance of government transparency. Freedom of information laws at the federal and state level are an important tool in keeping government open and accountable. Anyone can file a freedom of information request. Unsure how to do it in your state? Look to resources like the National Freedom of Information Coalition, which breaks down freedom of information laws by state and provides tips on how to successfully request information.
Prominent federal agencies absent from federal FOIA portal despite 2016 law
Several prominent federal agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Department of State, and the National Security Agency (NSA), do not accept Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests through FOIA.gov, an online submission portal for requests.
FOIA.gov is a central government website citizens can use to submit FOIA requests and find information about the law. In 2016, former president Barack Obama signed the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, which required the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Attorney General to “ensure the operation of a consolidated online request portal” allowing the public to submit a records requests to any agency.
Despite the law’s requirement, roughly a half-dozen agencies and branches of agencies do not accept requests from FOIA.gov. Along with the CIA, NSA, and State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General, the Department of Homeland Security’s Citizen Immigration Services, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Secret Service also do not accept requests through FOIA.gov.
Filers can still submit electronic requests with those agencies, but they need to navigate to their individual websites, rather than using FOIA.gov.
The 2016 law improving FOIA stipulates that the requirement for a central website does not bar agencies from maintaining their own page on freedom of information.
Agency websites remain a source of information for requestors, but are not necessarily consistently maintained. By law, agencies are required to make electronically available records that have been released through request or that, as a result of their subject matter, are likely to be requested multiple times. Interpretation of what this means varies by agency. Some include a log of released documents, others contain little more information than logs of past requests and do not indicate what information has been released.
Nor are all agency website are easy to navigate. Requests may be best directed to specific branches within agencies but those agencies don’t always alert requestors of this, sometimes directing requestors only to the agency’s top FOIA officer. FOIA.gov directs users to branches within agencies where applicable. This can ensure requests reach the appropriate agency branch faster, speeding up the time in which requestors receive records.
According to the National Security Archive, “Three out of four federal agencies do not even mention FOIA.gov on their individual agency websites, with many funneling FOIA requesters through independent portals with varying degrees of functionality, leaving them unaware of a more simplified way to file a FOIA request.”
Additionally, FOIA.gov also hosts annual and quarterly FOIA reports for federal agencies—even agencies that don’t accept requests through the website. This is additional information filers can use to guide themselves through the FOIA process and use to determine how best to successfully request information. Agency websites’ failure to reference FOIA.gov also robs requestors of these available resources.
Read more from the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
For your entertainment: The Electronic Frontier Foundation presents The Foilies 2023
The discovery of classified documents at the homes of former presidents and high-ranking government officials captured headlines for weeks and swept up multiple presidential administrations. Surely that’s the worst abuse of government transparency in the past, right?
You might think so, but did you know a school district in Detroit quoted a parent looking for records related to whether their name was being monitored on social media by the department over $18 million dollars for the search?
Presented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRockNews, The Foilies are a lighthearted and amusing look into the outrageous ways government agencies at the local, state and federal level tried to skirt transparency and public records laws in the past years.
Public Experience with Public Records Laws survey: As more Americans than ever file public records requests, we’re looking for information on how the public interacts with freedom of information laws. Whether or not you’ve ever filed a request, consider filling out our survey and share your impressions of how well current freedom of information laws work.