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The Public’s Right
To Know Is Under Assault
by Patrick Leahy
As the
son of a printer from
Montpelier, I come by my interest in press freedom honestly. And as a
Vermonter I was lucky enough to grow up in a place where our culture
nourishes the love of liberty and freedom of speech, which is why we held
out joining the Union until the Bill of Rights was ratified.
These
have been tough times for the public’s right to know and for the
Congress’s duty to know what the government is doing. I am sorry to
report that there has been erosion on both of those fronts.
Government secrecy is being ratcheted up to levels unseen in recent
times. I have said before that the First Amendment would have trouble
today if it were proposed as a constitutional amendment. Sadly, this
rings true in a disturbing new survey, commissioned by the Knight
Foundation, which found that 36 percent of 110,000 students asked believe
that newspapers should have to get “government approval” of news articles
before they are published.
Freedom
of speech and of the press is one of the magnificent bequests of earlier
Americans to the generations that follow. These rights are a fragile
gift, requiring nurturing and protection by each new generation.
The
enactment of the Freedom of Information Act, or “FOIA,” was a watershed
moment for democracy, but this bulwark of open government has been under
assault.
When the
public is shut out, bad things happen. Just ask Linda and Mike Raymond
who live in
Woburn, Massachusetts, a blue-collar suburb of
Boston best known as the setting for the book and film,
A Civil Action. After rates
of leukemia spiked upward, local industries were sued in the 1980s for
polluting the area’s water. Four years ago the Raymonds discovered that
the city’s landfill, dormant for 15 years, was bustling with truck
traffic. Linda Raymond contacted Woburn officials, but they stonewalled
her. The Raymonds relied on the state FOIA law to get answers. They
educated the community and held public officials accountable. The
Raymonds’ triumph spotlights the power of and the need for government
sunshine laws.
After
9/11, we saw the single greatest rollback of FOIA in history tucked into
the charter for the Department of Homeland Security. This provision
created an opportunity for big polluters or other offenders to hide
mistakes from public view just by stamping ‘critical infrastructure
information’ at the top of the page when they submit information to the
Department. I am fighting to repeal this law and replace it with a
reasonable compromise called the Restore FOIA Act, which would protect
both sensitive information and the public’s right to know. I will
introduce this bill this month, during Sunshine Week. I am also working
with Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from
Texas, to enact a bill called the Open Government
Act. Our bill is a designed to update FOIA and improve the timely
processing of FOIA requests by federal agencies.
The
Constitution reflects the Founders' confidence in open government. Our
First Amendment protections and the public’s right to know, backed by FOIA,
are cornerstones of our democracy, guaranteeing a free flow of information
that delivers on the promise of a government of, by, and for the people.
No
generation can afford to take these protections for granted, because they
can quickly and easily be taken away. And once gone, they are difficult
to get back. The recent damage done to FOIA will take great effort to
undo.
We have
inherited a marvelous legacy. I hope it can always be said that each
generation of Americans did all that it could to entrust the public’s
right to know to the next generation of Americans.
# # # # #
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), is the author of the Electronic Freedom of
Information Act and in 1996 was installed in the Freedom of Information
Act Hall of Fame. Leahy and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have introduced
another FOIA-related bill, the Open Government Act, and Leahy this week
will introduce the Restore FOIA Act.
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Statement Of
Senator Patrick Leahy
On Introduction Of The Restoration Of
Freedom Of Information Act
(“Restore FOIA”)
March 14, 2005
Mr. LEAHY. This week marks the first
national “Sunshine Week.” The centerpiece of this week is Freedom of
Information Day, which falls on March 16, the anniversary of James
Madison’s birthday. A firm believer in the need for open and accountable
government, Madison said, “A popular government, without popular
information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or
tragedy or perhaps both.” Each generation of Americans should heed James
Madison’s warning, and it is fitting and proper that today’s generations
of Americans use this week to revisit the potentially damaging limitations
placed on access to government information in just the last few years.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has
been the centerpiece of open government for the 38 years since it came
into force in 1967. It enables citizens to obtain information on how
their government is protecting the Nation, spending their tax dollars, and
implementing the laws their officeholders enact. FOIA helps hold our
government accountable. It was through FOIA requests that the St.
Petersburg Times uncovered information showing that since the 1991
Gulf War, and due in part to lax security at military bases, thousands of
pounds of weapons have been lost or stolen from U.S. stockpiles, and some
remains unaccounted for. The Bremerton Sun newspaper in Washington
State used FOIA to confirm the mishandling of a nuclear missile at a Navy
submarine facility. These are examples of the day-to-day importance of
FOIA in helping Americans safeguard our security infrastructure. There
are countless other examples of FOIA enabling citizens to obtain
information relating to health and safety concerns in their cities and
neighborhoods.
In 2002, when I voted to support passage of
the Homeland Security Act (HSA), I voiced concerns about several flaws in
the legislation. I called for the Administration and my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle to monitor implementation of the new law and to
craft corrective legislation. One of my chief concerns with the HSA was a
subtitle of the act that granted an extraordinarily broad exemption to
FOIA in exchange for the cooperation of private companies in sharing
information with the government regarding vulnerabilities in the nation’s
critical infrastructure.
Unfortunately, the law that was enacted
undermines Federal and State sunshine laws permitting the American people
to know what their government is doing. Rather than increasing security
by encouraging private sector disclosure to the government, it guts FOIA
at the expense of our national security and the safety and health of the
American people.
Today, with my distinguished colleagues
Senators Levin, Feingold, and Lieberman I reintroduce legislation to
restore the integrity of FOIA. I thank my colleagues for working with me
on this important issue of public oversight. We first offered this bill,
which we call the Restoration of Freedom of Information Act, or “Restore
FOIA,” in the 108th Congress.
“Restore FOIA” protects Americans’ right to
know while simultaneously providing security to those in the private
sector who voluntarily submit critical infrastructure records to the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Encouraging cooperation between the private
sector and the government to keep our critical infrastructure systems safe
from terrorist attacks is a goal we all support. But the appropriate way
to meet this goal is a source of great debate — a debate that has been all
but ignored since the enactment of the HSA.
The FOIA Exemption In HSA
The HSA created a new FOIA exemption for
“critical infrastructure information.” That broadly defined term applies
to information covering a wide variety of facilities — such as privately
operated power plants, bridges, dams, ports, or chemical plants — that
might be targeted for a terrorist attack. In HSA negotiations in 2002,
House Republicans and the Administration promoted language that they
described as necessary to encourage owners of such facilities to identify
vulnerabilities in their operations and share that information with DHS.
The stated goal was to ensure that steps could be taken to ensure the
facilities’ protection and proper functioning.
In fact, such descriptions of the
legislation were disingenuous. These provisions, which were eventually
enacted in the HSA, shield from FOIA almost any voluntarily submitted
document stamped by the facility owner as “critical infrastructure.” This
is true no matter how tangential the content of that document may be to
the actual security of a facility. The law effectively allows companies
to hide information about public health and safety from the American
people – even from neighbors of such a facility in its local community --
simply by submitting it to DHS. The enacted provisions were called
“deeply flawed” by Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation in a November
20, 2002, Washington Post op-ed. He argued that the “loophole”
created by the law “could be manipulated by clever corporate and
government operators to hide endless varieties of potentially embarrassing
and/or criminal information from public view.”
In addition, under the HSA, disclosure by
private facilities to DHS neither obligates the private company to address
the vulnerability, nor requires DHS to fix the problem. For example, in
the case of a chemical spill, the law bars the government from disclosing
information without the written consent of the company that caused the
pollution. As the Washington Post pointed out in an editorial on
February 10, 2003, “A company might preempt environmental regulators by
‘voluntarily’ divulging incriminating material, thereby making it
unavailable to anyone else.”
The law also (1) shields the companies from
lawsuits to compel disclosure, (2) criminalizes otherwise legitimate
whistleblower activity by DHS employees, and (3) preempts any state or
local disclosure laws.
Finally, the HSA requires no reporting
whatsoever to the Congress or the public on critical infrastructure
submissions to DHS. As a result, it is nearly impossible for the public
to learn whether this law is being followed in good faith, whether it is
being manipulated by submitters, and whether DHS is conducting due
diligence on submissions. It also places hurdles before those of us in
Congress who believe in effective oversight.
In an effort to obtain some basic data on
the treatment of “critical infrastructure information” at DHS, two
organizations filed a FOIA request in 2004. OMB Watch and the Electronic
Privacy Information Center sought public release of the number of
submissions and rejections under the law, and of any communications
between DHS and submitters. They also requested the Department’s program
procedures for handling information. DHS did not provide answers. The
groups filed a complaint, and the D.C. District Court ordered DHS to
respond. We learned that as of February 2005, the critical infrastructure
program received 29 submissions and rejected seven of those. We know
nothing of the substance of the accepted submissions, what vulnerabilities
they may describe, or what is being done to address them.
Most businesses are good citizens and take
seriously their obligations to the government and the public, but this
“disclose-and-immunize” provision is subject to abuse by those businesses
that want to exploit legal technicalities to avoid regulatory guidelines
that are designed to protect the public’s health and safety. The HSA lays
out the perfect blueprint to avoid legal liability: funnel damaging
information into this voluntary disclosure system and preempt the
government or others harmed by the company’s actions from being able to
use it against the company. This is not the kind of two-way
public-private cooperation that serves the public interest.
The HSA FOIA exemption goes so far in
exempting such a large amount of material from FOIA’s disclosure
requirements that it undermines government openness without making any
real gains in safety for families in Vermont and across America. We do
not keep America safer by chilling federal officials from warning the
public about threats to their health and safety. We do not ensure our
nation’s security by refusing to tell the American people whether or not
their federal agencies are doing their jobs, or whether their government
is spending their hard-earned tax dollars wisely. We do not encourage
real cooperation by giving companies protection from civil liability when
they break the law. We do not respect the spirit of our democracy when we
cloak in secrecy the workings of our government from the public we are
elected to serve.
The Restore FOIA Act
The Restore FOIA bill I introduce today with
Senators Levin, Feingold and Lieberman is identical to language I
negotiated with Senators Levin and Bennett in the summer of 2002 when the
HSA charter was debated by the Governmental Affairs Committee. Senator
Bennett stated in the Committee’s July 25, 2002, markup that the
Administration had endorsed the compromise. He also said that industry
groups had reported to him that the compromise language would make it
possible for them to share information with the government without fear of
the information being released to competitors or to other agencies that
might accidentally reveal it. The Governmental Affairs Committee reported
out the compromise language that day. Unfortunately, much more
restrictive House language was eventually signed into law.
The Restore FOIA bill would correct the
problems in the HSA in several ways. First, it limits the FOIA exemption
to relevant “records” submitted by the private sector, such that only
those that actually pertain to critical infrastructure safety are
protected. “Records” is the standard category referred to in FOIA. This
corrects the effective free pass given to regulated industries by the HSA
for any information it labels “critical infrastructure.”
Second, unlike the HSA, the Restore FOIA bill
allows for government oversight, including the ability to use and share
the records within and between agencies. It does not limit the use of
such information by the government, except to prohibit public disclosure
where such information is appropriately exempted under FOIA.
Third, it protects the actions of legitimate
whistleblowers rather than criminalizing their acts.
Fourth, it does not provide civil immunity to
companies that voluntarily submit information. This corrects a flaw in
the current law, which would prohibit such information from being used
directly in civil suits by government or private parties.
Fifth, unlike the HSA, the Restore FOIA bill
allows local authorities to apply their own sunshine laws. The Restore
FOIA bill does not preempt any state or local disclosure laws for
information obtained outside the Department of Homeland Security. It also
does not restrict the use of such information by state agencies.
Finally, the Restore FOIA bill does not
restrict congressional use or disclosure of voluntarily submitted critical
infrastructure information.
These changes to the HSA would accomplish the
stated goals of the critical infrastructure provisions in the HSA --
without tying the hands of the government in its efforts to protect
Americans and without cutting the public out of the loop.
Restore FOIA is supported by the American
Library Association, Common Cause, the Freedom of Information Center, OMB
Watch, Association of Research Libraries, the Project on Government
Oversight, and OpenTheGovernment.org, among other leading open government
organizations.
The argument over the scope of the FOIA and
unilateral Executive power to shield matters from public scrutiny goes to
the heart of our fundamental right to be an educated electorate aware of
what our government is doing. The Rutland Herald got it right in a
November 26, 2002, editorial that explained: “The battle was not over the
right of the government to hold sensitive, classified information secret.
The government has that right. Rather, the battle was over whether the
government would be required to release anything it sought to withhold.”
We need to fix this troubling restriction on
public accountability. James Madison’s warning is a clear warning to us,
and it is our generation’s duty to heed it. I urge my colleagues to
support the Restoration of Freedom of Information Act of 2005.
# # # # #
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Restore FOIA Act Background:
Late in 2002 saw the
single greatest rollback of FOIA in history tucked into the charter for
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This provision created an
opportunity for big polluters or other offenders to hide mistakes from
public view just by stamping ‘critical infrastructure information’ at the
top of the page when they submit information to the Department. Leahy’s
Restore FOIA Act replaces that law with a reasonable compromise that was
developed in 2002 by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and
endorsed at that time by the Bush Administration
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA) contains provisions intended to
encourage companies to “voluntarily” share information with the government
about potential vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks. Under the law,
material labeled “voluntarily submitted critical infrastructure
information” and furnished to DHS cannot be disclosed or used by
government officials or private citizens, except for certain very narrow
purposes. The FOIA exemption contained in the HSA is so broad that it
inappropriately limits access to information that is important to public
health and safety. It has the potential to place off-limits information
about unsafe bridges, poorly protected computer systems, and nuclear power
plant safety violations.
Information covered by the HSA cannot be released under FOIA, cannot be
used directly in civil suits by governments or private parties if the
information is submitted in good faith, and generally cannot be used or
disclosed by a federal, state, or local governments. In addition,
government employees who knowingly disclose the information can be fired
and jailed for up to a year. These limits on what can be done with the
information gut the HSA’s basic purpose – gathering information to help
make people safer.
RESTORE FOIA ACT’S PROVISIONS:
Senator Leahy’s bill clarifies the scope of the HSA and removes the overly
restrictive critical infrastructure provisions, replacing them with a
bipartisan compromise reached in 2002 but later scuttled behind closed
doors when the bill was settled in conference negotiations. The bill
would shield from disclosure information that legitimately relates to
threats to our critical infrastructure, but it would not cut off public
access to the type of health, safety, and environmental information that
citizens up to now have had a right to obtain under FOIA.
Restore FOIA does the following:
-
Clarifies that only certain records are exempt
from FOIA -- rather than an overly broad exemption for “information” --
and applies that exemption in a manner that is more consistent with
established case law.
-
Removes restrictions on the government’s ability
to act in response to the information it receives. Instead, it would
require that the Department to report back to Congress about how the
provisions have worked, so that Congress can evaluate whether
adjustments to the law are needed.
-
Preserves whistleblower protections by removing
unnecessary criminal penalties.
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Cornyn, Leahy Introduce Bill
To Create Open Government Commission
Faster FOIA Act
will create a 16-member commission to recommend ways to reduce delays in
response time
WASHINGTON—Sens. John Cornyn
(R-Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt.), the ranking Democratic member of the committee, introduced
legislation on Thursday to establish an advisory Commission on Freedom of
Information Act Processing Delays. The 16-member commission would be
charged with reporting to Congress and the President its recommendations
for steps that should be taken to reduce delays in the processing of
requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
“I’m pleased to commence
another bipartisan effort with Sen. Leahy to reinforce our national
commitment to freedom of information and openness in government,” Sen.
Cornyn said. “This is an especially appropriate time to promote this
important cause, because starting this Sunday,
America will observe
the first-ever national Sunshine Week – a celebration of our nation’s
founding principles and commitment to freedom of information and openness
in government. It is also
long past due.”
Sen. Leahy, who has been a
longtime champion of FOIA in Congress, said: “Agency delay has long been a
nettlesome problem in FOIA implementation. Many FOIA requests are
processed efficiently, but others drag out inexplicably, sometimes for
years. Some agencies have not filled requests from the late 1980s, before
the collapse of the
Soviet Union, even though the requestors have
repeated their requests for the information. The Faster FOIA Act responds
to the most common concerns of FOIA requestors by offering ways to solve
these problems for the good of agencies and requestors.”
Sens. Cornyn and Leahy
introduced the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government
Act of 2005 (OPEN Government Act, S. 394) on Feb. 16. The legislation will
promote accountability, accessibility, and openness in government,
principally by strengthening and enhancing the Freedom of Information Act.
Sens. Cornyn and Leahy plan a
hearing on March 15 to examine the OPEN Government Act in the Judiciary
Committee’s subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who chairs the Terrorism subcommittee, agreed to
let Sen. Cornyn chair the hearing on the Cornyn-Leahy bill.
The last time Congress
approved major reforms to FOIA was nearly a decade ago, and the Senate
Judiciary Committee has not convened an oversight hearing on compliance
issues since
April 30, 1992. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee, which shares jurisdiction over federal government information,
has not held a FOIA oversight hearing since 1980.
The hearing comes during the
first-ever national Sunshine Week, a dialogue about the public’s right of
access to government information, which begins on March 13. More
information can be found at www.sunshineweek.org.
--Highlights of the
Cornyn-Leahy Faster FOIA Act—
- The
Faster FOIA Act of 2005 would establish an advisory Commission on
Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays.
The Commission would be charged with reporting to Congress
and the President its recommendations for steps that should be taken to
reduce delays in the administration of the Freedom of Information Act.
- The
Commission would be comprised of 16 members.
Twelve of them would be appointed by members of Congress –
three by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, three by the
chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, and three each by the
ranking minority member of the two committees.
These four members of Congress would each be required to
appoint at least one member to the Commission with experience submitting
FOIA requests on behalf of nonprofit research or educational
organizations or news media organizations, and at least one member with
experience in academic research in the fields of library science,
information management, or public access to Government information.
The remaining four positions on the Commission would be held
by designees of the Attorney General, the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, the Archivist of the United States, and the
Comptroller General.
- The
Commission would be responsible for producing a study to identify
methods to reduce delays in the processing of FOIA requests and to
ensure the efficient and equitable administration of FOIA throughout the
federal government. The
Commission would also be charged with examining whether the system for
charging fees and granting fee waivers under FOIA should be reformed in
order to reduce delays in processing fee requests.
The report would be due no later than one year after the date
of enactment of this Act, and would include recommendations for
legislative and administrative action to enhance FOIA performance.
The Commission would expire thirty days after the submission
of the report.
Cornyn was
presented with the James Madison Award in 2001 for his efforts as Texas
Attorney General to promote open government by the Freedom of Information
Foundation of
Texas. Sen. Cornyn served previously as
Texas Attorney General, Texas Supreme Court Justice, and Bexar County
District Judge.
Leahy sponsored the Electronic Freedom of
Information Act Amendments, which updated FOIA for the Internet age, and
in 1996 he was installed in the Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame.
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Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy
On Introduction of the “Faster FOIA Act of 2005”
March 10, 2005
MR. LEAHY. I am pleased to
join my colleague from
Texas, Senator John Cornyn, in introducing what is
our second cooperative action in this Congress to improve the
implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. This bill,
called the “Faster FOIA Act of 2005,” responds to commonly voiced concerns
of FOIA requestors over agency delay in processing requests.
I want to express my
appreciation to all of the FOIA officers and other Federal employees who
work hard to process FOIA requests quickly and efficiently. I know that
many simple requests are filled within a few days, and I understand that
complex requests dealing with national security issues can take time for
declassification, redaction, or release, as appropriate.
There are, nonetheless,
significant delays at many agencies. In 2003, a non-governmental
organization, the National Security Archive, looked into just how long
some FOIA requests are left unfulfilled. The group found that the oldest
requests dated back to the late 1980s, before the collapse of the
Soviet Union. The
oldest of these was a request to the FBI for information on the Bureau’s
activities at the University of California. First filed in November 1987,
this request was partially fulfilled in 1996 after extensive litigation.
According to the National Security Archive, the documents that were
released revealed “unlawful FBI intelligence activities and the efforts to
cover up such conduct.” After a 2002 article in the
San Francisco Chronicle, and
inquiries from Senator Feinstein, the Bureau acknowledged that there were
at least 17,000 pages of records that still had not been produced. Since
then, some data has been released, but the requestor recently told me that
he believes more than 15,000 pages remain outstanding.
This is an extreme case, but
delays are commonplace. Sometimes slowdowns are caused by poorly managed
or decentralized data systems that result in an agency not knowing what
documents are located where. Other times, components within a single
agency do not effectively communicate with one another, so that no one can
say whether a request has been filled or not. Finally, we have heard
anecdotal evidence of certain agencies engaging in protracted disputes
over fee waivers sought by FOIA requestors. I have worked closely with
the Government Accountability Office over the past few years to obtain
detailed analysis of how fees are collected and how fee waiver requests
are processed. The analysts at GAO have looked long and hard at these
issues. I am grateful for their efforts and look forward to the results
of their study later this year.
One of the problems faced by
GAO, and anyone else who has looked into agency delay, is the lack of
comprehensive reporting data. We address this problem in our companion
bill, S.394, the Open Government Act, by calling for more detailed
reporting from agencies on FOIA processing.
These issues deserve a closer
look in the short term, however. In this bill, we propose to establish a
commission to review agency delay and to make recommendations for reducing
impediments to the efficient processing of requests. The Commission would
also examine whether the system for charging fees and granting waivers
should be modified.
The Commission would be made
up of government and non-governmental representatives with a broad range
of experience in both submitting and handling FOIA requests, in
information science, and in the development of government information
policy.
I understand that many
requests are complex and that the resources devoted to agency FOIA
processing are often lacking. Our companion bill, S.394, the Open
Government Act, addresses this issue by establishing a FOIA ombudsman
requiring the Office of Personnel Management to examine how FOIA can be
better implemented at the agency level. If the Commission finds that
limited resources are a significant factor in slowing down the fulfillment
of requests, then Congress should address the issue by increasing funding
levels for FOIA processing.
I want to thank the Senator
from Texas for
his diligent work and flexibility in crafting a Commission structure that
is balanced and fair, and that will bring extraordinary expertise to
solving these nettlesome problems. I urge all of our colleagues to
support the Faster FOIA Act, which has the potential to help agencies and
requestors alike in the service of open government.
# # #
# #
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S.394, Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our
National Government Act of 2005
(“OPEN
Government Act of 2005”) (Cornyn-Leahy)
Led by U.S. Senators John
Cornyn and Patrick Leahy, the OPEN Government Act of 2005 is a
bipartisan effort to achieve meaningful reforms to federal government
information laws – including most notably the Freedom of Information Act
of 1966 (“FOIA”). If enacted, the legislation would substantially
enhance and expand the accessibility, accountability, and openness of
the federal government.
This legislation is the culmination of months of
extensive discussions between the offices of Senators Cornyn and Leahy
and various members of the requestor community.
The Act contains important
Congressional findings to reiterate and reinforce the view that the
Freedom of Information Act establishes a presumption of openness, and
that our government is based not on the need to know, but upon the
fundamental right to know. The Act also contains over a dozen
substantive provisions, designed to achieve the following four
objectives:
(1) Strengthen FOIA and close loopholes
(2) Help FOIA requestors obtain timely
responses to their requests
(3) Ensure that agencies have strong
incentives to act on FOIA requests in a timely fashion
(4) Provide FOIA officials with all of the
tools they need to ensure that our government remains open and
accessible
STRENGTHEN FOIA AND CLOSE LOOPHOLES
·
Ensure that FOIA applies when agency recordkeeping
functions are outsourced
·
Establish a new open government impact statement, by
requiring that any future Congressional attempt to create a new FOIA
exemption be expressly stated within the text of the legislation
·
Impose annual reporting requirement on usage of the
DHS disclosure exemption for critical infrastructure information
·
Protect access to FOIA fee waivers for legitimate
journalists, regardless of institutional association – including bloggers
and other Internet-based journalists
·
Provide reliable reporting of FOIA performance, by
requiring agencies to distinguish between first person requests for
personal information and other kinds of requests
HELP FOIA REQUESTORS OBTAIN TIMELY RESPONSES
·
Establish FOIA hotline services, either by telephone
or on the Internet, to enable requestors to track the status of their
requests
·
Create a new FOIA ombudsman, located at the
Administrative Conference of the United States, to review agency FOIA
compliance and provide alternatives to litigation
·
Authorize reasonable recovery of attorney fees when
litigation is inevitable
ENSURE THAT AGENCIES HAVE STRONG INCENTIVES TO ACT ON FOIA REQUESTS IN
TIMELY FASHION
·
Restore meaningful deadlines for agency action by
ensuring that the 20-day statutory clock runs immediately upon the receipt
of the request
·
Impose real consequences on federal agencies for
missing statutory deadlines
·
Enhance authority of the Office of Special Counsel
to take disciplinary action against government officials who arbitrarily
and capriciously deny disclosure
·
Strengthen reporting requirements on FOIA compliance
to identify agencies plagued by excessive delay, and to identify excessive
delays in fee status determinations
PROVIDE FOIA OFFICIALS WITH THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO ENSURE THAT OUR
GOVERNMENT REMAINS OPEN AND ACCESSIBLE
·
Improve personnel policies for FOIA officials to
enhance agency FOIA performance
·
Examine the need for FOIA awareness training for
federal employees
·
Determine appropriate funding levels needed to
ensure agency FOIA compliance
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Sunshine Week
2005