Biden’s legacy: Leaving FOIA in shambles
AP Illustration
The Freedom of Information Act gives the public a right to access government records.
The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to shed light on government activity by giving journalists and the public access to government records. But the law is in shambles. From endless delays in response time and unjustified refusals to ridiculously overbroad redactions, FOIA is plagued with problems.
We must fight back against the government’s refusal to comply with FOIA and urge Congress to reform the law and end backlogs of requests, reduce the number of exemptions, and overturn damaging court decisions.
Featured Items
-
Journalist Files FOIA Lawsuit Against Justice Dept For Copy of Senate's CIA Torture Report
<!--//--><![CDATA[// ><!-- DV.load("//www.documentcloud.org/documents/782493-leopold-foia-lawsuit-against-justice-department.js", { width: 600, height: 600, sidebar: false, text: false, pdf: false, container: "#DV-viewer-782493-leopold-foia-lawsuit-against-justice-department" }); //--><!]]> Late Monday evening, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice to obtain a copy of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on …
-
Here's What the White House's "Secret" Plan to Close Guantanamo Looks Like
<!--//--><![CDATA[// ><!-- DV.load("//www.documentcloud.org/documents/777815-white-house-plan-to-close-guantanamo.js", { width: 600, height: 600, sidebar: false, text: false, pdf: false, container: "#DV-viewer-777815-white-house-plan-to-close-guantanamo" }); //--><!]]> Last month, hours before a Senate subcommittee held a hearing on shuttering the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the White House circulated a two-page document to Congress that contained the administration's plans for …
-
Revealed: The 95 FOIA Requests Flagged for Pentagon Approval
A few weeks ago, the nonpartisan organization Cause of Action posted a story on its website about a secret Pentagon policy that calls for certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that may generate media attention to first be approved by the Pentagon. Naturally, I was eager to find out …
-
Supreme Court Deals Blow to Transparency, But You Can Help MuckRock Fight Back
Michael Morisy is the founder of MuckRock, which was one of Freedom of the Press Foundation's original transparency journalism beneficiaries. He can be reached at [email protected]. Yesterday, the Supreme Court struck a blow to government transparency by ruling that states have the right to prohibit out-of-state Freedom of …
-
Inside One of the Biggest Freedom of Information Act Fights in History
As newsroom budgets shrink around the country, one of the casualties has been challenges to Freedom of Information Act violations or other open-records laws through litigation. One recent study shows major news organizations are challenging government secrecy orders in court much less frequently in the last few years. Despite these …
-
The Freedom of Information Act: The Most Powerful Tool in My Reporting Arsenal
Jason Leopold is Truthout’s lead investigative reporter. Freedom of the Press Foundation is crowd-funding in support of his FOIA work and on-the-scenes reporting at the Guantanamo Bay trials. You can fund his work here. A couple of years ago, a friend handed me about 500 pages of documents he …
-
Why Fighting for Hard-Hitting, Nonprofit News May Mean Taking on the IRS
When we think about journalism coming under attack by the government we rarely think about the Internal Revenue Service. We think about the persecution of whistleblowers, over classification of documents, increasing secrecy and surveillance, and an utter disregard for Freedom of Information requests. We think about threats, harassment and detainment …
-
How Aaron Swartz Fought For Government Transparency
"Transparency can be a powerful thing, but not in isolation. So, let’s stop passing the buck by saying our job is just to get the data out there and it’s other people’s job to figure out how to use it. Let’s decide that our job is to fight for good …
